Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does

185 Pages·1983·8.982 MB·English

by  George F. Will

IPmrGMRNMEW
DOES
$13.95
George F. Will's long-awaited first full-length
book is a profound inquiry into our national
character and destiny. Its surprising con-
clusions are certain to startle and challenge
conservatives and liberals alike.
Will urges us to reconsidersomeof the most
fundamentalbeliefsin ournational history, for
heconcludesthattheyhavecontributedtopro-
ducing a society that is deeply troubled and in
very real danger. Specifically, he examines the
belief, which dates back to the foundingofthe
nation itself, that "there is no right principleof
action but self-interest." He questions the
FoundingFathers' faith thatmoralbalanceand
national cohesiveness will be supplied by the
government'sdoinglittlemore than encourag-
ing the free operation of "opposite and rival
interests." Two hundred years later, says Will, it
just hasn't worked out that way. Instead, we
have become a nation ofindividuals and inter-
est groups given to habitual self-indulgence in
the unchecked pursuitofmaterial acquisitions
and private passions, and we have been weak-
ened as a civilization to the point that there is
some question whether a society so morally
and spiritually reduced can longendure.
Muchofthe fault, saysWill, maybe traced to
our inadequate understanding ofthe shaping
and guiding role that government can and
should play in determining the moral charac-
terofitscitizens. Wehavesettled fortoonarrow
a definition of government. Although eco-
nomic policy consists of moral choices too,
there is much more to government than eco-
nomics, says Will. A free-market economy is
not, in itself, a sufficient goal for a properly
conservative government. The proper goals of
statecraft, says Will, arejustice, social cohesion
and national strength. Therefore, he urges the
(continuedon backflap)
Also by George Will
The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts
The Pursuit of Virtue and Other ToryNotions
STATECRAFT
AS
SOULCRAFT
WHAT
GOVERNMENT
DOES
GEORGE WILL
E
SIMON AND SCHUSTER
NEW YORK
Copyright © 1983 by G.F.W., Inc., A Maryland Corporation
Allrightsreserved
includingthe rightofreproduction
in whole or in part inany form
Publishedby Si?non and Schuster
A Division of Gulf& Western Corporation
Simon & Schuster Building
Rockefeller Center
12soAvenue of the Americas
New York,New York 10020
Simonand Schusterand colophon
areregistered trademarks ofSimon& Schuster
Designed by Edith Fowler
Manufacturedin the UnitedStates ofAmerica
987654321
10
Library of Congress CataloginginPublicationData
Will,George F.
Statecraftassoulcraft.
Includes bibliographical references andindex.
1. State, The. 2. Conservatism. 3. Welfare state.
I. Title.
JC251.W53 1983 3203 83-455
ISBN0-671-42733-4
The author is grateful for permission to use excerpts from the
followingworks:
Daniel PatrickMoynihan in The NewYorker, © 1981.
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,Roy P. Basler, ed.,
copyright © 1953 by the Abraham Lincoln Association. Re-
printed by permission ofRutgers University Press.
The Federalist, by James Madison, copyright © 1961. Re-
printedby permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Democracy inAmerica, by Alexis de Tocqueville, The Henry
Reeve text, rev. by Francis Bowen, PhillipsBradley, ed., copy-
©
right 1963, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Adams Family Correspondence, L. H. Butterfield and Marc
©
Friedlaender, eds., copyright 1913, Harvard University
Press. Reprinted by permission.
The Life & Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne
Koch and William Peden, eds., copyright © 1944, The Mod-
ern Library, Random House,Inc.
The Shock of the New, by Robert Hughes, copyright ©
1981, AlfredA. Knopf,Inc. Reprintedby permission.
"Prometheus Unbound" from Shelley's Poetry & Prose, se-
lected and edited by Donald H. Reiman and Sharon G.
Powers, copyright © 1977, W. W. Norton & Co.
The Morality of Law, by Lon Fuller, copyright © 1964 by
Yale University Press. Reprintedby permission.
Troilus and Cressida, by©William Shakespeare, Jackson J.
Campbell, ed., copyright 1959 by Yale University Press.
Reprintedby permission.
©
Poems,&1925-1940, by Louis MacNeice, copyright i960,
Faber Faber, London. Reprinted bypermission.
uLittle Gidding," in Four Quartets, copyright © 194s by
T.S. Eliot; renewed 1971 by Esme ValerieEliot. Reprintedby
permission ofHarcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
History of the United States During the Administrations of
Jefferson and Madison, by Henry Adams; George Danger-
field and Otey M. Scruggs, eds., copyright © 1963, Prentice-
Hall,Inc. Reprinted by permission.
To Frederick L. Will
Philosopher
Contents
Preface ii
ONE The Care of OurTime i5
TWO The Defect 25
THREE Out of the Wilderness 47
FOUR SecondNature 66
FIVE The Broken Chain 97
SIX Conservative Political Economy 122
SEVEN EternityWarning Time 140
Acknowledgments 167
Notes 169
Index '79
Well, then,a commonwealth isthe property
of a people. But a people is not any collec-
tion of human beings brought together in
any sort of "way, but an assemblage of peo-
ple in large numbers associated in an agree-
ment with respect to justice and a partner-
ship for the common good. The first cause
of such an association is not so much the
weakness of the individual asa certain social
spirit which nature has implanted in man.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
Preface
On those infrequent occasions when readers want to confer
a compliment on a columnist (or at least, on this one) they
are apt to praise him for not being "predictable." What they
mean is that there is an element of surprise, an unanticipated
turn or outcome in what he writes. But a political commentator
who really is unpredictable is a writer who is all sail and no
rudder, and whose work reflects no discernible philosophy.
When a kind reader calls me unpredictable, I am tempted to
respond: To anyone sufficiently familiar with the minds of
the Oxford Movement, circa 1842, all my conclusions are
predictable.
However, the most frustrating aspect ofa life ofpublic argu-
ment is the assumption by the reading public that the arguer,
because he bears a particular political label, must have a par-
ticular predictability. This gives a writer a dispiriting sense of
being a captive of conventional—but inadequate—categories.
It is not unreasonable for people to think that ideas come in
clusters, like grapes. They think that if a person holds a certain
11