Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 16:03:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott London <london@rain.org>
Subject: THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST by Sheldon Wolin


Book Review:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

PRESENCE OF THE PAST
Essays on the State and the Constitution
By Sheldon S. Wolin
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, 228 pages


The eleven essays collected in this book were occasioned by the
bicentennial celebrations of first the American Revolution and later the
ratification of the U.S. Constitution.  Bicentennials "are by nature
civic," Wolin writes, public "rituals organized to promote a mythic
history."  While they appear to be celebrating the past, however, they
tell us more about our collective identity in the present.  As such, these
essays were written "to illuminate the present political condition"
against the backdrop of the "values, myths, ideologies, and theories"
inspired by the American founding.

     After a brief introduction, Wolin looks at what he considers "the
main paradox at the center of the American Constitution":  the dual
principles of restrained and divided power, on the one hand, and the
sovereign power of "the people," on the other.  He then explores the
notion of collective memory -- "the formation, interpretation, and
retention of a public past."  In "Elitism and the Rage against
Postmodernity" he issues a stern critique of Allan Bloom's "The Closing of
the American Mind" and offers his views on the future of higher education.

Next, he reflects on the development of a "new science of politics," which
Tocqueville described as the uniquely American experiment with democratic
republicanism.  "Tending and Intending a Constitution" outlines the
distinction between what Wolin conceives as two fundamentally different
forms of politics, the "politics of tendance" and the "politics of
intendance," the former associated with a decentralized and diverse
democratic political vision nurtured by actively caring citizens, the
latter characterized by a centralized and homogenized administrative
authoritarian vision controlled by expert professionals, which the Framers
dressed up as republicanism.  "Montesquieu and Publius" addresses the
sources and legacy of "The Federalist," which is, in Wolin's estimation,
the supreme American text.  "E Pluribus Unum" examines the shifting
meanings and significance over time of pluribus, "the many," and unum,
"the one," in our national motto.  "Contract and Birthright" is a critique
of contemporary contract theory =85 la John Rawls and Robert Nozick and a
call for a new interpretation of citizenship based on the notion of
political "birthright," or inheritance.  In "Democracy and the Welfare
State," Wolin sketches a theory of state power based on the connection
between the concept of Reason of State (staatsrason) and the principles of
the welfare state.  "Democracy without the Citizen" explores the
multifaceted and contradictory nature of American citizenship; while "it
is perhaps the most complex conception of citizenship ever devised," Wolin
observes, "we have no coherent conception of it."  In the concluding
essay, "Democracy and Operation Democracy," he reflects on the
increasingly rhetorical nature of the democratic idea in contemporary
American politics.

     At bottom, these essays all express a deep concern about the
"antidemocratic thrust" and "the steady de-democratization of American
society."  Wolin traces this trend to the ratification of the Constitution
in 1787 which he says betrayed the spirit of the Revolution.  He presents
the issue in terms of the loss of democracy (as it was embodied in the
Declaration of Independence) as a result of the rise of the state
(following the ratification of the Constitution).  The American
contribution of 1787 was that the Framers chose a state and a Constitution
both at the same moment.  This act laid the groundwork for the development
of the "megastate" by subordinating the local power structures necessary
for a genuinely democratic politics.  The Constitution, in other words,
was a modernizing, centralizing document designed to suppress
decentralized, popular forms of politics.  Its essential purpose was not
to limit power but to generate it =C4 to unlock "access to power, making it
available to the state."  The Founders' determination to reduce popular
influence in government and to avoid the "weakness inherent in democratic
states" also had the effect of creating a new role for citizens as
"watchers of how their powers are being used rather than as participants
in those uses."  In this way, "the citizenry was conceived in terms that
allowed the American political animal to evolve into the domesticated
creature of media politics" -- a passive, depoliticized spectator of
politics as carried out by technocratic elitists, bureaucrats, and
ideologues.  Today, with the rise of "a postmodern politics in which
democracy serves primarily a rhetorical function with little or no
correlative in official institutions and practices," we have "virtually
ceased to think of ourselves as a political people."


                                   Scott London * london@rain.org