A Comparative Essay

After reading Americas Constitutional Soul, by Harvey C. Mansfield,

Jr., and The True and Only Heaven, by Christopher Lasch, I came to the

realization that while they have varying ideas on many topics, they have

similar conservative views regarding citizenship and civil

rights.Specifically, Mansfield discusses his belief that people are best served

through arepresentative government and does not believe that all citizens

should be allowed to rule directly (Mansfield 141). In this regard,

Mansfield contends that people, in general, tend to be irrational and rely

too much on feelings as opposed to reasoned conclusions (Mansfield

29-30). Therefore, if a trueform of participatory democracy were practiced

where all citizens have the right to activelyparticipate in the

decision-making processes, Mansfield believes that our society would not

benefit. Mansfield, in maintaining his views that citizens are easily

swayed by their feelings instead of by intellectual reasoning, believ!

es that professional, special interest groups that are savvy enough to

capitalize on this human weakness, would sway the votes of the majority

and earn themselves a majority vote. To combat this problem, Mansfield

believes (as did our Founding Fathers when theycreated the Electoral

College), that a representative form of democracy is the more viable

form of government which will better suit our society by assuring that

rational, unselfish decisions will be made which will ultimately be needed

for the progression of our free and democratic society(Mansfield

29-30).Furthermore, in continuing with our discussion of citizenship, I

believe that Mansfield believes that through the use of formal, government

institutions, citizens are able to rise above self-interest. He points

to the fact that our United States institution is an institution of

formalizedbehavior. This document requires that actions be formal.

According to Mansfield, the United States Constitution is documente!

d proof that citizens want self-government and that they have the

ability, through formal processes set up by institutions, to rise above

self-interest (Mansfield 151). Similarly, Christopher Lasch seems to have

the same doubts about citizens ability toeffectively decide on matters

of importance. Through his discussions of Walter Lippmans writings,

Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, Lash appears to agree that the use

of self-governing is not an effective form of Democracy (Lasch 364).

Lasch goes on to further set forth that the old ideas of citizenship

are out-dated and that, in fact, citizens can no longer be viewed as

omnicompetent or as jack of all trades (Lasch 364). Lasch and Mansfield

both seem to doubt the abilities of the average citizens and do not

believe that we should entrust them with decisions which affect the society.

Lasch even goes so far as to say that the government needs to be,

carried on by officials who were expected to conceive a common inte!

rest - guided by public opinion or expert knowledge (Lasch 365).

Lasch believed that because our society is set up as it is (i.e., vast

division of labor and distribution of wealth and power), it can not

reasonably be expected to be governed by majority vote of the entire

population (all with varying views and self-interested expectations). In this

respect, Mansfield and Lasch seem to agree that the powers of citizens,

as a whole, should be limited in terms of their ability to

activelyparticipate government.Another area which Mansfield and Lasch seem to have

similar opinions is that regarding civil rights. Mansfield goes into

great detail regarding how our government, through its formalized

Constitution, protects the distinction between a persons rights and their

abilities to exercise those rights. In doing this, the Constitution is

needed to limit the scope of the exercising of our rights(Mansfield 32).

The underlying topic involved in the obtainment of rights and th!

eir exercise is equality. Mansfield believes that it is necessary for

our democratic nation to always be striving towards equality. However,

according to Mansfield, it should be realized by all representatives

that equality is not a formalized guarantee (Mansfield 11-12). In

discussing civil rights, Mansfield does not go into great deal about civil

rights by specifically referring to specific topics and events. Instead,

he breaks this term down into two different ideas and discusses them in

a definitive manner. Specifically, he sets forth that there are

natural and civil rights. Natural rights are those rights that a civil

society is founded on (i.e., life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness).

Civil rights, on the other hand, are the more specific and limited rights

that are established in a civilized society (Mansfield 182-183). Once

again, Mansfield lauds institutions as being instrumental in securing

and upholding the rights established in ademocratic society (Ma!

nsfield 183). He distinguishes rights with and without a government

by setting forth that a person may have unlimited rights in an area

unfettered by government, but advises that they are not secure because

there are no formalized institutions with which to uphold these

rights(Mansfield 183). Mansfield is a staunch supporter of the Constitution,

believing that it, in itself, is a Bill of Rights because it secures rights

and is responsible for setting up the institution that makes the

policies regarding those rights (Mansfield 184). Furthermore, he sets forth

that the post-Constitutional rights should no longer be defined as

civil rights. He prefers to characterize themas human rights, noting that

they are not a necessary part of a civil society. His believes this

because of the fact that in order to exercise these human rights, a

citizen no longer needs to contribute to society by improving, maintaining

or defending it as a prerequisite to exercising such rights. Ins!

tead, Mansfield denounces these unfettered rights and characterizes

them instead as entitlements which are costly and do nothing good for the

society (Mansfield 186). Finally, Mansfield discusses a problem with

modern constitutionalism in that it makes civil liberties secondary to

the natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

(Mansfield 207). However, Mansfield believes that civil liberties are a way

of obtaining those natural rights and thatthese rights should be united

instead of secondary to the other.While Mansfield thoroughly discusses

civil rights in a more general manner, Christopher Lasch, details his

thoughts concerning the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. Lasch

believed that progressive ideology [i.e. civil rights movements] weakened

the spirit of sacrifice (Lasch 80). Once again, I believe that Laschs

support of self-sacrifice, hard work, and (as with Mansfield) solid

institutions, comes forth in his retelling of how the Civil Rights M!

ovement saw its greatest moments of success (Lasch 394). Lasch was,

in my opinion, a great supporter of institutions and saw that thecivil

rights movement lost its momentum when it swept to the North where,

there was an absence of institutions that would sustain the communitys

morale (Lasch 399).Similarly, as Mansfield would concur, Lasch appears to

be against reparation for those whose civil rights were hard fought and

finally realized. In other words, Lasch was against compensatory

programs. He believed that such programs, like Affirmative Action, had a

damaging effect on the morale of the minority (Lasch 409). It was

Laschs belief that if minorities characterized themselvesas victims they

would either remain passive (the quintessential victim) or they would

become vindictive and self-righteous (Lasch 406). As with any discussion

of civil rights, it seems that the most obvious desire for equality

surfaces as the next logical debate and, once again, it appears that L!

asch and Mansfield concur that there is an obvious need for a more

equitable distribution of wealth, but neither provides us with anidea of

how to ascertain such a lofty goal (Lasch 532). In fact, Mansfield

discusses how a democratic society, must necessarily comprise of unequal

relationships and that true equality is really only attained by

maintaining a sense of dignity of inferiors and by restraining the pride of

thesuperiors (Mansfield 194).Lasch and Mansfield seem to agree on these

issues even though their perspectives are so different, with Lasch

discussing them from more of a social science level and Mansfield discussing

them in terms of policy and form and both with more than a hint of

conservatism in their thinking.