Lecture: Religious History of the Mexican-American War

I recently gave a talk on the religious history of the Mexican-American War, based on my upcoming book on the subject. The book will be published by Oxford University Press late next year. In the meantime, here's the link to the lecture.

Thatcher, Reagan, and Decline

In an article on National Review Online published December 30, 2011, Rich Lowry reflects on Margaret Thatcher's Britain and what lessons we might glean from it. See the above link for the full article. The gist is Thatcher's unwillingness to accept the widely held argument at the time that her nation was in decline and that its best days were in the past. As prime minister, she proved this in her projection of British military power and in her economic policies, which sought to overturn the cradle-to-grave socialism that was so clearly undermining the British economy.

Lady Thatcher seemed to believe that her country's best days were ahead, and in the Falklands War she clearly demonstrated that she would not let the British Navy go quietly into the night. (One cannot help but notice that in locating Britain's best days in the future, she contradicted Churchill's "Finest Hour" speech.) President Ronald Reagan, even though he was of what Tom Brokaw obsequiously calls "the greatest generation," did not think that that superlative ought to be pronounced with such finality. He, too, believed and acted as if America's greatest days were ahead. His policies launched unparalleled prosperity and led to victory in the Cold War.

So, are Americans at a 1980 moment wherein we need only a leader who can restore confidence and draw down Behemoth? Few thinking individuals could find Newt Gingrich's platitudes-set-to-music about American Greatness to be anything other than fawning for voters who want to feel good about an idea that does not seem to match reality. Sadly, it is true like Lowry says that we have no Thatchers or Reagans available. Yet here's where the rubber of Great Man Theories of History hit the Road of Reality. To what degree are Great Men--and Thatcher and Reagan belong in this category-- shaped by their times and to what degree do they shape their times? For instance, Reagan might not have succeeded as well as he did had he been elected in 1976, for he would have faced different problems, different opponents, and different events. So we would do well to wonder whether even a Reagan or Thatcher could find a way through our current crises, keeping in mind all the Great Men who ruled over once great civilizations that are now gone.

Looking back, however, one could argue that Reagan and Thatcher were but the last gasp of Anglo-American greatness. The human and financial costs of World Wars I and II put the British Empire on the road to dissolution, whatever the damage done by socialism might have been. Likewise for the United States, the dividends that came with the winning of the Cold War were quickly spent, and there is little to show for it.

Even admitting that two or three decades is not sufficient historical distance with which to appraise the paths taken by the United States and Great Britain since the 1980s, one ought at least to ask whether Reagan and Thatcher were but anomalies in their respective country's long declines.

Dr. Pinheiro on "Tuesdays with Tormala," Dec. 20, 2012

My sabbatical is over. More on that, later. I plan to return to more regular postings on this blog after the New Year.

In the meantime, today you may wish to tune in to "Tuesdays with Tormala," a show broadcast on WPRR, 1680am/95.3fm in Grand Rapids. I am scheduled to appear at 11:15 am to discuss religion in the current American presidential race as well as the history of religious discrimination in America. You can stream it at this website: http://www.publicrealityradio.org/listennow

George Washington's Leadership Style, Briefly Considered

George Washington’s famous "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior" were in fact not written by the teen-age Washington. The pamphlet that bears Washington’s name comes from a set of rules written by French Jesuits in the late 1500s, later translated into English during the 1640s. As a young man, Washington, who admired the rules, wanted to be a gentleman. That is, he wanted to be a leader of men. So, he needed to know how a gentleman behaves, and then to play--to become-- the part. And so he strove to follow these Rules of Civility--there were 110 of them--and in this we see the earliest glimmer of the type of leader Washington was to become.

Still, some may seem quite funny or odd to us or appear to be common sense:

• Spit not in the Fire, nor Stoop low before it

• Kill no Vermin as Fleas, lice ticks &c in the Sight of Others

• If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately

• Put not your meat to your Mouth with your Knife in your hand neither Spit forth the Stones of any fruit Pie upon a Dish nor Cast anything under the table.

• Put not another bit into your mouth till the former be swallowed. Let not your morsels be too big for the jowls.


Others are more serious and we can see in them the type of man, and leader, that Washington was to become:

• Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Public Spectacle.

Indeed, one thing we really don't know about Washington is his sense of humor. There are fleeting glimpses of it in his correspondence, but just barely.

Lastly,

• Be not hasty to believe flying Reports to the Disparagement of any.

We see this at work during Washington’s presidency, when he refused to believe the nasty things Thomas Jefferson told him about Alexander Hamilton. We also see this maxim at play in Washington’s initial disbelief of rumors involving Secretary of State Jefferson's quest to undermine his administration from within.
The Gentleman also is refined in manners, prudent in decision making, temperate in behavior. As general and then president, the core of Washington’s leadership style can be boiled down to his desire in particular to cultivate the virtues of prudence, hope, and fortitude. Prudence, after all, is the virtue of the Statesman. But with these, we must also include the classical virtue of justice, along with the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity. In the employment of these virtues--in their execution--we can discern Washington's leadership style.
Washington’s leadership style can be boiled down to three component parts:

1. Delegant. Washington was very conscious of his own shortcomings. He acknowledged and maybe even was self-conscious of his lack of formal education, especially when compared to men like Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. He only read and spoke English. Yet for Washington this was a strength, because from it he learned the wisdom of delegating power. He was very willing to delegate power and to seek advice and opinions. However, in the end, he also had no qualms about making decisions and sticking with them, as he did when issuing his Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793 against much advice and against the will of Congress and the American people. This leads us to the second component of his leadership style.

2. Deliberating but Decisive. Once he made a decision, he was single-minded. For example, in the Revolutionary War he never deviated from the simple strategy of keeping his army intact and alive until, with French help, he could deal a death blow to the British. While he lost more battles than he won, Washington kept the Continental Army alive long enough to win at Yorktown in 1781 with the help of France. When president, he would face a very different France but not a very different problem: how to keep the young country alive. Jefferson and Hamilton advised him very differently on this question...and so we come to the third element of Washington's leadership style.

3. Impartial Mediator and Referee. Washington desired to appear and actually be a statesman, standing above the fray of ideology and politics. He did this during the planning and construction of the Federal City, when he mediated disputes among the proprietors, surveyors, and architects. As most students of history know, he most famously played the referee between two great minds in his cabinet, Jefferson and Hamilton.

As a young man Washington admired the "Rules of Civility." He grew to be a temperate, prudent man who valued order. He wanted to be a gentleman, for he realized one could not be a true statesman without being a gentleman first.

Christ and Culture in America

Readers interested in religion in contemporary America might be interested in my review of Francis Cardinal George's book, The Difference God Makes. George examines the consequences of the Enlightenment while delving into a cultural history of the United States from a Catholic perspective. The review can be found over at the University Bookman.

“Hostilities” and War Powers: Let’s Choose the Constitution

My commentary on the history behind the current debate over Libya, the War Powers Act, and the separation of powers under the Constitution, is up over at the History News Service. It has been distributed to the History News Network as well as over 200 metropolitan newspapers, but I wanted to give readers of this blog an early opportunity to read it.

Liberty, Virtue, and Democracy

At a lecture on "Virtue and Liberty in the American Founding" I recently gave at the Acton Institute's 2011 Acton University conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a participant asked whether I had hope for the future of liberty in the United States, as well as for the country itself.

I responded that I possess the Christian's hope in God's providential plan for history--the Christian knows how time began, how it will end, and that the Incarnation stands at the "center of history," in the words of Blessed John Paul II. However, building on the subject matter of the lecture as to the long-term chances of a diverse, territorially large republic, I also noted that 200+ years is a pretty good run for any civilization, let alone a republic or democracy. God does not need any one nation to exist in perpetuity to fulfill His purposes.

I went on to state that the answer to the question of inculcating virtue in our citizens is a cultural, and not ultimately political, task. What Americans understand as "democracy," in my view, bears considerable blame for (mis)shaping our culture, often in the name of liberty and equality, two things Alexis de Tocqueville recognized to be opposites. The Founders of whom I spoke would not recognize many of our democratic institutions and practices.

In his introductory essay to Edward E. Ericson, Jr.'s Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World, Russell Kirk put the democratic dilemma this way:

If by "democracy" is implied a high degree of individual liberties, protection for minorities, awareness of the possible "tyranny of the majority," healthy local communities, and much decentralization of power--why, that is our man. But if by "democracy" is implied the concentration of power in a central "democratic" regime, systematic economic levelling, an omnicompetent state in which there occur from time to time plebiscitary endorsements of the regime as the expression of the General Will--why, that is the sort of "democracy" Solzhenitsyn denounced in the Soviet Union.

On reflection, the above is what I would add to my answer, in order to clarify my critique of democracy. As in many cases, one must define relevant terms before proceeding, especially when said terms are of the most loaded kind, such as democracy, liberty, or (as Acton University's participants know) capitalism.