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Higher Progress—the Forgotten American Dream IntroductIon The order of things should be somewhat reversed; the seventh should be man’s day of toil, wherein to earn his living by the sweat of his brow; and the other six his Sabbath of the affections and the soul,—in which to range this widespread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of Nature. —Henry David Thoreau, “Commencement Essay,” 1837 Thoreau spoke as a conservative and a traditionalist. For the first American dream, before the others shoved it rudely aside, had been one not of work but of leisure. —Daniel Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America At one time economic progress and technological advances were understood to have a definite goal: abundance. After adequate economic progress was made so that everyone was able to afford the necessities of life, a condition Monsignor John Ryan (the “Right Reverend New Dealer”)1 described as a life of “reasonable and frugal comfort,” our nation would be able to make real progress, exploring liberty that transcended material concerns and the marketplace.2 Scarcity has not always seemed to be eternal—it was not always understood as the everlasting human condition or the foundation of our nation’s economy. For the most part, perpetual scarcity is a twentieth-century invention. Before then, most Americans assumed that it would be possible for reasonable people to eventually satisfy their needs as the economy and technology improved and the nation advanced. Traditionally, too much wealth, too much materialism, was understood to impede human progress, leading to greed and envy (twin sins that fed on each other), luxury, indolence, and the slavery of selfishness. As we began to solve what John Maynard Keynes called the “economic problem,” our time would become more valuable to us than new goods and services we had never needed before.3 Then we would welcome the opportunity to live more of our lives outside the marketplace. No longer preoccupied with economic concerns, we could begin to develop our potential to live together peacefully and agreeably, spending more of our time and energy forming healthy 2 INTRoDuCTIoN families, neighborhoods, and cities; increasing our knowledge and appreciation of nature, history, and other peoples; freely investigating and delighting in the mysteries of the human spirit; exploring our beliefs and values together; finding common ground for agreement and conviviality; living virtuous lives; practicing our faiths; expanding our awareness of God; and wondering in Creation—a more complete catalog of the free activities envisioned over the course of our nation’s history is one of the burdens of this book. Walt Whitman called such a project “higher progress.”4 Claiming a vantage point as democracy’s poet that opened to him “Democratic Vistas,” he imagined scenes from an American future in which all would be free to celebrate and sing. Monsignor John Ryan envisioned Higher Progress as increasing opportunities beyond necessary work to “know the best that is to be known, and to love the best that is to be loved.”5 Struggling to save the Jewish Sabbath in America, Abba Hillel Silver wrote that the Sabbath was “much more than mere relaxation from labor. It is a sign and symbol of man’s higher destiny.” He believed the Sabbath provided a model for Higher Progress (free Saturdays were simply one step forward) because it represented the importance of time for tradition , family, spiritual exercise, and the development of our higher potentials and humane interests.6 Higher Progress and Republican Virtue The Declaration of Independence’s list of unalienable rights, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” originally identified Higher Progress. When he wrote the phrase “pursuit of happiness,” Thomas Jefferson was concerned with questions about America’s destiny. What is the highest that we can achieve? What would make us truly happy? Where do we go and what do we do when we have done all our chores, performed our duties, and met our responsibilities? What kinds of human activities or states of being lay beyond social responsibilities and material necessity and are worthwhile in and for themselves? The same enlightened reason that led to scientific knowledge, the mastery of nature, and rational solutions to economic and political problems led inevitably to the challenges of Higher Progress. It was all a matter of a reasonable approach to life, of a rational chain of means and ends. Scientific knowledge and technology had practical purposes: the mastery of nature to satisfy human needs. The rational organization of society...

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