Introduction: The Need for a New Social Covenant
On how we got here: Let us tell you a story…
[Insert here: story that gets us to contract vs. covenant - quickly, entertainingly]
A Republic In Crisis
The Republic is in crisis.
The foundations are ruptured.
Consensus is shattered.
The yearning for “a more perfect union” is abandoned.
Political nihilism conquered.
We must climb the mountain of hope.
Something must be done.
A new social covenant must be forged.
How Did We Get Here?
[Alternative start: A particular scene]
[Recall the scene of the confirmation hearings for Amy Conen Barrett. Trace out the mistake of textual originalism. The mistake follows from treating the Constitution as a “normal” legal contract. From there, introduce the distinction between a contract and a covenant. A covenant is what forms a nation and binds it together.]
The Foundings
The Pre-Founding: The Colonial Period ()
The Founding: A New Nation (1776-1790s)
There was a Declaration of Independence from the Crown. Led to the Constitution, which worked.
The social compact of the Founding broke in the 1850s, triggering the U.S. Civil War.
The Second Founding: Reconstruction (1865-1870)
The 2nd… was from slavery: the Emancipation Proclamation. Led to the Second Founding, which worked partially.
This work is the third. This work is motivated as a Declaration of Independence from autocracy.
The Third Founding: The Key Civil Rights Legislation (1964-1965)
[We thus elevate the stakes.] We are in such a condition that this work is essentially a third DoI.
[PL: I never read the Em Proc.] This Declaration must convey the same powerful message that are corresponding in their generality and power of their values to the same level of the first two DoIs.
The Need for a Fourth Founding, Based on a New Social Covenant
Each of the foundings addresed fundamental questions:
Who is a member of the society?
-
What justifies the creation of government and the exercise of state power?
- Distinguish: overt justification vs. “real” justification.
What is the form of government?
What are the foundational values that the society is committed to, and that the government must honor?
Who has full political rights?
Each of the foundings represents a change in the answers to these questions.
First founding, colonial period:
- Who has rights: White, propertied males.
- Justification:
- Overt: Divine right of the monarch.
- “Real”: Self-interest
- Plato, Republic: Thracymachus: “might makes right”, self-interest is the justification
[Default dynamic:
- Nature abhors a power vacuum
- Thus “might makes right” becomes the ipso facto modus operandi, the default justification
To counter this dynamic, must have firm covenental values that provide an alternative justification for the control and exercise of power, including especially state power and the monopoly over (legitimate) exercise of violence.
Any other justification, w/o the covenental values becomes merely rhetorical dressing for the raw attempt to gain power.
This model is right in front of us right now in the USA 2021. The GQP is exactly this.
Claim: The abhorrent pursuit of power can never create a society that supports human flourishing.
]
Democracy depends on what we do now. This work is intended as a map of what needs to be done.
We need to make sure that this DoI, and subsequent refounding, works fully.
This is a Declaration about how to organize ourselves with real, inclusive, genuine representative democracy, guided by the values that were already declared from the beginning.
The Foreward presents the rationale for the 5th founding: hard-hitting, blunt, concise, clear, crisp, powerfully motivating the rationale and general structure for the 5th Founding.
Reaction we want: “I see the history; I see the current situation; I see the need; I see the goal.”
Elements that will contribute to this kind of a document must be clear, concise, punchy, rhythmically-stated.
Culminating in the 4th Founding.
For each founding:
- What is involved;
- What are the values;
Need parallelism between the first three. Gives credence to the claim we advance that there is a need for the 4th Founding.
What this project is, and why we undertake it.
Liberal democracy is in big trouble
A central problem: confusion over our shared basic values
The concept of a social covenant
A covenant:
- establishes (or re-establishes) a community;
- defines who is a member of the community;
- identifies what it is that binds the community together – divine command, blood relations, shared allegiance to a sovereign power, voluntary association, …
- identifies the terms of association, the shared values, and some foundational laws that members of the community proclaim, accept, and agree to live by
The difference between a social covenant and a constitution
A constitution is a political document
A social covenant is both political and spiritual
The adoption of a new social covenant is always ritualized, in a grand ceremony.
Periodic rituals reaffirm the commitment to the community.
Always, symbols are used to stand for the community as a whole, and indicate membership in it. (Flags, patches, logos, …)
The terms of the covenant are incomplete
The covenant states broad, general principles or values by which the community will live. These values are not stated with legal precision. The statement of principle does not cover all cases of application, and is not intended to.
The covenant does not describe the process of governance. It does not state the number of members in representative political bodies, their powers, and the mechanisms of their selection and replacement. Rather, the covenant states objectives and constraints that governance processes must adhere to.
The U.S. today: A contested covenant
A central confusion in the U.S. today concerns the disputed terms of our unwritten social covenant, and confusion over the difference between our covenant and our Constitution.
The U.S. has a de facto social covenant
The U.S. has a written social contract: the Constitution.
The U.S. has an unwritten social covenant. In fact, more than one.
Our social covenant is spread over a few places: The Declaration of Independence. The Preamble to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights. The Pledge of Allegiance.
The social convenant of the U.S. is contested
Some basic terms of our social covenant have never been settled.
Who is a full member of the community?
What are the rights and obligations of community members to one another?
What role does religion and religious scripture hold in setting the terms of the covenant – if any?
The project we undertake in this book
Our project in this book is to update social contract theory for the 21st Century and beyond.
We argue that before entering into a social contract, a community must first form its social covenant.
In Part I, we review concepts and examples of social covenants in scripture and in pre-modern history. These covenants typically involved divine sanction or divine command.
In Part II, we review the concept of the social contract, and how it grew out of the philosophical environment of the Enlightenment. We also discuss how, where, and why the political project of the Enlightenment went wrong. (Did it?) Spoiler alert: the mistakes were to lose sight of the sacred and spiritual nature of the covenant, and to lose sight of human flourishing as the only appropriate objective for political arrangements.
Starting in Part III, we examine deeply the philosophical foundations of the Enlightenment political project. We focus on the key concepts of autonomy, self-governance, reason, and eudaemonia a.k.a. human flourishing.
Part IV discusses the political arrangements that underpin conditions that support human flourishing. It investigates how the social covenant relates to the social contract and to the constitution.
In Part V, we propose a new social covenant for the United States. We offer proposed text, and describe the form of ritual ceremony in which it would be adopted, proclaimed, and affirmed.