Friday, April 15, 2011

The Plurality of Voices in American Society and the Autonomy of "Self"

Many have been seeking a resolution to the political conflicts we experience in today's world. When the world is smaller due to Internet connections and trade is free, nuclear arms and ideologies still plague the landscape and inhibit world peace.

America's Founders understood the need for the balance of power. Although their views were dominated by Newton's paradigm and Christian/Jewish understandings of "Providence", today, the world isn't as simply explained. "Providence" is not accepted, when "the world's" story isn't one that is explained by "ideal dreams or hopes" of "the human/humane". And Newton's paradigm isn't universally accepted as THE paradigm to explain human reality.  History was understood in America as "God's story" as revealed in the Christian "Christ". The Jewish Scriptures were the context of "storying" the Christian message. But, such "messages" appeal to the "ideals" of our Founder's vision of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were never meant to describe the "real or political" one. The story of Jesus was never intended to be historicized as a political goal, upon individuals, but as a moral ideal of a universal value, a value of "the human/humane". The Jew was the useful "tool" of forming the value of valuing the oppressed, or de-valued.

Politics seeks to address problems, and strategic planning about furthering goals of the politically empowered. The Founders, though empowered, never sought to subvert the individual's claim about his own life. The Founder's understood that society needed to function in an orderly way, but did not attempt to order it in a way that oppressed the individual's right of choice and value.

Though science has discovered much more to "life" than Newton's cause and effect, the political realm is still most effective when it is ordered after our Founder's vision of balancing and separating power. That way, the individual, no matter where they are on the spectrum of human development (intellectual, moral, or faith) or values of priority and understanding (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) can find/make their place in society, without oppressive domination by poltical or religious zealotry. Our society was meant to be a "civil one".

Political power that allowed autonomy and religious liberty, within the bounds of law, were the "ideals" of our free society. Americans should always value and take part in their country's "ideals" furthering the goals that are important to them, personally, because America will only survive when individuals take their personal values/ideals seriously and get involved in the political process. At the same time, free persons should also understand that others are free to disagree, under the "canopy of plural voices" that "speak" in our "political environment" without threatening with poltical domination, whether through nucelar arms, or legal manipulation.

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