Recall for a moment my allusion in chapter 6 to 1 Samuel 8 as the birthplace of statism. What is striking in that ancient text is how consistent things have remained throughout history. For millennia, the pattern remains the same: when people abdicate their responsibilities, a larger civil magistrate steps in. In the United States, the “hockey stick” growth in the size of government has directly coincided with the most socially destructive period in American history (see chapter 3). In his masterful work The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin reveals that the growth of federal bureaucracy further coincided with the decline of our great “mediating institutions”—family, church, local community organizations, trade clubs, and so on.
The decline of these mediating institutions has left society “hollowed out in the middle spaces where a free society forms.”46 A society without strong mediating institutions engages in a tug-of-war between individualism and heavy centralized collectivism. The problem is that our society is used to the benefits of mediating institutions that have cared for the “general welfare” from our inception. Because we have turned our backs on the politics of subsidiarity, localism, and a commitment to community and covenant, the state has filled the gap that individualism could never fill. We did not hire the government to fill the post; we abandoned the post—and left government no choice but to step in.
None of this is to say government can or should fill this void, only that it will always attempt to do so when self-government fails. Warnings about this reality came from the very founders whose political philosophy we hold dear. Indeed, from Madison to Adams to Hamilton to Franklin, even a cursory review of their exhortations hits us right between the eyes. The American doctrine of limited government was intended only for a responsible citizenry, rooted in character, morality, and self-government.
The self-attesting evidence is found in every controversial discussion about budget cuts or program reductions. Can anyone point to a consensus willingness on a societal level to eliminate some part of government we dislike? How well has it worked in this modern era to roll back an entitlement? What wrath and fury do congressional representatives face from constituents when they propose some form of reduction, cut, or sacrifice? In this case, we are not talking about the corruption of special interests, but about the tyranny of the majority. It wants all the sugars and sweets that big government offers, but reserves the right to complain when it gets the bill.
We have a representative form of government in the United States. We elect the leaders who pass laws and spend money. They are spending the money that the people have asked them to spend—or they would not be spending it. Does that fact absolve our representatives of their moral and political responsibility? Of course not! Despite the bipolar nature of their constituents’ requests, our representatives swear a duty to the Constitution.
No doubt, we deserve better leadership than we have received. But my point is more foundational and must not be missed: in our form of government, our leaders not only represent the people, they reflect the people. Alexander Fraser Tytler warned that our democracy would be threatened when the people discover they can “vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” The evidence of this truism could not be more abundant in modern civic life.
How Far We’ve Fallen
Don’t misunderstand me. Government should not get a pass for bad governance. Government is riddled with corruption, incompetence, dishonesty, and failure. It is no surprise to see American citizens dissatisfied with their elected representatives. The one thing in my adult life that I have seen government do well is cater to the crony needs of powerful interests (see chapter 6). Americans often don’t know if they should be more aghast at the incompetence or the corruption in the system.
Crony capitalism is one of the major reasons for our national obsession with federal politics, and national apathy with local politics. The opportunity for real, bottom-up transformation in our political system is far more infectious at the local level, yet only a big, bureaucratic, all-encompassing federal government can scratch our national political itches. We have a big, centralized federal government because the people want one and have put their entire political enthusiasm into the federal space.
Local politics has become of interest only to real estate developers or those with a stake in a zoning or regulatory approval. The cronyism embedded in the local politic—the view that city and county politics essentially exist to dole out favors to a connected class of lobbyists and special interests—has an insidious double effect: (1) it feeds on itself with even greater corruption and unopposed cronyism at the local level, and (2) it empowers a view of the federal government that is more messianic than limited. Not only would a corrected view of local politics—rooted in good governance, property rights, and civic life—purify the city, county, and state levels of the cronyism, it would also shift the weights presently loaded on the federal scales in the direction of local responsibility.
Ronald Reagan famously said that among the most dangerous words in the English language were these: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Conservatism and the Reagan revolution were rooted, at least intellectually, in a desire to renew self-determination and self-government. Those who share my view of government’s limited role were distraught to hear President Obama’s vision of an American civic life resembling the European democratic social model. Promises to pay off student debt, to alter corporate pay, to give everyone free health care—in short, to place the federal government at the center of American life—rightly frighten those who value the founders’ beliefs about the right relationship between citizen and state.
Why Blame Washington?
So why are we blaming Washington, DC, for all of our problems now? If we do not believe they are capable of being the cure for all our problems, how can we believe they are the source of all our problems? As our crisis of responsibility has increased, the American conversation is becoming less partisan, more cultural, and increasingly rhyming with “what is government going to do to fix my problem?” Some politicians still talk about the righteous effects of deregulation and increased freedom, but does anyone believe a message of less government to address the social ills of our day is politically viable?
We applaud politicians promising to save our jobs, bring money to our districts, and lower our monthly expenses (even the non-tax expenses over which they have no control). We ask our politicians to promote higher home prices, but blast them for housing crises. We ask them to lower our health insurance premium costs, but blast them for their intervening in the health markets. We do not pause to recognize how obnoxious all their campaign bluster really is or how absurd their stump speech promises really are.
More importantly, we do not seem to consider that, in many ways, we have adopted the Left’s view of government. Our first instinct is often not to consider the individual, whose natural rights form the basis of our society. Instead, when faced with any external aggravation we wonder how a politician can fix it. This mindset has become embedded into our social consciousness as we have abandoned so much of what has made the American experiment so remarkable.
Right-sizing the federal government is not going to happen quickly. The best we can hope for is incremental or gradual progress. But even gradual improvement cannot begin until we, the people, accept greater responsibility for the outcomes in our own lives. In this crisis of responsibility, we have every right to hold elected officials accountable for what they do. We should move heaven and earth to avoid “bartering our freedom”—and yet that is the inevitable result whenever we fail to govern ourselves.
If we are to resolve this crisis, we must see a broad acceptance of this basic truth: with great freedom comes great responsibility. When we rediscover responsibility, we’ll create a virtuous cycle that produces more freedom. And it begins with you and me.
11
THE RESPONSIBILITY REMEDY
Ten Ways You
Can Compete, Prepare,
Defend, and Get Ahead
Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.
–MICHAEL KORDA
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
–DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
My aspirations for this book and, indeed, this chapter are quite humble. I did not set out to write a comprehensive policy manual on a topic as broad and far-reaching as responsibility. My highest hope is this book provokes a change in thinking and helps shift how we see what we want to change in our society. Many of the diverse and complex issues I have tackled do not allow for a simple or succinct solution. In addition, our crisis of responsibility has been building for at least a full generation and cannot be resolved simply by writing a book or preaching a sermon. Nevertheless, some practical suggestions would be helpful as to how you and me, the people on Main Street, can cure our addiction to blame before I pull it all together with a broader cultural takeaway in chapter 12.
I am an incrementalist. I believe problems created incrementally are most often solved incrementally, as well. This tactical approach to life has theological foundations:
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.33
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” (Matthew 13:31–33)
Seeds take time to grow; yeast takes time to work. I have every hope we will remedy the plight of those feeling disenfranchised in the global economy immediately. However, history teaches us that deep and meaningful cultural changes often take years, even decades to take hold. Our culture did not inherit a crisis of responsibility overnight, but over a generational period of time beginning in the mid-1960s. It has marinated ever since in the seasonings of humanism, secular liberalism, and moral relativism. What we see in culture today is a reasonably consistent extension of the seeds planted then. The burden now is to evaluate what broad cultural endeavors are needed to resolve the responsibility crisis (chapter 12) and, in this chapter, identify what individual measures, steps, actions, and behaviors you can take to improve our cultural lot and advance the cause of human flourishing. In other words, what can you do?
The list of ten practical things you can do is intended to be bottom-up in nature, whereas the focus of the next chapter is more top-down in orientation. Many experts debate whether cultural transformation is catalyzed by top-down or bottom-up forces. Years ago, University of Virginia sociologist Dr. James Davison Hunter deeply affected my thinking on the subject. He suggested that top-down forces nearly always set off history’s major transformations. They did so not only via significant impact through large institutions, but also by leveraging the networks formed amongst various elites.
As we’ll see in the next chapter, Dr. Hunter is profoundly correct. The move to create culture-forming and culture-transforming networks to affect our society’s top-down institutions is paramount. And yet, there simply can be no denial that big things can and do happen as a result of the faithful and seemingly miniscule endeavors of a few. In addition, we are concerned about society at-large because we are concerned about people—individuals, families, and communities. While we seek societal transformation, we should pursue tools for the flourishing of individuals.
So, should we focus on top-down or bottom-up solutions? The answer is an emphatic yes—to both.
Ten Things You Can Do
The list that follows is not meant to be a financial planning checklist, though it makes sense to include a financial focus given my background as a wealth management professional. The focus is not merely on saving habits or investment returns, but also includes a variety of arenas in which one’s thinking and commitments can either create heartache or substantially improve your ability to navigate through the present cultural challenges. The list is in no way intended to be comprehensive or convey a particular order of priority. Rather, it highlights the lowest-hanging fruit, areas where action would surely move the needle in your life. Faithfully implementing best practices delivers two additional benefits: (1) an example to others, (2) and the fruit that faithful wisdom itself generates. Neither of these advantages should be discounted.
To help resolve our cultural crisis of responsibility and pursue a life of freedom and virtue, I suggest the following:
1. Thoroughly repudiate defeatism and victimhood in your own life—even when you’ve actually been victimized.
The second part of this admonition present the greatest challenge, for most of us have been wronged at some point in life. But if we do not overcome our slights, they will overcome us. When our way of mindset centers on all the ways we have been wronged, the temptation to abdicate responsibility, even subconsciously, is simply too strong. The “just toughen up” crowd might appreciate this counsel, but would couch it as a call to grit your teeth and power through the injustices you’ve suffered. But there remains a better way. Repudiate defeatism because you crave an abundant life of joy, and repudiate defeatism by craving an abundant life of joy. Make that abundant life of joy both the means and the end.
This approach requires a specific anthropological understanding, the awareness that you are created in the image of God with inherent dignity. This awareness of basic spiritual and transcendent truths doesn’t speak merely to your relationship with God and what He expects of you (though it does that, too). Victimhood strips you of dignity and gives control and power to external forces, whether personal or impersonal. This surrender of control impedes the life of joy and strips you of the freedom you were made to enjoy.
Your view of yourself cannot be one of “me against the world.” Believing that your boss, spouse, customers, or political leaders are all out to get you results in a life shaped by fear, not love—and certainly not joy. Might a spouse, boss, neighbor, or politician actually have it in for you? It’s possible, I suppose. Yet even then, the productive response is not despair or defeatism, but courageous faithfulness. I’ve never seen someone who lives in a perpetual state of victimhood make good decisions. I’ve never seen defeatism result in anything but being defeated, or victimization create anything but a victim.
A life of resilience will inevitably be a life of joy. As any joyful person knows, such resilience is fundamentally a matter of outlook and perspective. The decision to reject any suggestion that you are a victim of external circumstances is the sine qua non for those pursuing success in our complex modern life.
2. Completely rethink your perspective on higher education, for yourself or your children.
Critics might suggest a straw man interpretation of my point by saying I’m rejecting the merits of a college education, but that is patently false. What I’m suggesting is we acknowledge helpful truths.
*Is college a prerequisite for everyone? Of course not.
*Does college guarantee one an economically comfortable life? Of course not.
*Absent a college degree, will one be doomed to financial failure? Of course not.
*Is all student debt a good idea, regardless of the school, the subject matter, and the person’s unique goals? Of course not.
If we could fully grasp two truths, the scam that higher education has become would die: (1) a college degree doesn’t guarantee success, and (2) not having a college degree doesn’t guarantee failure. Inverting those two statements is what has fed the current college monster.
So what are you to think? Am I suggesting college is a waste of time, a net negative for our society? Quite the contrary. As I detailed in chapter 9,
I am highly critical of the business model and what is taught in today’s system, but I passionately believe in the inherent value of a higher education, particularly in certain fields of study college ought to facilitate. I see incredible value to the college years of one’s life being used to further solidify goals, interests, and passions. College ought to represent a unique opportunity to exercise responsibility, meet deadlines, and be intellectually and spiritually challenged.
I’m not encouraging a universal rejection of college, but a realistic cost-benefits analysis of it, as opposed to making vanilla assumptions. “One size fits all” is generally a bad idea in any part of life, but when it costs $250,000, it can be financially fatal. The diversity of gifts, aspirations, goals, and circumstances invites a plethora of educational possibilities—trade school, apprenticeship, blue-collar work, entrepreneurial endeavors, and—yes—college. I suspect that, even after a thorough analysis, most parents will still want their children to achieve a four-year undergraduate degree. I am simply suggesting you ingrain the two fundamental truths above before starting that journey.
If you or your children do not go to college expecting a guaranteed outcome, you or they will be less likely to stumble into a crisis of responsibility when it doesn’t deliver that outcome. The young adult years are pivotal parts of life. Parents and students alike should enter those years armed against disillusionment.
Crisis of Responsibility Page 13