{"id":54914,"date":"2021-05-06T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T10:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=54914"},"modified":"2021-05-06T08:11:16","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T12:11:16","slug":"vocation-and-americas-unwritten-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2021\/05\/vocation-and-americas-unwritten-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Vocation and America’s Unwritten Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\u201cBeing a free American requires practically loving your neighbors so that the government doesn\u2019t have to love them for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the conclusion of a fascinating essay by Cameron Hilditch entitled America\u2019s Unwritten, Unraveling Constitution<\/a>.\u00a0 You might recognize in that line the doctrine of vocation, which, as we keep saying<\/a>, is not so much about our self-fulfillment as about loving and serving our neighbors.<\/p>\n

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Thus, Hilditch is suggesting that vocation is at the heart of America\u2019s unwritten constitution.<\/p>\n

He is discussing Alexis de Tocqueville\u2019s analysis of American culture in his 1835 classic Democracy in America<\/a>.\u00a0 Hilditch points out that de Tocqueville, in trying to work out why American democracy avoided the dysfunctions of the French revolution, says little about the written framework set up in\u00a0the U.S. Constitution.\u00a0 Rather, he is trying to understand the \u201cconstitution\u201d of the United States in an earlier sense; namely, how this nation is \u201cconstituted,\u201d how it is made up and how it functions, according to its folkways and culture.<\/p>\n

De Tocqueville is trying to understand how it is possible for a nation to be both democratic and decentralized.\u00a0 \u201cIt was the social practices of Americans, their actions rather than their ideas, that constituted the true greatness of the country in his eyes.\u201d\u00a0 This is the \u201cunwritten Constitution\u201d that, in turn, formed the written, legal document.<\/p>\n

De Tocqueville cited the importance of America\u2019s local governments and associations, from churches to town meetings.\u00a0 Life on the frontier gave Americans the habit\u2013born of necessity\u2013of banding together.<\/p>\n

In the colonial and revolutionary eras, for instance, the material difficulties of life in a new land required that Americans depend on the work of their neighbors for their survival. This necessity of associating with one another to organize, compromise, and solve local problems recreated in democratic America the dense local and regional allegiance and autonomy that had existed in feudal France. The experience of convening with neighbors to solve problems also made the prospect of a distant and faceless central government both unappealing and unnecessary. As a result, Americans\u2019 habit of joining local organizations did more, in Tocqueville\u2019s eyes at least, to limit the reach of the federal government than any abstract philosophical or political principle. It made the American republic free in fact, not just in theory.<\/p>\n

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