If We Can Keep It

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”

—On the Orator (De Oratore), II.9

“Let us argue without bitterness, and guard against all anger. Nothing is more unbecoming to a seeker of truth than anger.”

—Tusculan Disputations, V.74

A Republic is a rarity in human history.  Today, while many people in the west live in what is outwardly a Republic, very few citizens actually practice the responsibility required of individuals who make up a Republic.  This is not uncommon.  Out of all of human history, approximately 8% of all countries that have ever existed could properly be termed a republic.  It becomes even more rare when we look at how many have lasted.  Only 2-3% of Republics throughout human history have lasted with any measure of stability for over 100 years. 

Dostoyevsky captured this phenomenon beautifully in The Grand Inquisitor where he showed that human beings, when given the choice of freedom and its complementary responsibility, and servitude or slavery choose the latter virtually every time.  Freedom is difficult because it requires responsibility and sacrifice.  It requires breeding adults and sustaining excellence. Famously, when Benjamin Franklin was asked whether the Founders had chosen a monarchy or a republic as the cornerstone of the new country of America, he replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

It has become increasingly clear that we cannot.  Freedom is not possible for certain types of people, more specifically those who are tribal in nature.  The Vikings, the Mongols, and other warrior tribes were clearly not good candidates for a Republican Democracy.  They saw any kind of dissent, or disagreement as an existential threat.  Tolerance for a Mongol or a Viking consisted mostly of a spear through the throat.  “Truth” was whatever the chief of the tribe said it was, and order was predicated on power and repression. 

It is the subject of another longer work as to how the United States of America ever got to its current state.  But it is sufficient to note that a Republic must consist of people who discuss, reason, tolerate dissent, and follow truth, not mob rule.  Politics in a republic is not about “winning” but it is about getting to the best solution for its citizens.  And being a citizen in a republic is not something that is bestowed lightly on an individual.  It comes with significant responsibility.  A citizen in a Republic does not worry about which government subsidy they will receive.  They worry about what they can contribute to the Republic to sustain it for future generations. 

If we stick to science, there is a reason why Republics degenerate first into democracy and then madness.  This is because a functioning republic requires rare human qualities, high emotional intelligence, self-control, tolerance for dissent, and the ability to think abstractly and rationally.  When these traits are quantified, only a very small percentage of people possess the qualifies needed to sustain self-government. 

Emotional intelligence is a rare commodity in the human species.  A high EQ can be found in only about 15% of adults.  A very high EQ is found in only 2-5% of adults.  Even more rare is the combination of a high EQ and strong self-regulation, which is the moral core of EQ.  That combination is only found in 5-7% of adults. 

Many people have some kind of basic empathy, but lack impulse control, cannot practice delayed gratification, and lack the ability to put the common good above emotion.  These are the essential traits for a functioning republic.

A combination of a high EQ and high IQ is even more rare.  Only 20% of the population has an IQ above 115 and 2% of the population has an IQ higher than 130.  The combination of an IQ above 115 plus a high EQ is less than 3%.  When we add self-regulation and reasoning ability, the number is closer to 1%.

In other words, 21^st century science aligns with Aristotle’s view, expressed in the 4^th century B.C., that only a small minority of the human race is governed by reason rather than passion.  The numbers are not in our favor.  Given that a republic is the honors club of political associations, we need a fairly smart and mature group of folks to run a republic. 

And so, we have the reason for Ben Franklin’s cynicism with respect to “keeping a Republic.”  Put differently, when the Founders handed us a Republic, it was the equivalent of giving a 9-year- old a Rolls Royce.  Maintaining a Republic requires a sizable portion of its citizens to understand and appreciate their obligations.  It also requires that its citizens create a framework to prepare future generations to appreciate the nature of their system of government through teaching virtue, personal responsibility, resourcefulness, and building emotional intelligence and intellect in the population.  “Keeping a Republic” requires a unified effort on the part of all its citizens, a breakdown of tribalism, and engendering a sense of concern and respect for fellow citizens.  The creation of a republic in the United States was an act of audacity in the face of massive countervailing evidence that had run throughout all of human history.  It was ever bit as unlikely as saying that pigs could fly.

HAVING A FIGHTING CHANCE

It is this recognition that has resulted in most political theorists basically throwing in the towel.  Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong executive for the United States, a king appointed for life.  He was not of the mind that a voluntary transfer of power every four years was a workable or sustainable solution to the question of public disorder.  Hamilton believed that the masses were susceptible to demagogues and needed sufficient restraint.  The Constitutional Convention was not without its detractors.  Gouverneur Morris openly declared during the proceedings that the majority of citizens lacked the education of virtue for democratic decision-making.  Plato was distrustful of democracy and likened it to mob rule or a drunken ship crew.  Polybius, the great Roman historian believed that the masses were easily manipulated and unfit for self-rule.  Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau and Nietzsche would not have agreed on much, except that the masses were unfit for self-rule. 

Given that we, as a large population, lack the major skills to flourish in a Republic, it is imperative that we work diligently to improve our skills.  It is very few people that have the talent to play in the Premier League, but even if they had the talent, a strict practice regimen would be essential to be able to compete at the top level.  Ronaldo practices, Pele practiced and even Maradona practiced. 

Yet, we are a country that does not practice.  We long ago dispensed with the idea that we need to practice.  On the right, we often believe that patriotism is enough, without constant discipline, to maintain the necessary skills to maintain a Republic.  The Republican Party sat idly by while ethical training, classics, Constitutional theory, Law, Philosophy and Religion were removed from the core curriculums of America’s schools.  This was a colossal failure. 

 On the left, we not only do not practice the necessary skills for maintaining a Republic, but we openly decry that imposing such education is “oppressive.”  Or worse still, that we are exempt from practice because we belong to some kind of a special group or tribe, which makes us perfect from the outset.  Ardent feminists believe that women are essentially free from sin, and that if there are problems it is all the fault of men, and they are somehow accountable for all of humanity’s sins from the beginning of time.  Women are virtuous by the accident of their birth.  For leftists, white men are guilty by the accident of their birth.  Certain ethnic groups are morally better or worse by the accident of their birth.  This is even more absurd than saying that anyone who is tall can play in the NBA, and anyone with two hands and a pair of eyes can play like Beethoven.  As a nation, we have excused ourselves from the hard work of “keeping a republic.”  In fact, our lethargy is so great, that most of the population could not even tell you the difference between a republic or a democracy, or the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  We demand freedom without accountability, and we demand government to be accountable without being accountable for our own actions. 

To say that we are in need of remedial work is beyond understatement.  We lack intellectual humility or the sense that we could be wrong, because we have no sense of history or a sense of our own limitations.  We lack tolerance for disagreement because we lack humility and emotional intelligence.  We are split into tribes, because our immigrant population has refused to become Americans.  We lack self - governance of our passions because we lack respect for others and even respect for ourselves.  We do not see our fellow citizens as fellow human beings, let alone co-patriots because we have never learned the importance of community, sacrifice, and personal responsibility.  Our selfishness and lack of respect for others leads us to have no reverence for law or process.  We see the law as simply a tool to obtain what we want for ourselves or our tribe.  Our poor education and lack of understanding history has led to our sense of ingratitude for sacrifices made by previous generations.  Even the sacrifices of our grandfathers in World War II, a nano-second by historical standards, are ignored or diminished.  We lack the ability to forgive because our arrogance is astounding. 

All of these qualities are essential for the maintenance of a Republic, which is the highest form of self-government ever known to humankind.  We lack even the basic skills or self-awareness to conduct a civil PTA meeting. 

The statistics are already not in our favor.  As human beings our limitations greatly outpace our strengths.  We are already the 5’1” kid on the basketball court, or in the remedial math program.  We are already poor at controlling our animal instincts as the previous century and everyday newspapers make very clear.  We cannot even conduct civil discourse, or work together on the problems or issues we even agree need to be addressed.  We are act like self-righteous troglodytes who have no need for each other, no need for our community, our country, or our God.  Rather than mourn when a senseless crime is committed, our politicians and populace cheer when someone with a different political view is killed.  We care little for human pain and suffering, they are merely statistics for us.  Every day we prove the views of everyone from Plato to Hobbes correct—we are not fit for self rule.

Our only chance is profound humility and hard work.  There are stories—inspiring ones— of the gawky kid who no one every thought had a chance to be a professional athlete, or class valedictorian, who through hard work and humility rose to a level never foreseen by anyone.  We are that gawky kid.  Our numbers demonstrate that we lack the necessary skills to run a republic.  We lack the intelligence, the humility, the emotional discipline, and the virtue to keep such an incredibly difficult endeavor alive.  The odds seem unsurmountable.  It is only through hard work and sacrifice that we could ever maintain such a thing.

Yet the Founders, when they established a Republic—clearly knew the odds.  They knew that the chances of maintaining such a civilization were slim.  They had the examples of Greece and Rome in front of them—of whom they were huge admirers.  And so, when they based a Constitution of a new country on two of the greatest civilizations the world had ever known, and even they could not sustain a republic, they knew they were being audacious.  But, against all the odds, against all of history, against human nature, they bet on their descendants.  They gave us a republic — a rare and precious thing — if we can keep it.