Democracy and Dignity, on this 4th of July
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This is a holiday release for this newsletter and it breaks from recent convention. Have no fear: I’ll still remind you that I have a book coming out soon. But first, there are more important things to say.
On this Fourth of July, I will resist the urge to write about the American Revolution or about the process by which the fourth came to be celebrated in a way that eventually made the founders and their texts appear as secular saints. Instead, I would like to affirm two foundational values: the essential dignity of every person and the primacy of democratic politics. Both of these values have long been central to the American story, and both have also been frequently deprecated, ignored, and transgressed. (Frederick Douglass made a version this point at a 4th celebration in 1852.) Today, as has often been the case, we have the opportunity to commit ourselves collectively to doing better—and this day seems as good a day as any to renew that commitment.
You could say that dignity and democracy are tenets of my political faith. They are grounded in and were shaped by my religious faith. As a late-teen and into my early adult years, I encountered Calvinist interpretations of Christianity:
all people are made in the image of God;
but all people fall short of the glory of God;
and the only hope for any of us is a grace and forgiveness that none deserve.
Now, I need hardly tell you, dear reader, that these principles have been applied in the world in various and sundry, and sometimes terrible, ways. In some of the very earliest years of English colonial expansion to North America, these ideas justified a hierarchical and unequal society—consider, for instance, the way John Winthrop began the sermon/speech that is now most famous for its “city on a hill” line:
“God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence, hath soe disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others mean and in submission.”
Those principles were also used to advance intolerance for other Christians (especially Catholics), Jews, and Muslims. Today, many evangelicals who would nod along with me as I recited these principles would then insist that they justify making our modern society more hierarchical, less equal, and more intolerant. But for me, there is no better argument for dignity and democracy than these principles: since we’re all fundamentally flawed, no individual deserves better than anyone else—the commitment to dignity is a practice of grace; and democracy both inculcates and preserves individual dignity, declaring each person equal in the eyes of the government.
This is, I recognize, an intellectual path that is peculiar and particular. I hope that you agree with me about dignity and democracy, but I don’t expect many of my readers will share my reasons.
The distressing thing is that as I write these words both dignity and democracy seem to me to face rather terrible peril.
Our system has long fallen short when it comes to affirming the right of every person to choose their leaders in open elections. For a while there, in the middle of the twentieth century, things were looking up. But the progress made in the United States by civil rights activists and politicians to expand the franchise was and is far from secure in the face of an often antagonistic Supreme Court and many state legislatures bent on retrenchment. Congress had the opportunity to pass landmark legislation (H.R. 1 and H.R. 4) to protect voting rights, but it has so far failed, in large part out of deference to the filibuster (a rule that designed to slow or stymie democratic decision-making). So too have our political leaders allowed the nearly 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia to languish without representation, for no good reason.
And I am sure I not alone among my readers in judging last month’s Supreme Court decisions as major blows to the dignity of each person. When I talk about dignity, I have an expansive ideal. We honor dignity when we honor the rights of each person, so far as possible, to self-determination. Here, again things can get messy and you might not agree, but I think self-determination is not simply protected by negative rights—by, for instance, freedom from religious persecution or from punishment for political speech. Dignity is crucially made possible by a series of positive rights: like a right to safe and adequately compensated employment, a right to expect safety in one’s community, or a right to a clean, life-supporting environment. Certainly, dignity demands that each person has a right to care for and maintain their body, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. So, it is devastating to read that the Supreme Court has hampered New York’s attempt to decrease the harm its residents endure from guns, has undercut the government’s efforts to curb pollution that threatens whole ecosystems, and—in the Dobbs decision—robbed women and trans men of a fundamental right to privacy and autonomy. Tressie McMillan Cottom states clearly that all Americans are harmed by this decision, even as some are burdened more than others: “When women cannot move freely across this nation, sure that they have basic human rights as they migrate, we are all anchored to the poverty of their choices.”
Some reforms aimed at making our society more democratic and better able to preserve individual dignity would require amending the U.S. Constitution—which feels nearly impossible. That includes setting aside the electoral college or limiting the terms of Supreme Court justices.
But other steps would only require the passage of legislation—which also feels close to impossible, but should not!
D.C. could be granted statehood, and it should be.
The Supreme Court could be increased in size, and it should be.
The filibuster could be suspended, and it should be, and it probably would need to be for any other steps to be taken.
Finally, as I wrote in a piece that appeared in WIRED last week, the U.S. House could be increased in size, and it should be.
As promised, I will remind you that you can pre-order DEMOCRACY’S DATA, out on August 23, 2022.
The final lines of the book’s conclusion explain how much of what I just wrote in this newsletter motivated my research:
“the ideals still mattered, and the census strove to attain them. That, ultimately, was what drew me to study the census in the first place. This data teems with the stories of Americans from all walks of life, the sort of stories that a historian cannot find anywhere else. In telling such stories, I aim above all to affirm each person’s dignity and advocate for the inherent, equal value of every individual, even or especially when the census itself did not.”
In other news, Publishers Weekly reviewed DD last week: “Historian Bouk…delivers a painstaking and penetrating analysis of the 1940 census....Combining lucid statistical analysis and empathetic profiles of enumerators and respondents, this is a rewarding deep dive into how the census works.”
And if you can’t wait until August to think more about the census, I highly recommend this recent essay by my friend and collaborator danah boyd, who wrote this piece with Jayshree Sarathy. (I’ll write more about this essay on the blog or in a future newsletter.)
Thanks for reading, and here's wishing us all a continued commitment to dignity and democracy.
Dan