On Culture - A More Perfect Union

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

This episode of On Culture interacts with the latest piece from The Embassy - check it out at theembassy.substack.com

Here is an excerpt …

In the tragic vision, individual sufferings and social evils are inherent in the innate deficiencies of all human beings, whether these deficiencies are in knowledge, wisdom, morality, or courage. Moreover, the available resources are always inadequate to fulfill all the desires of all the people. Thus there are no "solutions" in the tragic vision, but only trade-offs that still leave many unfulfilled and much unhappiness in the world.

Thomas Sowell - “The Vision of the Anointed” p.113

There are innate deficiencies of all human beings and not only individual sufferings but social evils are inherent in them. The available resources are always inadequate to fulfill all the desires of all the people - no solutions, only trade-offs. That is what the founders believed. We have an imperfect system, to be sure, but a system well designed to manage our imperfections - to account for them, to see them and be realistic about who we are and who our opponents are. There will be no glorious final victory over our political enemies, partly because our founders knew, human nature being human nature, that is what we would want. And that, if we gained that final victory, we wouldn’t handle it well. Because we are human and that is what history tells us - and we are no exception. And so it is a nation that seeks to make a way for We the People - actual human beings with fallen human natures - to seek unity and tranquility and security while preserving liberty.

So let’s celebrate the birth of our nation - by appreciating that those who founded it knew us well enough to know what would lead toward a more perfect union, knowing that a perfect union - at least in this age - is beyond our reach.