Ambition in America: Political Power and the Collapse of Citizenship

Conclusion

Conclusion The Collapse of Modern Citizenship And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred honor. —The Declaration of Independence In the republican perspective the members—citizens—are held together by a political bond and vision, a vision of diverse people living together under one rule, united by ties of civic friendship, and sharing the vocations of ruling and being ruled. A republic so conceived is a community of citizens acting together for the purpose of shaping and sharing a common conception of the good life. —John H. Schaar, Legitimacy in the Modern State Ambition Appropriate for Republican Citizens Although our politics preach ideals of universal education and citizenship, American education no longer places much value on training citizens in the virtues and practices of citizenship.1 Because teaching the practical arts of citizenship, of ruling and being ruled in turn, does not appear immediately profitable, a curriculum not exclusively devoted to the purposes of employment or material advancement is met with suspicion. Nonetheless, American political principles are not self-executing, or self-sustaining. Legal and formal definitions of citizenship do not require people to participate in the political life of the country. Yet America is the country where people choose to act as citizens. Americans become citizens through consciously accepting responsibility for, and defending, the common birthright of political equality . As E. J. Dionne Jr. writes, “Individual liberty and shared sacrifice are the 143 144 Ambition in America bookends of our Declaration of Independence.”2 To this end, as Wilson Carey McWilliams remarks, “Democratic self-government requires an element of nobility, the recognition that ‘it is great, it is glorious, to espouse a good cause, and it is still more great and glorious to stand alone.’”3 The ambition to be a citizen is a desire to consciously choose to care for, improve, and pass on a responsibility for the republic and its values. Rather than focus on the highest virtues of nobility and valor, democratic politics benefits when institutions make a place for middle virtues in a democratic regime (what Andrew Sabl calls “democratic constancy”). Sabl makes a convincing and nuanced case for a social outlook anchored in reality , and two moral values: sympathy and toleration: “Democratic constancy has a clear and deliberate ambition to be tolerant toward ordinary mores and public opinions.” But current pathways to political power for ambitious people reward not this virtue but rather loyalty to ideological platforms. The starting point for Sabl’s democratic constancy is a respect for the dignity of the people and their ambitions. Instead of trying to extract the best behavior , or the highest virtues, from the people, democratic constancy aims for middle virtues—virtues accessible to the average citizen. Sabl remarks that “great” actions and the desire for greatness, the desire to accomplish “great” things, may actually prove harmful to democracy. The judgments of democratic constancy theory are modest and particular but clear: certain types of political action and the characters that lead people to them are to be rejected as harmful to democracy. The demagogic senator who has no love of fame and no serious plans for achievement; the impatient and self-serving organizer who slakes her own thirst for glory while failing to promote citizens’ interests or capacities; the moral activist who confuses a calling to lead a congregation for a calling to turn the government into a moral theocracy—all are bad for democratic politics by almost any criterion.4 Yet each of the behaviors Sabl criticizes as normatively bad for democratic politics is an effective tool for candidates to win elections. If candidates lack serious plans for achievement, are self-serving, or wish to convert the republic into a theocracy—and these approaches help elect the candidate to office—then candidates do not have incentives to change their behavior. When political institutions reward demagogic, impatient, self-serving, and Conclusion 145 morally intransigent candidates with political power, why would someone ambitious to hold that power change their behavior? “Traditional parties” writes McWilliams, “were, in crucial ways, the schools for civic education, inculcating the middling sort of civic virtues possible in a vast state.”5 Today, the civics lessons taught by party organizations make the welfare of a part more important than the welfare of the whole. By moralizing the group’s purpose...