A More Perfect Union

"Our union can be perfected." - President-Elect Obama

Those were words from his acceptance speech last Tuesday night. I'm sure it was a rhetorical flourish, meant to refer back to the Preamble of the Constitution. But it says so much more.

When you compare the Preamble (see the title of this post) to the quotation, however, you'll note an important difference. That difference is the word "more."

That one simple word belies a significant difference in philosophy. You see, the Founders, and, indeed, most people from the beginning of time, viewed people as inherently imperfect, and therefore imperfectable, creatures. And, as such, any human system, be it family, group, or country, is imperfectable as well.

But we're not here to just throw up our hands in resignation at our flaws. No, we ought to seek to make ourselves more perfect tomorrow than we are today, and the world a more perfect place, too.

That lasted for a few thousand years, until the early 1900s. (Though there are stirrings of it in The Republic) About then, the political class found themselves flush with all sorts of new knowledge and understanding. Darwin, Einstein, Marx, and countless others had been able to unlock the wisdom of the ages, and make it accessible to everyone else. With scientific understanding of biology, and physics, and economics, it became possible to understand people, and societies, and social systems.

If only you could get the right technocrats, the right Brain Trust in place, they could apply these new and wonderful sciences to society. They'd have to be able to do this by fiat, of course, because when you can make everything perfect with your knowledge, why would you need to stick to democratic ideals? A sufficiently enlightened dictator ought to be good enough, if they can make things perfect.

This was the source of a philosophy that called itself Progressive (sound familiar?). Essentially, they justified this wave of Applied Social Sciences with the concept of pragmatic governance - If it works, who cares how you do it - into a new technocratic ideal.

The thing is, the concept itself is distinctly illiberal. If you can drum up the support of the people through populism (which can often be easy with the "just do it" pragmatism), so be it. But if you can't, well, they're all hoopleheads anyway, and they'll thank you later. When you have a Brain Trust of the Smartest People in the World, you don't need popular support. You just need the power to make things better. To "perfect the Union," if you will.

Now I don't know if the President-Elect meant all this or not by that one turn of phrase. But knowing the progressive roots of his Party, it makes one wonder, doesn't it?

But it gets worse. You see, in other countries, it wasn't just society they sought to perfect through Applied Social Sciences. These ideas followed naturally to applying the other Applied Sciences of biology and chemistry and physics to not just human social groups, but to humans themselves. The wave of interest in eugenics came from the exact same stream of thought. In some cases, it took the form of selective breeding, in others, various genetic and biological experiments. In others, it focused on culling certain folks, rather than keeping certain folks. If you get my drift.

No, it's been tried before. It didn't end well.

For decades, the Left has been emphasizing that this Union is not perfect. Well, no kidding. But that's the definition of any human society. Can we make it more humane? Every day. Can they, or anyone, make it perfect. Not only no, but Hell No.

I'm reminded of a speech from the climax of the movie Serenity. (Highly recommended, if you haven't seen it.) They've discovered the story of a Government that had tried its own experiments at perfecting a society. It didn't end well, either. It's from science fiction, but the words can be a call to us, too.

I know this - they will try again. . . A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. - Malcolm Reynolds

No, we're not perfect, nor is this Union. But no government, no Brain Trust, no quasi-messianic President-Elect can perfect either. We can only strive toward a more perfect self, and a more perfect Union, one person and one act at a time.

I don't know if it was a rhetorical flourish, or if it was a hint at a more dangerous philosophy rearing its head. I hope it was the former. But if it was the latter, well,

I aim to misbehave.