“Until the late nineteenth century the question of woman’s ability to profit from or even survive higher education was controversial. Vassar College opened in 1865 was often described by its first president as an experiment.… as late as 1871 an MD at Harvard Medical School published a book on the dangers of higher education for girls, he doubted the achievement was worth the cost from their psyche and procreative powers.”

From: Carl N Degler, In Search of Human Nature, Oxford University Press 1991

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Self-definition is one of the engines driving the American dream. Americans have long-held their definitive independence to be an advanced position. Ideas have salience. Self-definition is a salient idea.

The self-definitive entitlement is similar to a salient in the isolation it brings to self-definers. Safe leaps for humans are likely to be no more than a few feet, not a thousand miles. Life in herd, traditional family and tribe generally felt more secure. Our recent human opportunity for self-expression and personal development was barely anticipated.

Self-definition might be defined as leadership from within or personalized civilization. From Pilgrims wading toward Plymouth’s shore to chained slaves staggering off ships, self-definition was the most important opportunity in  America. Self-definition is a declaration of independence for most immigrants.

Healthy self-definition is a powerful ideology, but it’s also a job. Healthy self-definition and selfishness are different life-styles. The personalized pursuit of happiness can be dangerous when self-definition isn’t balanced by community commitments. Self-definition is a practical social adventure to the extent that humans succeed in communal self-management.

The action figure in democracy is the individual. The number of personal decisions made in a lifetime is increasing geometrically. Individualism is in ascendance. Many kinds of traditional restrictions on self-definition are rapidly eroding. Self-definitive rights are flourishing. Globally self-definition is expanding the range of human leadership.

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The Partisan Blame Game

Here’s one question close to the heart of every patriotic American: Who’s responsible for the disappearance of manufacturing jobs? Republicans blame “corrupt” unions. Democrats blame “greedy” corporations. Both explanations are distorted oversimplifications. The truth is more complex. An important factor in the disappearance of manufacturing jobs is also a tribute to American ingenuity.

In the depths of the Great Depression, a North Carolina farm boy with a high school education gave up a job pumping gas, bought a secondhand truck, and went on to build McLean Trucking. McLean grew into one of the largest trucking companies in U.S. history, and was the first to be listed on the stock exchange. But Malcom Purcell McLean’s real claim to fame is as the leading pioneer of containerized shipping.

Before containerization, cargo was “loaded, lashed, unlashed and unloaded from the ship one piece at a time” by stevedores. “What was new about McLean’s innovation was the idea of using large containers that were never opened in transit between shipper and consignee and that were transferable on an intermodal basis, among trucks, ships and railcars.”

Manufacturers couldn’t move jobs to low-wage factories in other parts of the world until there was a way to economically transport vast quantities of goods long distances. McLean led the way in solving this problem. A container ship can be loaded or unloaded in a few hours. There is less breakage and pilferage. Containerization dramatically reduced shipping time and costs. The largest ships now carry up to 15,000 containers.

“By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world’s workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the world.” It’s easy to discover what happened to American manufacturing jobs. Just list the world’s busiest container ports: Singapore,  Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Qingdao, Dubai  and Rotterdam.

As McLean’s first ship was leaving port, “Freddy Fields, a top official of the International Longshoremen’s Association ., asked what he thought of the newly fitted container ship, replied, ‘I’d like to sink that son of a bitch.’” The unions weren’t the only ones trying to block practical innovation.“Shipping lines, railway companies … vehemently opposed and tried to block the use of containerized ships. Traditional U.S. flag carriers … Moore-McCormack, Delta-Lines and Prudential-Grace saw a threat to their market dominance with … conventional break-bulk vessels … [and] jointly … induced South American governments to invoke legislation outlawing Sea-Land’s containers …”

Noah’s Ark may have been the first container ship mentioned in history. Every kind shared one boat. First the flood of oversimplification is going to rain down upon us “until all the high mountains are covered fifteen cubits deep,” and balanced perspective is “blotted out from the Earth.” Then we will disembark together, to reconstruct the spiritual and material economies of our devastated lands, with God’s covenanted rainbow of diversity extending over all, guiding our common future and bolstering our hope.

One Nation Under God

The flood of election year distortion eventually recedes. When your mind’s made up, and you’re ready to tolerate any distortion as long as your side wins, recall Noah. Strive for truth and righteousness. Resist partisan oversimplification. Shun divisive distortion. Remember that the healthiest patriotism is grounded in facts, not partisan politics.

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Many claiming they have no interest in history are attentive to the sixth-century A.D. predictions of Nostradamus and the fifth-century B.C. Mayan prophecies. If the treasury received $5 every time the media mentioned one of these historic fantasies, our national financial crisis would be resolved.

The Erie Canal

In a time when civilization sometimes feels like a dangerous gamble, it makes sense to remember and celebrate historic successes like the Erie Canal that exemplify our capacity to improve human circumstances. Civilization’s success stories are less dramatic than Nostradamus’s cataclysms, but they have the advantage of being based on facts.

In 1800, the biggest obstacle to national development was the Appalachian mountain range, which made it impossible to move bulk freight such as corn and wheat from the heartland to the East Coast. Mountain roads were rough, long and scarce. The Mohawk River Valley, a channel between the Catskills and the Adirondacks, was the only natural passage through the Appalachians from Alabama to the St. Lawrence River. The Erie Canal was routed through it.

The project’s cost was unprecedented. Private developers tried to build the canal and went bankrupt. A delegation of New Yorkers appealed to President Thomas Jefferson for federal support. Jefferson called the project “a little short of madness” and “said to come back in 100 years because the project would bankrupt the nation let alone the state,” according to Wikipedia.

New York Governor De Witt Clinton took up the cause; he was mocked. But in 1817 Clinton persuaded the New York Legislature to appropriate $7 million.

The canal became one of the most incredible success stories in American history when it opened eight years later. Freight expectations were exceeded immediately. The canal provided a navigable connection between the upper Midwest and Western Europe via New York City, which became America’s leading city, surpassing other Atlantic coast ports including Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The canal opened large areas of the American frontier to settlement and economic development and drastically cut transport costs. New York is called the Empire State primarily because of this unique connection through the Great Lakes to the Midwestern heartland.

What lessons can we derive from this story?

– Keep national and state government strong. There’s so much anti-government talk these days, it’s easy to forget that both the Erie Canal and the U.S. Constitution were incredibly successful government projects.

– Take advantage of ideas and developments from every nation. The Erie Canal project was inspired by a successful canal project in Britain and was completed using technology developed by the Dutch. Most of the workers were German-Irish and Scotch-Irish immigrants.

Many historic successes came as a complete surprise. Civilization is about identifying and developing natural advantages. There is reason to be hopeful.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Omar N. Bradley “were immensely ambitious.” So says The New York Times, reviewing the recently published summary of their relationship, “Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley and the Partnership that Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe,” by Jonathan W. Jordan. Like many politicians in Washington today, these three great generals disagreed frequently. But, as Jordan’s book describes, they worked together to win World War II in Europe. Their shared objectives took precedence over their personal perspectives.

In his review of Jordan’s book, Michael Korda writes, “… In the end, they somehow got it right, and managed to deploy America’s strength on the battlefield in a way that not only defeated, but destroyed, an army that was in some respects better equipped, better trained, undoubtedly more battle hardened and, until the very end, motivated by a degree of fanaticism that went beyond mere dedication to country.”

Civilization’s Challenges

In 2011, the economic situation we find ourselves in resembles war. Tens of millions of people are suffering. The nation’s health is in jeopardy. More will suffer if our national credit rating becomes a casualty. The most tragic loss of all would be the premature death of the American dream.

Our national leadership is flawed, yet no more flawed than their constituents, the American people; no more flawed than the leaders of other peoples; no more flawed than the entire human constituency. Civilization’s challenges are not going away. A century of problems and solutions lie before us. What we hope is that our elected and appointed leaders find ways to minimize the damage and maximize the opportunities on behalf of the American people.

The Founding Fathers’ design of our government with a separation of powers presupposed that a spirit of compromise would encourage differing branches and factions to unify in the best interests of the American people. Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Montgomery and de Gaulle worked together because the situation they were appointed to deal with demanded it. Eisenhower was in command.

In Washington today, uncompromising politics is in command. Many of our government leaders – in the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the executive branch – are so committed to political dogma and their financial backers that they are unwilling to find common ground. But there will be no unconditional surrenders and no total victories. Let compromise be the order of the day.

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