Every news cycle brings a fresh reminder that I am a “fellow citizen” with men who don’t know me, who often would hate me if they did, and are nothing like me. The phrase “fellow citizen” reminds me of “comrades” in the USSR. Americans are not “fellows” in any genuine sense, just as the soviets weren’t really comrades. Similar absurdities are bandied about in Christian circles as well, when Christians pretend that everyone the world over who calls themselves Christian is in some sense their “brother.” In all these examples, an equality is drawn between the noble bond of friendship and the tenuous bond of identity.
In thinking about such bonds and what they mean, the distinction between “open societies” and “closed societies” is useful. It seems to me a true “fellow citizen” lives in what I will call a “closed society,” whereas men living in what is called “the open society” are either not citizens or in the process of losing their rights.
A Society Without Strength and Wisdom
You probably have heard of this phrase, “the open society,” which became famous in the last century. There was a book published by Karl Popper in 1945 titled The Open Society and Its Enemies. One of Karl Popper’s wealthiest and most powerful disciples is a man named George Soros whose organization “Open Society Foundations” promotes left-wing ideology throughout the world and, as we recently discovered, in many evangelical churches. So “open society” is this famous label that contemporary liberals are proud to bear; liberals throughout the world think of themselves as citizens of mankind, that is, citizens of the one all-encompassing society; they are citizens of the most open society, the least exclusive society possible.
The open society is characterized by its willingness to include anyone. Men of the open society think exclusivity is a moral failing—the most basic allegiance a man can have is to mankind. Any allegiance that causes him to turn away from, much less against, other men is considered a piece of foolishness or an evil. Therefore, the open society is characterized by moral and spiritual decline: all standards of moral conduct and spiritual discipline must be abolished because such standards are used to discriminate against those who either cannot or will not live up to them. The open society might let a man have his own standards or religion, but then again, it might not: if a man is too pious, too strong, or too rich, or too beautiful, or too wise, he could be seen as a threat to others who are much weaker and stupider. If we want a world without injustice, we need to abolish those things which make injustice possible; we need to abolish strength and wisdom. The open society is therefore characterized by its goal, namely, to rid the world of strength and wisdom.
This, of course, is awful. The open society makes everything worse and ruins lives. It does not matter how well-intentioned its proponents are, and I think on the whole they are well-intentioned. They want to rid the world of injustice, what can be wrong with that? This fact actually makes the open society even more unbearable. Its partisans attack and ruin everything and believe themselves morally superior for doing so. They will destroy your town and your church by flooding them with homelessness and drug addiction; they impose lockdowns that ruin businesses and plunge people into despair; churches close and people die alone; and for all this, they will congratulate themselves as having made the world a safer, more loving place.
What men need is the closed society. A closed society is one in which the members are known to one another, perhaps not as friends but at least as acquaintances or acquaintances of acquaintances; in a closed society, the character of each man is in some way knowable to the other members. No one is a complete stranger. There are actually fellows, comrades, and brothers in the closed society. This kind of membership is needed for there to be mutual trust, without which there can be no freedom. Freedom presupposes trust; it presupposes that faith be kept between the members.
Only a society small enough to permit mutual trust is small enough to permit mutual responsibility or supervision—the supervision of actions or manners which is indispensable for a society concerned with the perfection of its members; in a very large city, in “Babylon,” everyone can live more or less as he wishes. (Natural Right and History 130)
The open society is Babylon. The American township and the local congregation are symbolically closed societies. In a closed society, education and discipline are possible. Members of the town and the church must be faithful to one another because the community’s way of life is a precious thing that is easily lost. A community must vigilantly guard its way of life, and this can only be done where members of the community can encourage and admonish each other in the true way. Babylon or the open society always exists on a lower level of humanity than the tightly knit closed society.
The Township and the Church
America was meant to be a large country that was made up of these kinds of tight-knit communities. The township is the origin of American freedom.
Here is what Tocqueville says of the township:
Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of independent towns it cannot have the spirit of liberty. (Democracy in America 1.1.5)
The town is closed: the people of the town own the town. They are responsible for its success or failure. That is what it means to be in control of a society: to be responsible for its success or failure. Of course, the way things go today, if your town spends too much money, or if its police don’t behave themselves, or if its citizens are lazy, the state and especially the federal government are more than happy to give the town all the money it needs so long as they are allowed to run the town. A complacent townspeople will wake up one day to find their police force is run by outsiders, their budget—while seemingly ample—is actually used to undermine them; their schools are used to indoctrinate their children and plug them into the cosmopolis “the global community”; their churches are used not for the discipline and spiritual growth of the locals, but instead the churches exist to weaken the locals moral outlook and import as many foreigners as possible into the previously tight knit community. How many times have conservatives, going about their own business, been one day informed that their church leadership has decided to degrade the moral standards of their communion and to cheapen its membership?
Against this, men of the towns and churches must combine their efforts to accomplish the important things, above all, the care of their souls.
In normal times, moral vice is more than enough to destroy the freedoms of towns and churches. Men spending too much money; men being lazy; men chasing after frivolous women; in general, men chasing after entertainment and frivolities is enough to undermine the freedom of towns and churches. Our faith helps us to purify ourselves of these burdens born from frivolity, to live free without them.
And really, I think most men would love to focus their lives on more serious things. It’s more interesting to sit and talk with other men than it is to watch television. It’s more satisfying to do a day’s work than to spend all day playing video games. Our worship should be something men seek out because they want the reminder and edification of their higher calling. Be that as it may, I think America’s young men are turning to entertainment and frivolity because they don’t believe there is anything really to do. Our culture makes it look like all the serious work exists so that men can entertain themselves. We make entertainment the purpose of life, rather than leaving it where it belongs, as a source of rest from more important things.
We Live in Difficult Times
But we don’t live in normal times, and so, added to the normal difficulties of life, we have this communist mind virus that sucks the life out of everything. In normal times, keeping a town and church in good condition is a difficult thing; in our time, it is considered an immoral thing. Wanting to make your town or your church independent from the general decline needs, in our time, a moral justification. Indeed, one’s own inner freedom from this decline is also looked upon with suspicion: if your heart is aimed at God and the sanctification of your soul, are you really doing all you can to eliminate systemic injustice in the world? If your community’s standards lead to any exclusion whatsoever, you shouldn’t enjoy full citizenship in this nation of ours, which, with its Statue of Liberty, opens its arms and heart to the world.
Men today have these two obstacles to overcome: they need to overcome normal moral vice, and they must root out the communist mind virus that is destroying communities, families, and individuals. This task, however, is a blessing: obstacles like these make life interesting. Having to overcome them makes us physically and spiritually stronger than we would otherwise be.
