Are We "Capable of Feeling the Force of Reason"?

When doing research, you always have to beware the danger of distraction.  While researching for my dissertation, I waded through years of the New York Times, looking for articles relevant to my topic.  Inevitably I'd stumble on something that looked fascinating, but I had to force myself to move on or I'd never find what I was looking for.

On the other hand, you have to be open to serendipity.  Sometimes the best thing you find is not what you were looking for.

I had one of those serendipitous moments while working on my last piece.  I had the news on in the background, and I heard the story of how Bill O'Reilly prompted a walkout on "The View."  O'Reilly was trying to defend his position that the Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan should not be built, and (not surprisingly) fell back on the idea of collective guilt.  It was insensitive for Muslims to build the center, he said, because "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

While that story played, I was looking through Ben Franklin's writings for material on religion.  What I found was Franklin's answer to O'Reilly.

In 1763, at the end of what Americans call the French and Indian War, Franklin penned an outraged diatribe condemning Pennsylvania whites who had massacred a village of peaceful, friendly native American Indians.  He denounced the perpetrators as "CHRISTIAN WHITE SAVAGES."

Almost as bad, in his mind, were other colonists who defended the massacre by citing "the Command given Joshua to destroy the Heathen."  This, Franklin thought, was appalling: "Horrid perversion of Scripture and of Religion! to father the worst of Crimes on the God of Peace and Love!"

"We pretend to be Christians," Franklin fumed, and went on to compare the Pennsylvania Christians unfavorably to "Heathens" and (even worse in today's Islamophobic America) Muslims.  He specifically praised Mahomet (Muhammad) and Saladin for humane treatment of prisoners.  The Indians, he said,

would have been safer among the ancient Heathens, with whom the Rites of Hospitality were sacred.  They would have been considered as Guests of the Publick, and the Religion of the Country would have operated in their favor.  But our Frontier People call themselves Christians!—They would have been safer, if they had submitted to the Turks; for ever since Mahomet's Reproof to Khaled, even the cruel Turks, never kill Prisoners in cold Blood.

One of the things that most outraged Franklin was the failure to distinguish between Indian enemies (with whom the colonists were at war) and these victims, who were "Friends." Pennsylvanians had justified the killings by engaging in collective guilt.  Franklin was appalled that some "would extenuate the enormous Wickedness of these Actions, by saying, 'The Inhabitants of the Frontiers are exasperated with the Murder of their Relations, by the Enemy Indians.'"

Franklin had no patience for such nonsense: "If an Indian injures me, does it follow that I may revenge that injury on all Indians?"  He observed that the Indians were not monolithic, and were comprised of "different Tribes, Nations and Languages."  He pointed out the utter absurdity of treating all people who share one characteristic as if they were all the same:

In Europe, if the French, who are White People, should injure the Dutch, are they to revenge it on the English, because they too are White People?  The only Crime of these poor Wretches seems to have been, that they had a reddish brown skin, and black Hair; and some people of that sort, it seems, had murdered some of our Relations.

"Indians killed us!"  "Muslims killed us!"  Not much difference, is there?

The proper response to such foolishness, Franklin thought, was a recommitment to government and law:

Let all good Men join heartily and unanimously in Support of the Laws, and in strengthening the Hands of Government; that JUSTICE may be done, the Wicked punished, and the Innocent protected. … it belongs to brave men to spare, and to protect; for, as the Poet says,

---Mercy still sways the Brave.

Amen, Brother Franklin, Amen.

Franklin's piece is a rousing call for the triumph of reason in the face of unreason.  Franklin believed that "even the most brutal" of people "are capable of feeling the force of Reason."  But listening to O'Reilly and Fox's Brian Kilmeade, who in defending O'Reilly stupidly asserted that "all terrorists are Muslims," it is hard to have much faith in reason's power these days.

Ben Franklin and the "Virtue" of the Founders

One of the stranger aspects of the contemporary attempt to argue that the Founders created a "Christian nation" is its use of Benjamin Franklin.  For example, as I noted in a recent post, Glenn Beck has appropriated Franklin's image for his own purposes.

I was reminded of this tendency by a letter to the editor in yesterday's Spartanburg Herald-Journal.  The writer insists that "our nation was founded by Christians, on Christian principles."  She then quotes Franklin as evidence for the "Christian nation" case: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom."

Franklin was a great man, but he was a hardly a Christian in any sense this letter writer would understand.  Late in life, in 1790, Franklin was asked about his religion, and he stated forthrightly his views: "I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe.  That … the most acceptable Service we render him is doing good to his other Children."  Asked specifically about "Jesus of Nazareth," he said that while he valued Christ's "System of Morals" as the "best the World ever saw," he also had "some Doubts about his Divinity."  I doubt that most modern-day Christians would consider that the view of a good Christian.

He also thought Christ's divinity was an unimportant matter—the important thing, he thought, was that people follow the moral teachings, and if people believing in a divine Jesus aided that end, Franklin saw no harm and much good in that.  When it came to religion, Franklin felt it was best to "let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd."

The key to understanding Franklin, and I would argue most of the Founders, is the word "virtue."  Today's "Christian nation" advocates assume that since most Americans in the late 18th century were in fact Christians, that they therefore must have equated Christianity with virtue.  Thus every use of the word "virtue" in connection with the government they set up means that American government is based on "Christian principles."  But the Founders meant something quite different by that word. 

In his classic work Creation of the American Republic, the renowned historian of the American Revolution and Constitution Gordon Wood explains it well.  The Founders did indeed believe that self-government "cannot be supported without Virtue."  But what did they mean by "Virtue"?

This willingness of the individual to sacrifice his private interests for the good of the community—such patriotism or love of country—the eighteenth century termed "public virtue."

In short, it was not an explicitly religious, much less Christian, notion.  Their "virtue" referred to "social behavior," not a particular religious faith.  It was related to one's "sense of connection with the general system—his benevolence—his desire and freedom of doing good."

No one better exemplifies that attitude than Franklin.  In 1735, Franklin wrote "Dialogue Between Two Presbyterians," in which he argued that it was not necessary to be a Christian to be moral or virtuous: "Morality or Virtue is the End, Faith only a Means to obtain that End: And if the End be obtained, it is no matter by what Means."  Just in case that wasn't clear enough, Franklin added: "A virtuous Heretick shall be saved before a wicked Christian."

This was Franklin's "virtue"—it was, above all else, a matter of how one treated other members of the community.  It was not a matter of religious faith, Christian or otherwise.  Franklin did not care what people believed—he cared how they acted, their charity, their social behavior.

In 1738, Franklin wrote a letter to his parents, who were concerned that their son had "imbib'd some erroneous Opinions" and strayed from their strongly held religious beliefs: "I think vital Religion has always suffer'd, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue. … at the last day, we shall not be examin'd what we thought, but what we did; and our Recommendation will not be that we said Lord, Lord, but that we did GOOD to our Fellow Creatures."

That is the "virtue" of the Founders.  If today's "Christian nation" zealots truly wanted to honor the Founders, they would stop trying to impose a dogmatic political version of their own religion on others, and would devote that energy instead to doing GOOD to their Fellow Creatures.

Burning Down the House

The Cranick family didn't pay a $75 fire surcharge required by their community in Tennessee. Last week, their house caught fire. The fire department came, but since the owner hadn't paid the fee, they allowed the house to burn. They did so despite the owner's pleas, even as he told them he would write them a check for any amount if they would just save his house. The house burned to the ground. Fortunately no people died, but family pets, three dogs and a cat, were killed in the fire.

Here is what Glenn Beck had to say about this event: "If you don't pay your $75, then that hurts the fire department. They can't use those resources, and you would be sponging off of your neighbor's $75 dollars." He called what happened "equal justice." It was a lesson, he seems to think.

This may be the only time I ever say this, but Beck has a point. When some people pay into a system that supplies a public service and others don't, it is unfair to those who pay in if everyone who does not also receives those services.

The problem is that, as usual, he fails to see the all the ramifications of that point of view. This awful event is, in fact, the logical consequence of a vision of government that turns what should be basic public services into a pay-for-service function. If you make the services of firefighters into a privilege one must pay for, then Beck is right—you logically have to let the house burn down, with the animals inside (and, one supposes, any people too).

The morally correct conclusion to reach, however, is that something that can be literally a life-and-death matter therefore should never be relegated to pay-for-service status.  Fire protection should be a public service, available to all, and supported by taxes. As the owner's son has said, "To stand and watch a man's house burn is morally and ethically wrong." One might expect Beck to come to that conclusion too (after all, he claims that Americans must, as says he has, "turn back to God"). But he hasn't. Why not?

This is probably giving Beck too much credit, but perhaps somewhere deep down he realizes that the system of fire prevention that resulted in the Cranick home burning down is essentially the same system we have until recently had for health care, the same system that conservatives campaigning this fall are pledging to restore, the same system that Beck defends.

Before the new health insurance law was passed last spring, our ad hoc health care system was basically a pay-for-service system. There was no legal requirement to have health insurance. Those who had insurance, when they got sick, could go to the doctor. But the uninsured individual in need of emergency medical care was in the same position as the Cranicks. The difference, of course, is that a civilized society does not turn away a sick person in the emergency room because the person has no health insurance (of course, up until this week, I thought the same was true of every fire department).

Such people, in Beck's words, have been "sponging off" their neighbor's health insurance premiums. That essential problem with the old system is why the new health care law includes the requirement that people buy health insurance (government subsidized, if necessary), precisely the element of the law that Republican attorneys general all across the country are challenging in court.

Without that requirement, the logic that Beck applied to the Cranicks would kick in. When the uninsured person showed up in the emergency room, the doctors and nurses should do what those firefighters did: stand by and let nature take its course. If Beck thinks it is acceptable for government to require people to pay a fire protection surcharge or face the consequences, why not apply that same logic to the individual mandate? Given the Republican contempt for those who "sponge off" the system, you would think that they would be all for the individual mandate. Instead, they denounce it as unconstitutional socialist tyranny. So much for consistency.

One final note: obviously oblivious to the tremendous irony of it, when Beck spoke those callous words, there was a poster of Benjamin Franklin hanging on the wall behind him, and beneath Ben's face, the word "Charity." Part of Beck's schtick is that he presumes to be teaching the rest of us about American history, especially restoring to the American people the "real" founders. But if he really knew the first thing about Franklin, Beck would know that fire prevention was one of his favorite causes.

In 1734, Franklin recommended a system composed of a "Club or Society of active Men belonging to each Fire Engine; whose Business is to attend to all Fires with it whenever they happen." All fires, not some. And their compensation was "an Abatement or Exemption in the taxes." In other words, they were paid from public funds. Supplying the firefighters with "Buckets and Ladders" Franklin considered "a Duty incumbent upon all who can afford it." Putting out fires, he believed, was a public good, one that all should contribute to in some fashion, and one that those with greater means should support economically for the greater good.

If only Beck would take to heart this piece of advice offered by Franklin: "But such as can neither advise nor labour, should not stand in the Way of those who can, and are willing."