bogie wheel,

Great post.

This question of what to do about the relationship between public and private is one of the most important for any society to figure out. If we look to the state to set all norms, we end up with fascist totalitarianism. If we ignore the impact of individual behavior on social norms, we end up with anarchy and tyranny of the strong.

Historically, religion was an important source of social cohesion. But the use of the state to enforce religious norms, whether in the Holy Roman Empire, England of Henry VIII, or the Islamic Republic of Iran, clearly creates more problems than it solves. On the other hand, the elimination of religion from political considerations – Neuhaus’ naked public square – has not been good for our nation.

It seems to me the Founders got it right: no state-established religion, but freedom to practice any religion. This balance worked fairly well for a long time. But, contrary to the current fashion within the intelligentsia, the current imbalance was not caused by encroachment of religion on the state, but rather the expansion of the state into areas previously the province of private action, including the practice of religion.

School prayer is a great example. The problem with school prayer is not the notion that kids should pray at school; the problem is that the states run the schools, so any prayer runs afoul of the Establishment Clause. I personally oppose school prayer for the reason that I’m really uncomfortable with politicians deciding what constitutes acceptable prayer. It would be easy to see where ACORN-style tactics could end up exposing kids to really noxious stuff.

The solution, however, is not to force prayer into public schools; the solution is to remove the state control of elementary and high school education. If parents could choose where to send their kids to school, they could directly control the type of prayer (if any) that their kids would be exposed to.

I’m not intending to push this discussion in the direction of debating school prayer. My point here is that the expansion of the state into broad areas of society is the yin to the yang of the romanticization of the individual you wrote of in your post. Somewhere between fascism and radical individualism there lies an optimal balance.

Unfortunately, those who oppose de-romanticization do so because they think the only alternative is Hitler. This line of “argument” is often persuasive because we still remember Hitler.

The Dark Ages, not so much.

Cheers.

L3