Founding Principles Lost to the “Silent Artillery of Time”©

Revised, 9 September 2019

Back in October of 2018, I wrote an essay on “Valuable Things that Get Lost in Modern Philosophy and Culture.” There I lamented the modern propensity to think that current ideas, philosophies, and practices are superior to those of the past. Examples I mentioned were the loss of emphasis on character, the worship of celebrity culture, and the philosophy that winning is everything. 

I’m not unaware or unappreciative of the amazing progress in science and technology which has characterized nearly my entire life and which has blessed the lives of billions. However, I am also aware of a problem. Evidence suggests to me that for many–especially the young who have little knowledge of much history before the Internet and the smart phone–there are many important things that are lost, ignored, or shoved aside because of the glorification of the present and the great and often unrecognized ignorance about the value of what is being jettisoned.  My observations have recently been seconded by an insightful historian, Wilfred M. McClay, who is the Blankenship Professor in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma.  He said:

It’s harder than usual today to get young people interested in the past because they are so firmly convinced that we’re living in a time so unprecedented, enjoying pocket-sized technologies that are so transformative, that there’s no point in looking at what went on in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  To them the past has been superseded–just as our present world is forever in the process of being superseded.

While this posture may be ill-informed and lazy, a way to justify not learning anything, it also represents a genuine conviction, amply reinforced by the endless passing parade of sensations and images in which we are enveloped–one thing always being succeeded by something else, nothing being permanent, nothing enduring, always moving, moving, moving into a new exceptional Now.  But it is a childish and disabling illusion that must be countered....(1)

One thing I didn’t mention in that previous blog overshadows in importance the things written of there. What is it? The loss of understanding of and commitment to the principles of the Founding of America. This was brought starkly to my attention in a marvelous quotation of Abraham Lincoln, who, speaking to young people in 1838, said:

I do not mean to say, that the scenes of the revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but that like every thing else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time.... At the close of the struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family.... But those histories are gone.  They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls.(2)

That is so self-evident and meaningful to me. If it was true in 1838, what about 2019? Though Abe refers to the Revolution, I believe he was speaking not just about the eight-year war, but the much longer struggle to ferret out and codify fundamental principles of democratic government and society in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. I would also add, the greatest commentary on the Constitution, The Federalist Papers. That was the real Revolution, the one the War was fought for! My religious faith teaches me that these men were inspired by God, and I heartily believe it. These are the things–“a fortress of strength”–which have been and are being lost by the “silent artillery of time” and the consequent lack of commitment to them such as we see in the vast majority of high schools and colleges in the land.

As the 4th of July approaches (incidentally my favorite secular holiday), it is my wish for America on her birthday that Lincoln’s warning may not only be heard, but acted upon. Happy birthday America–the greatest and most blessed nation in the history of this planet. May your founding principles ever guide its government and society. May your glorious flag ever wave over the land of the free!

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:

1.  Wilfred M. McClay, “Rediscovering the Wisdom in American History.”  Imprimis 48, nos. 7-8 (July/August 2019): 4-5.

2. Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, 27 January 1838, cited in George F. Will, The Conservative Sensibility, New York: Hachette Books, 2019, ix.  (I do not know if the emphasis is Lincoln's or Will's, but I left it because I liked it.)