Yes, you Americans: the whole American idea ain't nothin' but a great experiment and y'all are its lab rats. Richard Rorty says so:
Both Jefferson and Dewey described America as an 'experiment'. If the experiment fails, our descendants may learn something important. But they will not learn a philosophical truth, any more than they will learn a religious one. They will simply get some hints about what to watch out for when setting up their next experiment. Even if nothing else survives from the age of the democratic revolutions, perhaps our descendants will remember the social institutions can be viewed as experiments in cooperation rather than as attempts to embody a universal and ahistorical order. It is hard to believe that this memory would not be worth having...
So, what hints do you think the next generation ought to get from the American experiment? Here's some:
1- don't say anything about arms in your constitution!
2- state religion actually makes religion more boring, not less.
3- Texas oughta be its own country.
Got any others? Don't go being rude now...
7 comments:
4. Beware the universal tendency of power to centralise. The accumulation of power by the federal government would have astonished and saddened Jefferson. We see something of a parallel in contemporary Anglicanism, and the results ain't pretty.
Hey, there can't be anything too inherently wrong with a system of government that gave us The West Wing...
If America is an experiment, then Australia is an accident...
And England sets the precendent. If it ain't broke...
Sam,
I would argue the opposite truth. America is so decentralised and there is so little power given to the Federal government that it doesn't perform as well as Western European nations.
"State's rights" is a unique concept to America.
Here in Australia, the states control education... not the counties. In Oz, the Federal government controls the amount of money spent on universal healthcare, while the states can only determine how it is spelt.
I think that liberal democracy of all stripes is heading down the tubes, especially in Europe and Australia where broad rights have been accorded to those (Muslims) who will use those rights to destroy them.
So the American experiment may well be waning, but the future of the West (the USA excepted--maybe) is Islam, so be careful what you wish for (declining power for the USA) because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't (Islam).
don't say anything about arms in your constitution!
I laughed out loud when I read this! Quite true, of course!
Moltmann also calls America an experiment, but one which cannot be replicated elsewhere.
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