Is It American?
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow toastmasters, and guests:
Man is a social animal. He is born into a family and thrives best when there are others he can interact with. Crusoe on his desert island may be able to survive for a while, but he will not be able truly to live as a human being.
Throughout the course of man's history there have been many different types of society, many different ways in which people have organized their lives to meet their need for society. But all of these different types of society can be categorized into two archetypes based on two essentially different ways for people to deal with each other: voluntary cooperation and involuntary coersion.
As a necessary result of this defining difference, these two types of social organization have certain other characteristics that distinguish the one from the other.
A society based on voluntary cooperation values each individual person as an individual. It recognizes and celebrates the fact that everyone differs in abilities, capabilities, values, desires and choices. And as a result of this diversity and consequent respect for each individual's choices, all are able to achieve their maximum happiness, tempered only by the unavoidable facts of nature and vicissitudes of life.
This is the sort of society envisioned by Thomas Jefferson when he wrote, using ideas first expressed by John Locke, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
This is the sort of society that America started out to be.
On the other hand, a society based on involuntary coersion puts the society, the collective above the individual. It subordinates the values and desires of the individuals that make up the society to the goals of the society as a whole. Sometimes these societal goals are decreed by one person or a small group of people and sometimes by majority votes. In either case, each individual becomes a mere cog in the social mechanism.
That is the sort of society that the American settlers sought to escape.
That is the sort of society that was common throughout the world until the American Revolution and unfortunately still predominates throughout most of the world today.
That is the sort of society that leads to internal and external wars, that stiffles progress, that tends toward a dull, grey sameness.
With these distinctions in mind, I'd like you to consider which of these two types of society corresponds to the ideas expressed in the Pledge of Allegience.
| Which type of society is more likely to have a single icon to which everyone pledges allegience: a society of individuals with many different and varied values or a society in which individual values are subordinated to those of the whole? | ...to the flag... |
| Which type of society promotes unity forever: a society of individuals whose constantly shifting associations make for a vibrant, exciting life; or a society where everyone is content doing his assigned task. | ...one nation... |
| Which type of society is more likely to worship a single deity: a society of individuals that values freedom of thought and realizes that anyone can have a good idea and that understands the lesson of history that religious tolerance is essential to peace; or a society in which the "leaders" always know best. | ...under God... |
| In which type of society are people more likely to actually live lives of justice with equality before the law and in which are people more likely to be content with mouthing slogans that have long since lost their meaning? | ...with liberty
and justice for all... |
Ladies and gentlemen, the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister who was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he expressed the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).
Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality (that is, sameness) for all. In their vision the government would run a peace time economy similar to the command economy of war time.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Toastmasters, I submit to you that the ideas expressed in the Pledge of Allegiance contradict the principles of the free and open and voluntary society that the American Revolution was fought to achieve.
And of course, according to those very principles, the decision whether or not to participate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance remains a decision for each of us to make for himself.
Presented by Rick Pasotto on 2000-03-21
