From the late Bishop Fulton Sheen..
John Winthrop promised a “New City”; Whitman, Holmes and Thoreau described man in a state of innocence; Franklin wanted the Seal of the United States to be Moses dividing the Red Sea, showing how much we had departed from the traditions of Europe; Jefferson suggested the seal be the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night by which the children of the New Israel were led to the Promised Land. America was the land of milk and honey; its Frontiers were illimitable — they could be pushed back and back, revealing new lands, buried gold and unlimited freedom.
The Myth of the natural goodness of man gave the assurance of an ever-increasing progress. If a man did not become wealthy, it was because he was lazy. Cream naturally comes to the top, scum sinks to the bottom. The ethic of work glorified for us the Great American Dream that one had only to dig. Progress was an ever ascending curve: it was only the past that had to be left behind.
Then the dream changed into a nightmare because our assumptions were all wrong. The dream was a reaction against European religious thought at the time of our Founding Fathers that man is intrinsically wicked. But the great religious traditions of the age never taught that man was evil, but only that his intellect was darkened and his will weakened by rebellion against God. Hence, newly found America could not be a Paradise where man could dream of unbounded wealth. Man is a weak creature whether you put him in a new United States or on the moon. But the silly notion that he is a god and America is a paradise is like trying to place a marble bust on the stem of a rose.
Politicians during election time, capitalists who have made quick fortunes in oil and psychologists who blame environment rather than an evil will for the drug anti-culture still subscribe to the American Dream. And by doing so, they contribute to the Nightmare which we are now entering.
The more you build up the expectations of a boy about the pleasure he will get from a toy, the angrier he will be when the toy breaks down. Telling youth that “America is greening” only angers them when they find it browning in the Winter of its discontent. Unbounded pride or what the Greek dramatist called ‘Hubris’, has in the second act brought a judgment and in the third act a fear of ‘Ate’ or disaster.
In this Hour of Frustration when we transfer 125 billion dollars a year to the oil producing nations, which is equal to the entire farm crop of the U.S. in one year; when over eight per cent of the population is unemployed; when our manners become crude and only our gasoline refined; when we have the feeling we have touched the Last Frontier and yet unlike mice in a maze keep knocking our heads against it; when we are forced to get along with less — when all these evidences of a broken dream are upon us, some try to drug the public conscience by telling them that Progress is still with us provided: First, we get rid of God; second, we preserve the right to climb into any bed; and third, that we be allowed to make money by pornography.
What has happened is for the best. We have learned that a man’s greatness does not depend on what he has, but on the recognition of limits. The moment we discover discipline, or the ability to limit our ego, our greatness surpasses anything in the past.
-†- Fulton J. Sheen
The Framers did NOT believe in "the natural goodness of man." That's why they provided for a form of government in three separate but equal branches that could check each other....
As James Madison wrote in The Federalist:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”I'm sorry I have no time to write right now — though your recent posts have been much in my mind. My father passed away last Tuesday, at age 92 after a long illness. I'm engrossed in funeral preparations just now. But will write again as soon as I can.
God's blessings be with you!