Twin Towers

Renewing America's Covenant at 250

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[Image: View of the Statue of Liberty, framed by the twin towers of the World Trade Center, in 1977. Photographer: Brownie Harris/Corbis Historical via Getty Images]

Let’s keep this debate brief, for through brevity one can come to understand the greatest of truths.

I would ask the reader to agree with two propositions, those I declare to be self-evident, :
There are many good things in the world that need to be preserved.
There are many less than good things that must be improved.

A ṕrogressive* says that we must change that which is bad without delay.
A conservative says that we must jealously defend that which is good.

They are both correct! Which is why these divisive labels are so unhelpful. 

We are called upon to protect everything that has brought us stability, freedom, a less-violent world and a more economically prosperous society.  We are also called upon to change that which is bad. We must do this without (unnecessary) delay.  In a heartbeat where possible;  but NEVER at the risk of destroying any progress or benefit that we have already achieved.

 Until we can, in each individual case, find a way to improve the bad without destroying the hard-fought-for good, we cannot move from our current position. To do so would be morally objectionable. 

An example. Extreme inequality is bad BUT property rights and legal certainty are good. Unless we can find a creative way to reduce inequality further without harming property rights, we are obliged NOT to act. Yet simultaneously,  we are obliged to ceaselessly search out new ways to reduce inequality.

So the golden test for action is clear:
What immediate action can we take to improve the bad without reducing the good by even one drop?

Earlier I spoke of two certainties which are self-evident, but to these I would add a third:
That there are many things that are neither especially good nor bad, but which are unique or at least particular to each nation. 

Progressives are less concerned about guarding these morally neutral traditions, and even are happy to see them go. Yet Conservatives want to keep them as a matter of heritage (or inflated employment).  

So Spanish bureaucracy is a nightmare but it keeps people in a job. Spanish cuisine is meat-heavy, but isn’t that the cuisine that defines the country? World wanderers like myself would be happy for changes in these domains, but Spanish conservatives have the right to fight to keep their sense of identity. It is in this space that legitimate debate is to be had, so long as that which is wanted to be preserved is not an easily changeable wrong.  

Both conservatives and progressives must be on our guard against two groups:
Reactionaries: They want to preserve everything in aspect whether it is good or bad. This is the Ancien Régime.
Revolutionaries: They want to destroy everything that is good just to (theoretically)  improve that which is not yet good. This is the French Revolution.
Both are to be defended against.
And thank God in the Anglosphere that is precisely what has happened.
Historically.
Until now.

Instead of viewing the preserving and progressing tendencies as in opposition, we must see them as complementary. If we have no desire to change, we are doomed to repeat history. But if we only want to change, we lack humility; we lack understanding; we dismiss the truth that we stand on the shoulders of giants.

****

Today we must become Captains in the choppiest of waters.
We must navigate the "unnavigable" North Western Passage.
We must look to the left,
then look to the right,
and cross the ocean with faith in our hearts.
For the sailors are looking to us with hope.

And though the task be lonely
and the challenge daunting,
it is ours to undertake.
We must trust our instinct and venture forward.

Once upon a time, there was a Frenchman.
He dared himself to undertake the greatest of challenges;
to cross between the greatest of gulfs 
and traverse the emptiest of skies.

Between the mighty Twin Towers of New York did he venture
with only a trapeze-artist's cable to support him.
To maintain his equilibrium, 
in the face of wind, weather and unimaginable fear,
he looked neither to the left nor to the right.
For one false move would spell his doom.

And so it was that he looked straight forward,
serenity shrouding him,
and no hint of a thought that death could result.
And he succeeded!
He progressed forward.
He maintained his balance.

Years later,
those towers were destroyed.
Annihilated at the hand of a hateful cult.
Thousands burned to their death,
fell to their death
and had their deaths celebrated by those that would see us  gone.

Those towers stood as twins.
Equal in height and equal in attention.
One was on one left, one was on the right.
One cried conservation, the other advance. 
Together there were beacons of the progress that was America.

Yet that day they were destroyed by those that would divide.
When those towers tumbled, so did our cohesion.
We were trapeze artists that had imagined death and fallen to our doom.
The unthinkable had been thought and we collapsed into madness.
That day we were divided,
but today we must rebuild;
upwards from ground zero.

We need each other;
or else New York, 
and all we represent,
will remain in rubble.
May we progress together in faith and trust.
May we progress together with confidence in our hearts.
May we progress together united,
a free people,
in a unified land.  

Phillippe Petit crossing between the twin towers of the WTC in 1974

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Not because you have to. Not because you have any shortage of free reading material. But just because you value this work. “Man shall not live by bread alone” [Deuteronomy 8:3]

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*Note that the use of “progressive” in this article in non-pejorative. I am not speaking of those on the Democrat squaddie left that have co-opted the title, but rather of those that seek a) immediate and bold changes b) to bring about a “better world” c) with a lesser regard than conservatives for tradition.