FA I T H A N D T H E A C A D E M Y: E N G A G I N G T H E C U LT U R E W I T H G R A C E A N D T R U T H
political tradition produces powerful and determined personalities like presidents Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It also produces highly successful entrepreneurs like John D. Rockefeller, Sam Walton, and even Steve Jobs. At the point when institutionalists rely upon the strength of will and the virtuous sink into ideological bubbles, there is no room for partnerships between the two thus creating political problems that often seem insurmountable. Typically fewer Americans assent to the virtue tradition. It is safe to say, however, that people like this often serve as the clear power brokers in modern, partisan politics. Up until present times, the virtuous served the useful function of keeping political life contained, tame, and less abrasive. They shaped party platforms, occupied important places in media and movement organizations, and ultimately served as the gatekeepers for those seeking office. They shared mannerisms and personality preferences despite deep divisions along ideological lines. An argument can be made that the lasting tension between the virtuous and the institutionalists only benefits those in the Hamiltonian, financial political culture. It can be easy to then conclude that the financial elites will always win no matter which political party holds power. Yet in a period when portions of those elites now foster specific ideological demands, those holding to traditional virtues as well as the value of traditional institutions should settle their grievances. In time, traditional virtues will be totally supplanted by new ideological fads and prescriptions. Irrespective of every religious and thoughtful effort to defend traditional virtues, the tide has turned against them. In no short order, the virtue tradition will further fragment along impenetrable ideological lines and ever more institutions will be forced to meet
ideological litmus tests. The cultural descendants of Adams and Jefferson will suffer together unless “Jeffersonians” learn to speak the language of virtue and at least cautiously embrace it. But advocates of traditional virtues must be prepared to do what they historically failed to do. They must accept that the things that matter to most people are not found in elite culture, and they must learn to speak without pretention, or worse, apply principles totally alien to common circumstances. It may also demand that the virtuous accept that no matter how decent their leaders may be, corrupt institutions may still overwhelm the most steadfast. To state that both sides need each other now more than ever may seem trite. Their very survival now depends upon it.
The best lengthy treatment of the turbulent friendship of Adams and Jefferson remains Gordon S. Wood, Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (Penguin, 2017). 1
2 Forrest McDonad, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (University of Kansas Press, 1985). See especially chapter 3. McDonald covers the “financial” tradition most directly in Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (W.W. Norton, 1982). 3 See John Steele Gordon, Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of our National Debt (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010), and The Business of America: Tales from the Marketplace - American Enterprise from the Settling of New England to the Breakup of AT&T (Walker and Company, 2001). 4 The literature on the “virtue” tradition is abundant and includes classic works such as Alasdair MacIntyr, After Virtue (University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) to Quinten Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1978). To understand its shift in modern American, see Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: The Story of Ideas in America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002). 5 Carol Hanisch, “The Personal is Political,” reprinted in Barbara A. Crow, Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader (New York University Press, 2000).
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