Written by: thabiso4
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.