The Disease from which Civiliazations Die; J. Williams

particularly the reference to the "de velopment and use of a written lan guage" and "advances in the arts and sciences, government, etc." -but I am still dissatisfied: I know not a few men and women deeply involved in government, and not completely ignorant of the arts and sciences, whom I hesitate to describe as "civ ilized." It is, as the King of Siam re marked to Anna, "a puzzlement." Non-dictionary definitions of and comments about "civilization" and the "civilizing process" compound confusion. Martin Crombie asserts that "the alchemy of civilization transforms vicious animals ruled by instinct into human beings governed by reason," but Eric Berne tells us that "we are born princes and the civilizing process turns us into frogs." Jose Ortega y Gasset insists that "civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort," but Will Rogers wryly observes that no one can "say that civilization doesn't advance, for 525 526 THE FREEMAN September in every war they kill you in a new way." On the one hand, Winston Churchill affirms that "to fight for the preservation of civilization is to fight for the survival of the human race," but on the other hand Ralph Waldo Emerson insists that "the end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." When these conflicting utterances are blended, and are spiced by the sug gestion of Calvin Coolidge that "civ ilization and profits go hand in hand" and the observation of Alan Coult that "the flush toilet is the ba sis of Western civilization," the search for a definition of civilization begins to look like an exercise in futility.

Civilizations Die But A Continuity Remains For all this, while no one of us may be able precisely to say what he or she means by "civilization," all of us understand, even if we do not agree with, the assertion that civilizations seem to die. Civilization itself may continue, and much that past civi lizations have achieved may be ab sorbed by new civilizations and thus conserved, but particular civiliza tions, like individual men and women, are seemingly destined to be born, to grow, to flourish, to fade, and to die. While it is easy to concede that such a process has characterized civ ilizations of yesteryear, it is not so easy to believe that this is also true of our own civilization. And yet, the cosmos of which we are a part, and thus human history itself, are vital and dynamic, not lifeless and static. Change is thus inevitable. Since change is of the very essence of real ity, no particular state of affairs, and hence no particular form of civili zation, are forever. And that is not terrible: rather, it is ground for hope.

Tomorrow is not predestined to be a rerun of today. A world more pros perous, more peaceful, more com mitted to liberty than is our world, is a real and exciting possibility. I have been unable, alas, to iden tify the reference, but an observa tion I noted in a desk calendar and wrote down says it all. "Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unno ticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write po etry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. His torians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river." The words are those of Will and Ariel Durant, but where in their writings they are found I do not know. What happens on the banks is marked by continuity. One genera tion inherits and builds upon what previous generations have achieved.

1985 THE DISEASE FROM WHICH CIVILIZATIONS DIE 527 In this sense, the insights and dis coveries of particular civilizations last. And in this sense, what is great and glorious about our civilization can last. Hence my willingness to af firm that "the American Way" can last and will last. In so speaking I am not, incidentally, seeking to flat ter you. The "American Way" has a long history. Insights and ideals for which innumerable people over mil lennia fought and died came, per haps by an accident of history, the defining characteristics of "the American Way." Your nation, after all, is unique in that it was "con ceived in liberty." What can last and what, I believe, will last, are the principles so many for so long sought to establish, and which in this new nation "became flesh." What can and will last is, so to speak, the ringing affirmation that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

While we cannot pretend that our civilization as it is shall endure until the end of human history, the way to preserve and pass on to those who follow us what is magnificent and awesome about the American Way is to defend all that is excellent in our civilization as it is. Being human being material creatures living in a spatio-temporal, physical world-we cannot defend an abstraction called "civilization itself." Just as the only way to serve an abstraction called "humanity" is to serve particular flesh-and-blood human beings, so the only way to further the cause of civ ilization as such is to cherish and conserve a particular civilization. We serve civilization as such, and can only serve civilization as such, by serving the best in our own civi lization. And one way·to do this is to ask what it is that we can do to com bat the forces that weaken, that un dermine, that erode a particular civ ilization. Hence the title 9f my address and the question I wish to explore: What is the disease from which civilizations die?

Thucydides In using the word "disease" I am borrowing a metaphor, an image, used some two-and-a-half millennia ago by a Greek historian named Thucydides. Thucydides loved the city-state of Athens. His devotion was not to the buildings and environment one could point to, but to a way of life which Athens in the fifth century B.C. em bodied. In words Thucydides as cribes to a great Athenian leader named Pericles, that way of life is thus described: Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the entire people. When it is a question of settling private dis putes, everyone is equal before the law.

528 THE FREEMAN September . . . And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in re lation to each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people's feelings. We are free and toler ant in our private lives; but in public af fairs we keep to the law. This is because [the law] commands our deep respect ... especially ... those unwritten laws which it is an acknowledged shame to break. It seems just as natural to us to enjoy for eign goods as our own local products ... and our city is open to the world .... We regard wealth as something to be prop erly used, rather than something to boast about, and as for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it. The real shame is not in being poor, but in not taking prac tical measures to escape from poverty.

Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs, but in the affairs of [Athens] as well. l Now it must be confessed that this description of the Athenian way is not a little idealized. The institution of slavery was a reality in Athens, just as it was in all Greek city-states of the fifth-century B.C. Again, power in Athens could be said to be "in the hands ... of the entire peo ple" if and only if women did not count as people. Yet for all this, Thu cydides' description accurately cap tures something of what was so mag nificent about his beloved Athens, a civilization that gave birth to think ers, writers, and artists whose in sights and works still live, having become part of "civilization itself." Yet the civilization that was Athens did not live. It died. Early in the work from which I have quoted, Thucydides describes a mysterious plague which swept through Athens, elaborating in de tail the symptoms those suffering from the disease displayed. At one level this section of his history is simply history, a painstaking record of a significant event which most certainly did occur. Yet more than a simple description of what happened is intended. Thucydides uses this de scription as a controlling symbol for his entire work. Athenian civiliza tion itself suffered, he asserts, from a "disease," a disease characterized by particular symptoms. This dis ease, which in the case of Athens proved fatal, is the disease all men and women of good will must fear.

For it is the disease from which civ ilizations die. Human Beings and Human Nature Th ucydides frequently uses the phrase, "human nature being what it is" and similar phrases. By so speaking, he is indicating at least two realities, two constants about men and women. First, human beings are rational. Men and women are capable of thought~ They can for mulate goals and rationally seek out ways to realize these goals. They can recall, consider, and learn from the past and thereby plan for the future.

1985 THE DISEASE FROM WHICH CIVILIZATIONS DIE 529 They can envisage not simply an im mediate and given present, but a dis tant and possible future. Human na ture is rational. Now rationality dictates, insists Thucydides, the rule of law. Long term objectives can be realized by an individual if and only ifhe or she can count upon other people behaving in an essentially predictable way. By this is meant not that the individual cannot or should not be spontaneous and creative, and thus unpredicta ble, but that some rules and conven tions governing the way people relate to each other must exist and must be respected. Rule by a tyrant's whim or a mob's caprice is undesirable:, apart from anything else, precisely because such rule is erratic and un predictable, precluding cooperative, longterm endeavors. What is per mitted today might be forbidden to morrow; undertakings made in the present might not be fulfilled in the future. Social coordination and co operation demands, insists Thucy dides, the rule of law. And as ra tional beings, men and women can perceive that this is so.

The Rules of Law Like many of his contemporaries, Thucydides divides "laws" broadly defined into four groups or sets. First, and perhaps weakest, are the rules signified by the word manners. People breaking these rules tend to be regarded as somewhat uncivilized and uncouth, but that is all. Ill-man nered people may not be invited to dinner parties, but they are not per ceived as "bad" people. Then come the rules signified by the word morals. These rules are sig nificantly stronger than the rules we call "manners." People breaking these rule~ are perceived not simply as irksome, antisocial irritants but as evil people. Third come the rules making up the written laws of a community. These rules, stronger than both manners and morals, are the rules which, if broken, incur a penalty im posed by a court. While some "im moral" actions may also be "illegal" actions, not all are. Thus the sexual license so uproariously depicted in the plays of the Athenian comedian, Aristophanes, while certainly not il legal, was no less certainly regarded as immoral. The sphere of morality, and the sphere of legality, were not perceived by the Greeks as identical.

Manners. Morals. The written laws. And a fourth set of rules: the "unwritten laws which it is an ac knowledged shame to break." These laws were perceived as so basic, so fundamental, so important, that they did not need to be written down. For the Greeks, these laws were two: honor the dead, and honor the gods, including the gods of others. In a sense, these two laws reduce to a sin gle imperative: respect other people as people, possessing a worth in and 530 THE FREEMAN September of themselves, and respect the val ues other people hold, even if those values are other than one's own. In more contemporary language, we might define the "unwritten laws" as what some philosophers call re ciprocal respect for autonomy, a re spect for the personhood of other peo ple and their capacity to formulate and strive to realize their own peace ful, noncoercive visions of the "good life." The "unwritten laws."

Rationality, then, dictates obedi ence to these laws. It is in one's own interest that one is part of a com munity where certain expectations can be held and longterm goals can be pursued. To be sure, one cannot, given these rules, do exactly what one might wish at a given moment, but neither can anyone else. There is thus an incalculably valuable pay off, a pay-off more than compensat ing for the irksome restraint of not always being able to behave with impunity. So affirms reason. So as serts the rationality that is part of human nature. Alongside rationality is found a second characteristic of "human na ture": a drive to seek immediate, here-and-now pleasure. Men and women resent whatever curbs their freedom to seek such pleasure. Re gardless of the dictates of sweet rea son, they chafe at the bit. Thus if a person can acquire the power to defy the rules social cooperation and co ordination demand, that person will defy them. If a person can acquire the power to defy the rules and get away with it, that person will, as serts Thucydides, tend to do pre cisely that.

The first rules to go are usually manners. Then morals bite the dust. Then the written laws are defied. Fi nally, the "unwritten laws" are for gotten. Resentment and envy are fostered, the powerless detesting the powerful. Factions proliferate. Bar barism reigns. A Tyrant is Born And then, asserts Thucydides, comes the end, in one of two forms. A social order without coordination is powerless to defend itself against the disciplined onslaughts of an ex ternal power. Or-and more fre quently-a people sinking into the chaos of barbarism panic. They cry out for someone-anyone-who will restore some semblance of cohesion and order. And invariably that someone emerges. He promises to give the people what, in desperation, they are grasping for. ~e promises to restore social order and the rule of law. But at a price. In exchange, men and women must surrender their lib erty. In this way, the tyrant is born.

Thucydides describes in great de tail the symptoms observable as this disease-the disease from which civ ilizations die-inexorably works its way toward its terrible end, pro gressively eroding the structures 1985 THE DISEASE FROM WHICH CIVILIZATIONS DIE 531 and practices that are, so to speak, the central nervous system of a civ ilized community. I quote him at some length. "Revolutions broke out in city after city, and in places where the revolutions occurred late, the knowledge of what had happened previously in other places caused still new extravagances ... in the methods of seizing power and ... un heard-of atrocities in revenge. To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual mean ings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party mem·· ber; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying that one was a coward .... Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man ... ; [anyone] who held violent opinions could always be trusted; anyone who objected to [such opin ions] became a suspect. . .. Family relations were a weaker tie than party membership, since party members were ... ready to go to any extreme for any reason whatever.

These parties were not formed to enjoy the benefits of the established laws, but simply to acquire power.... " Continues Thucydides: "Love of power ... was the cause of all these evils. . . . Leaders of parties in the cities had programs which appeared admirable-on the one side equality for the masses, on the other side safe and sound government by an aris tocracy. Yet by professing to serve the public interest, party leaders and members in truth sought to win ... prizes for themselves .... [With] the conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, al ways ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself in its true colors ... , repealing general laws of humanity which ... give a hope of salvation to all."2 Thus the symptoms. Then the end. Whether externally imposed or in ternally generated, tyranny and des potism triumph. Liberty dies, and with it a civilization. The joyous songs of a free and civilized people are silenced. The disease from which civilizations die has worked its way to its end.

Here endeth a brief and sketchy lesson from a volume penned by a ge nius whose name is never heard by many students. They prefer, you see, "relevant" books and contemporary names. And those of us who should know better capitulate, fearful of in curring our children's wrath. We proffer amusing mini-courses about ephemeral interests instead-then wonder why it is our young know lit tle about the heritage that is rightly theirs. Moral Decline As a preacher, I might be expected to point to the breakdown in West532 THE FREEMAN September ern societies of moral rules. Clearly, all is not well. In his monumental volume, Modern Times: The World From The Twenties To The Eighties, 3 Paul Johnson documents the rise in the West of moral relativism and moral subjectivism. More and more, moral rules are perceived either as arbitrary prescriptions and proscrip tions relative to a particular society, having no rootage or grounding in the nature of things, or as expres sions of personal taste, a difference over the merits of cruelty for its own sake being akin to a difference over the merits of a particular flavor of ice cream.

Yet in spite of this, I suggest that anyone tempted to assert that our civilization has sunk to hitherto depths of moral depravity, read some history. The eighteenth-century writer, Tobias Smollett-author of that ever-delightful work, The Ex pedition of Humphry Clinker-de scribes the highways of his day as being "infested with violence and as sassination" and the cities of his age as "teem(ing) with the brutal vota ries of intemperance and lewdness." London in 1839 boasted 933 brothels and 844 houses of ill-fame to serve a population of some two million peo ple. Hooliganism is no more ram pant in New York City today than it was in nineteenth-century London, where gangs such as the "Bucks" and "Corinthians" perfected tradi tions of sheer terrorism elaborat~d by their eighteenth-century prede cessors, the notorious "Mohocks." Consider this description of the Mo hocks: "Nobody who was alone was safe from their cowardly assaults.

They attacked at random any un armed person who was out after dark. They assaulted unprotected women; they drove their swords through sedan-chairs; they pulled people from coaches, slit their noses with razors, stabbed them with knives, ripped the coach to pieces, and then ... killed."4 The barbaric behavior of English soccer fans which recently shocked a disbelieving world has its parallels in the eighteenth century, the major difference being not the mindless ness of the behavior but the fact that, today, we at least are shocked. The situation is complex. There is something depraved about an age witnessing self-styled world leaders applauding a speech delivered by Idi Amin on October 1,1975, at that ca bal of tyrannies laughingly de scribed as the United Nations. There is something profoundly disturbing about a generation of adults that seemingly has lost its moral nerve, leaving the young to improvise their manners and morals as best they can. Yet to assert that we are expe riencing an unprecedented moral de cline is to go beyond the evidence.

Suffice to suggest that, if we take se riously Thucydides' claim that a dis regard of the rules we call manners 1985 THE DISEASE FROM WHICH CIVILIZATIONS DIE 533 and morals is indeed symptomatic of the disease from which civilizations die, we cannot be complacent with impunity. The Rule of Law What is beyond dispute is that we today have largely departed from the rule of law. "When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law," asserts Thu·· cydides. Citizens of Western nations not so long ago could echo this as sertion. Today they cannot. The founding fathers of this nation meant by "equality" precisely what Greeks such as Thucydides meant by the term isonomia-namely, equality before the law. There are to be no spe ciallaws for special classes or castes or elites, laws privileging some but disadvantaging others. Indeed rules which do single out particular indi viduals or particular sets of individ uals were not, for the Greeks, prop erly called laws at all, but "edicts"

or "decrees." Even when such rules are backed by the majority, they re main other than laws proper, "the decrees of the demos-the people-correspond(ing)," as Aristotle puts it, "to the edicts of the tyrant." This truth was clearly and unam biguously perceived by those who in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen turies defended the political philos ophy of classical-classical-liberal ism, and was no less clearly perceived by your founding fathers. They established a republic, not an unrestricted democracy; they advo cated not the absolute rule of any majority but the constitutionally de fended liberties of minorities, even minorities of one; they defended not rule by any principles securing ma jority approval, but by principles of conduct equally applicable to all. Justice was portrayed as a blind folded figure. She did not see who stood before her. That did not mat ter, for whoever you were-rich or poor; Catholic, Protestant, Jew or "Infidel"; educated or unlettered your "rights" were the same.

This understanding of the "rule of law" is utterly vital for a free and civilized community. Rules which single out special classes, castes, or elites breed the factionalism and scheming Thucydides laments, fos ter the envy Thucydides deplores, and precipitate the civil strife and dissension Thucydides fears. No matter what impressively high minded terms are appealed to as jus tification for any departure from the rule of law properly understood "social justice" or whatever-the outcome remains the same. And that outcome is disaster for a free and civ ilized society. And let us not delude ourselves. In recent decades Western civilization has witnessed a departure from the rule of law, classically defined. Jus tice is no longer blindfolded, su premely indifferent as to who it is 534 THE FREEMAN September standing accused before her. She peeks! "Tell me who you are," she as serts, "and then I shall tell you your rights." The notion that all enjoy ab solutely equal "rights" -essentially the "right" to formulate and strive to realize any vision of the "good life," given only that such striving and such visions are peaceful, and that all are to be protected by gov~ ernment from violence, theft, and fraud-has been unspeakably atten~ uated. "Equality of rights" and "equality before the law" have suc~ cumbed to a different vision of "equality" -an egalitarian same~ ness secured by edicts and decrees which advantage some but disad vantage others.

The very nature of government thus changes. No longer is govern ment given the vital but limited task of enforcing a single set of rules, pro tecting all from actual or threatened violence, theft, and fraud, and thereby ensuring that all are equally free to formulate and strive to real ize their own visions-their diverse but noncoercive visions-of the "good life." Rather, government becomes the means whereby one group ofpeo pIe seeks favors and advantages at the expense of rival groupings of people. A massive redistributive ap paratus proliferates zero-sum games whereby some gain and others lose. Factionalism is encouraged, envy is increased, and government becomes not the protector of all but what Frederic Bastiat, the great French classical liberal thinker, called "the fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of every one else."5 And according to Thucy dides, this eroding of the rule of law signifies the presence of the disease from which civilizations die.

The Family I make no apologies for drawing your attention to Thucydides' spe cific reference to the weakening of family ties as a further symptom of the disease from which civilizations die. Indeed I would urge you to read a singular ly scholar ly vol ume penned by the courageous Russian dissident, Igor Shafarevich, entitled The Socialist Phenomenon. 6 While a mathematician by training-indeed until recently Shafarevich was a professor of mathematics at Moscow University-he displays in this vol ume an utterly awesome historical knowledge, and he uses that knowl edge to document with compelling thoroughness the hatred statists and collectivists invariably have had for the family unit. It would seem to be the case that opposition to individ ual liberty inevitably leads to op position to the family. Because I am committed to the rule of law, I cannot and do not advocate laws specifying the family unit and deliberately seeking to foster and fa vor the family unit. I must, in the name of the rule of law, oppose all 1985 THE DISEASE FROM WHICH CIVILIZATIONS DIE 535 rules the objective of which is the re·· alization of some particular vision of the "good life" -save, of course, vi sions involving the actual or threat·· ened coercion of people not sharing those visions.

What I oppose in the name of the rule of law is the perhaps uninten·· tional weakening of the traditional family by welfare schemes which in practice encourage a breakdown of the family unit. It would be imper·· tinent for me to refer to the situation in your nation. But I can refer you to Charles Murray's devastating cri tique of American social welfare pol icy, Losing Ground. 7 All I ask is that governments mind their own business and get out of the way as individuals organize their so cial relationships. The traditional family is, in my judgment, so grounded in biological and emo tional reality that it can look after itself. The only further suggestion I make is that individuals caring about strengthening the traditional family, involve themselves in vol untary organizations assisting fam ilies in trouble-financial assis tance, counseling, and so on. Be that as it may, the undermining of the family is, as Thucydides per ceived so long ago, a symptom of the disease from which civilizations die.

Individual Integrity Finally, according to Thucydides, the disease from which civilizations die afflicts the "best" members of a society, not simply the "worst." Given immoral social institutions, the "best" are tempted to compro mise their principles. By so yielding, however, those who should know better become infected cells carrying the disease, rather than healthy an tibodies fighting the invader. Some lines of George Meredith say it all: In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be. Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within. I know the alibis, being extremely gifted in the less than noble art of rationalization. I am robbed, say, by a pickpocket. At some future date, I acquire some clout over the pick pocket. Is it not proper that I re trieve all or some of what rightly is mine? Similarly, is it not right that I join in the scramble to the govern ment trough, retrieving what has been taken from me, at least in part?

But the analogy is flawed. We are not retrieving from the pickpocket what is ours; we are rather sending him out to pick other pockets-including those of our children and our chil dren's children-and sharing in the loot. We are partners in crime, not victims enjoying a measure of restitution. I am not referring to forms of in volvement in a less than ideal sys tem that cannot be avoided. In my nation, the only way I can opt out of 536 THE FREEMAN September a socialized medical system is to seek out some ex-doctor, struck off the lists, and negotiate an undisclosed cash payment; and frankly I'm not prepared to entrust my physical well being to some probably incompetent rogue. I go to the ballet, even though I know that money coercively ex tracted from football fans and movie buffs for the most part less affluent than am I is subsidizing my extrav agant tastes. Total disengagement with a less than ideal system is ac quired only by opting out, and, with like-minded souls, seeking a de serted island on which to set up a utopia-but such islands are few and the pioneering spirit is not, alas, mine.

I am, however, referring to an in volvement we could avoid if we were willing to pay the price. Many of those who state that they value lib erty, and a politico-economic system informed by liberty, tolerate in themselves a measure of involve ment with Statist structures that is not necessary, and which makes their professed values ring hollow. In this sense we are, in Meredith's words, betrayed by "what is false within," becoming carriers of the disease from which civilizations die. Conclusion No person with eyes to see, and certainly no person with eyes alert to the symptoms detailed by Thu cydides of the disease from which civilizations die, can entertain the fantasy that all is well with our civ ilization. Yet I am utterly convinced that our situation is far from hope less, and that the "disease" can be curbed and conquered. I believe the American inheritance is the greatest inheritance ever given to any nation: "A new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are cre ated equal." In this land the dream of the ages was earthed, and became the very foundation upon which a people began to build. The revol u tion that gave you birth was unique.

Other revolutions ended in terror or Napoleonic empire. Your revolution challenged at its beginning, and has challenged ever since, all domina tions and tyrannies, all prejudices and bigotries, all predatory institu tions enslaving and debasing the free spirit of humanity. Your revolution enshrined and still enshrines the cry that people are not chattels, not pawns on a planner's chessboard, not divided by "nature" into lords and serfs. It is therefore sacrilege to en slave them, infamous to engineer them, criminal to degrade them and seek to smother the liberty that burns in their being. And that is your strength. For the liberty upon which this nation was and is built is not merely a value cre ated by or equal to a taste some of us happen to have acquired. It is grounded in the very nature of hu1985 THE DISEASE FROM WHICH CIVILIZATIONS DIE 537 man reality. In the absence of pri·· vate property rights, the absence of changing relative money prices in a.

market economy-in the absence, to put it bluntly, of economic and in·· dividual liberty-a community lit·· erally cannot use what it has to ac quire what it wants, and the hungry will not be fed, the naked will not be clothed, the destitute will not be sheltered. More, there is in the human spirit a yearning that can never utterly be silenced, a yearning for freedom to formulate one's own vision of the "good life" and seek to realize that vision. I know that there is another voice and another yearning-a voice that whispers fearfully of the risks and responsibilities freedom in volves, and a yearning to be carried through life. Yet the voice that says, "Stand on thy feet, take up thy bed and walk," has the last word, for it is stronger than the voice which, in the name of an illusory security, lures us toward the collective grave of statism. You and I are on the side of life. Yes, we must act as though every·· thing depended upon the labors of our hands, the intensity of our thinking, the devotion of our hearts.

Yet if liberty is written into the very structure of our individual and so cial being, victory in the end is sure. If only we stop compromising; if only we as educationalists and adults do what A. N. Whitehead said we must do, and expose our children to the "habitual vision of greatness" by telling them the story of humanity's struggle toward freedom; if only we stop apologizing or indulging in neu rotic guilt, and stand tall at mention of the" American Way" as I have de fined and as your forefathers defined it and not as foolish rabble-rousers define it. If only we do this the vic tory shall be ours. Of course there will be setbacks. Ofcourse there will be disappointments. Since when has the long, slow journey from the slav ery of Egypt to the promised land of freedom been other than through a wilderness? Yet that "wilderness and the solitary place shall be made glad, and the desert shall rejoice; it shall blossom abundantly and re joice even with joy and singing." , -FOOTNOTESIThucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans.

Rex Warner (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1954), pp. 145-46. 2Ibid., pp. 242-45. 3Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties (New York: Harper and Row, 1983). 4Cited by J. Hemming, Individual Morality (London: Nelson, 1969), p. 6. 5Frederic Bastiat, "The State," trans. S. Cain, in Selected Essays on Political Economy, ed. George B. de Huszar (Irvington: Foundation for Economic Education, 1968), p. 144. 6Igor R. Shafarevich, The Socialist Phenom enon (New York: Harper and Row, 1980). 7Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1984).