June 13, 2011

This is a postscript of a sort to my posting of June 4. In the last paragraph there, I referred to Page Smith’s use of the term “redemption.” His usage was not casual or unique; the last volume of his U.S. history, published in 1987, was entitled Redeeming the Time .⁵¹ The phrase is borrowed from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In the course of advising them how to live and to conduct themselves, Paul said, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”⁵² Modern translations drop the word “redeeming,” and produce something like this: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”⁵³ The former is not altogether clear: how does one redeem time? The latter uses more a familiar phrase but it still doesn’t quite track: the word “because” seems out of place; should one not make the best use of time when days are not evil? A more cogent modern version is this paraphrased rendering: “Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days.”⁵⁴

Leaving aside the amateur exegesis, when I read Redeeming the Time years ago, I was puzzled by the intent of the title. Having read Dissenting Opinions, I’m convinced that Smith meant to refer to redemption in a way not far removed from its religious meaning.  The passage I quoted on June 4 is part of this discussion:

In the United States, the Great Depression turned out to be in some ways a blessing in disguise. It broke the spirit and the resistance of capitalism to widespread social reform. Such reforms, it seems clear, could never have been pushed through Congress in "good times.". . . The second great conflict in our history was finally resolved . . . . First slavery was abolished; then labor was given a "fair share" of the bounty or booty of capital.

So there has been not so much progress perhaps but redemption. Redemption from our most deplorable sins. We have a larger, more humane view of our responsibilities toward each other. . . .

This theme of societal redemption is the heart of the final chapter of Redeeming the Time . “I believe that the tendency of history, of all human institutions is downward, toward complacency, decadence, obtuseness, and coldness of heart, and that we are saved only by the often obscure but heroic efforts of men and women whose passion it has been to redeem the world.” It would not be an exaggeration to say that complacency, obtuseness and coldness of heart characterize much of contemporary politics and that the culture shows signs of decadence.

Smith set forth a number of themes which he thought characterized American history. The principal two, as noted, were the abolition of slavery and the achievement of relative equality by black Americans, and “the making of peace in the war between capital and labor.” A subsidiary theme was “the central role of religion in American history, specifically the Protestant passion for redemption,” appearing in various reform movements. This is a liberal, social, version of redemption. Both the secular use of that term and the content of the social version may offend contemporary religious conservatives, but the “social gospel” comes closer to the spirit of Christianity than the libertarian views of the political branch of the religious right.

Despite the positive role that Smith sees for Protestantism, it seems to me that the Protestant ethic has two serious flaws, at least when it emerges in political action, which have some bearing on our present state. One is that its missionary impulse produces a tendency to insist that the world do things our way, sometimes expressed in lectures and sometimes in action, including military adventures. Smith, writing during (although near the end of) the Cold War, recognized that:

[W]e have . . . managed to become what I am sure the Founding Fathers would have deplored (or do deplore) — that is to say, a menace to the rest of the world, or at least we are perceived by the rest of the world as a menace only slightly less to be feared than the other leading brand. That, of course, is not our view of ourselves; we are full of our famous rectitude and self-righteousness, confident that it is our mission to save the world from its own error and folly in the form of communism or socialism. . . . Our real problem at the moment is not how to save the world but how to keep from destroying it with our constantly and loudly professed good intentions . . . .

The other, more domestic, flaw — and here I’m treading close to heresy — is that the Protestant emphasis on personal salvation encourages a self-centered attitude, to the detriment of social responsibility. Smith also recognized that tendency: “The Protestant Reformation re-formed the intellectual and psychological world of the faithful. It created a new human type, the 'individual," a person free from the constraints of traditional society, a person guided by faith and, above all, by will. . . .” That sort of person is not the ideal citizen.

Throughout his history, Smith referred to two philosophies or attitudes which he termed the Classical-Christian Consciousness and the Secular-Democratic Consciousness. The former is embodied in the Constitution; the latter was the philosophy of the Jeffersonian revolution which followed. The former emphasized human fallibility, while the latter, incorporating the ideas of the Enlightenment, was more optimistic about progress. The New Deal and Great Society represent the high point of that reforming, democratizing impulse and though, according to Smith, it has weaknesses as well as strengths, it is still needed: “Inadequate as the Secular-Democratic Consciousness is in its notion of human nature, we can ill afford to lose it because it has been characterized throughout its history by a Utopian vision and a passion for reform.”

We have not entirely returned to the Classical-Christian Consciousness (especially not to the first half of that), but elements of it are evident, and problematic: “The Classical-Christian Consciousness, on the other hand, has often shown itself relatively indifferent to the issues of social justice and reform, frequently taking the line that poverty, for example, is always with us . . . .” Not surprisingly, Smith thought that we needed the best features of each, but we are further from that now than in 1987.
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51. Vol. 8 of A People's History of the United States
52. Ephesians 5: 15-16, King James Version
53. Ephesians 5: 15-16, Revised Standard Version
54. The Letter to Ephesus 5:15 et..seq., in Letters to Young Churches , J.B. Phillips translation