While I was thinking about the self-reliant culture of the Scots Irish (and of Appalachia), I had three experiences that, together, are influencing my thoughts. First, one of my friends from my years as a bureaucrat made this observation: "Congress is used to being Santa Claus". Second, I reread the section of the Barbara Tuchman book, "The March of Folly", that describes the "wooden-headed" mistakes the British made that caused the Revolutionary War. And, third, I watched a Kentucky mountain grandmother eating lunch (in a Bob Evans restaurant) with her 15-month-old granddaughter.
My friend is correct about Congress and Santa Claus, and his point applies generally to politicians -- politicians like to do things that make people happy (such as giving out money). On the other side of the political/bureaucratic apparatus, when governments have to do non-Santa Claus kinds of things (such as reducing money payments), the politicians turn to the bureaucracies -- the bureaucrats get the job of doing Scrooge kinds of things. Then, what the bureaucrats do is to turn decisions over to systems -- they let the systems take the blame. (I have to confess that, in my own years as a bureaucrat, I have designed many systems that serve little or no purpose except to provide me and my fellow bureaucrats "cover" for our backsides.)
Barbara Tuchman very well understood politicians and bureaucrats; she demonstrated her understanding by, among many other things, citing Plato's argument that government is so complex and important that "philosopher-kings" are necessary if we are to have good government. Then she cited Plato's acknowledgment that, until we succeed in actually having philosopher-kings, " there can be no rest from the troubles of the cities, and I think for the whole human race". And, in Tuchman's words, "So it has been" .
Here's what Barbara Tuchman said about the situation in England just prior to the Revolution: "The all-pervading, all-important problem that absorbed major attention was the game of faction, the obtaining of office, the manipulating of connections, the making and breaking of political alliances -- in sum, the business, more urgent, more vital, more passionate than any other, of who's in, who's out". I think it's accurate to say that Tuchman could have been describing the political and bureaucratic situation in America in 2010.
When I contrast that mountain grandmother and her tiny granddaughter with our wooden-headed political/bureaucratic systems, I believe I see the basic reason why our colonial ancestors won the War: the colonials had a sense of shared purpose but the British were serving themselves-- they were more interested in protecting their right to wear powdered wigs than in serving the public interest.
I cannot adequately describe the relationship between that grandmother and her tiny granddaughter -- the beauty I saw was beyond my ability to put in words. All I'll try to say is that those two people were sharing life as partners. If that sounds insignificant, let's keep in mind that the sense of community partnership is what our colonial ancestors had, and that proved to be quite enough.
Is the love that binds a grandmother with a granddaughter enough to keep the wooden-headed forces at bay? Or, more to the point of the issue before me, can ordinary citizens stop wooden-headed forces from using the public schools for self-serving purposes? Or, to tie the question more directly to Scots Irish and Appalachian culture, will the citizens do battle on behalf of the love and common purpose that is in grandmothers and grandchildren? Merely posing that question clears my head: I don't believe I know even one genuine mountain citizen who would knowingly stand aside and allow the wooden headed crowd to run over the likes of that grandmother and little girl.
What will the wooden-headed bunch do when they see citizens standing with the children (and their grandmothers and granddaddies and neighbors and dedicated schoolteachers and everybody else who is motivated by a sense of shared love)? I don't know for sure, but I can't believe that our political/bureaucratic apparatus is as wooden-headed as were the British. But not to worry: our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy; and, yes, we know how to keep it.
Bob Cornett
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