The Challenge

Dear Readers--

Here's yet another post for Honors 240, this time discussing the questions and difficulties faced by the Founding Fathers before they met to discuss and draft the constitution. Due to unexpected changes in schedule, this is the most hurried of any post I've written for the course so far. Hopefully it still makes sense and may even be enjoyable. I plan to revise and better it when I have the chance, but that chance is not now. Happy Reading!

It was more than clear that the Articles of Confederation weren’t working. In the first few years of their existence that became more than evident. Discord and discontent were rampant and chaos was quickly absorbing the logic, reason, and elevated thinking that gave impetus to the war for independence. Congress had little power to do anything and the inflated power of the individual states prevented the nation from functioning as a united body. Neither the states’ governments nor the national government were functioning as they ought. The high hopes that accompanied victory in the Revolution were certainly disappointed.

The biggest problem was that the founding fathers were doing something that no one had ever done before. Never had a fair, non-tyrannical, non-oppressive government been conceived, executed, and sustained on such a large scale as the United States. Unless my history is quite wrong, the thirteen new states and accompanying territories were larger in geographical space and population than any of the states of Europe. And Europe, even on that smaller scale, had not yet proven itself capable of good government. Combine this creative challenge with the chaos already reigning, the pressure of the watchful eyes of every European nation, the primitive (by our standards) means of communication and transportation available at the time, and the terrifying desire and necessity to succeed at such a lofty task, (among many other challenges that I cannot list here) and the job that the framers of the Constitution faced surely seemed pretty well nigh impossible.

They had no example to follow. No guidebook with detailed and concise instructions as they assembled the pieces of a new government. No model to inspire the pieces themselves. And yet they had to succeed, they believed, for the sake of mankind.

After extensive reading of historical accounts and political treatises, James Madison clearly understood that every government ever to have existed (or every government that whose record was available to him read) was flawed. He and the rest of the Constitutional Convention faced so many questions. Which aspects of past governments are good and virtuous? Which aspects proved self-destructive? Which aspects proved tyrannical? Once the proper parts of other governments were identified and selected, how could they be modified and molded to fit together in this new context? The delegates from the small states wondered how to preserve their power in congress. The delegates from the large states wondered how to equalize the imbalanced system of representation. Both groups wondered how to convince the other of their point. But most of all they wondered how to make a perfect government out of flawed individuals. The imperfection of human nature often came close to tearing apart even the small group that was the Constitutional Convention. How could they possibly deal with that challenge when created the government of an entire nation.

But, thanks to Divine aid and inspiration, they succeeded in answering each of those questions and many more besides. Though the government they created was not perfect, it was very close to it. As close any group of men possibly could come, and today we are the better for it.

--Christian

John Adams

Dear family and other readers,

The rest of my Honors 240 class is blogging about their responses to a segment of the John Adams miniseries based on the David McCullough and comparing the film portrayal of the man to their own understanding of his life and personality. Having been sick in bed last week when they watched it, I don't have the same privilege. My post tonight is a collection of thoughts on some basic Wikipedia research on the man and his life.

Factual as the Wikipedia article may be, it does not give much of a sense of his personality or character. Nevertheless, in piecing together those same dry facts, I left with the impression that one of John Adams chief qualities was humility. I could be completely wrong. I did not know him personally, and I haven't even read the David McCullough book. I am certainly not the expert on his personality, and yet I can't help thinking that of all the adjectives that might sum up who he was, humble was one of them. He definitely had dreams and aspirations and ambitions, but it seems that in every case his goals were for the greater good and not for his own gain. For example, he put his reputation on the line in defending the British troops involved in the massacre because he knew it was right. He knew that most of those officers were completely innocent and that (according to my understanding) even the officers that did fire in the crowd thought they were doing so under orders. He knew that it was his fellow Bostonians and friends who had, in this case, been in the wrong and he risked permanently losing or damaging his clientele because of his defense in behalf of the British soldiers. Yet this humility paid off and his victory in that most difficult of court cases resulted in respect for his prowess as a lawyer and contributed to (or at least confirmed) his appointment to the Continental Congress. Throughout the rest of his political career, it seems that he kept this same sort of humility. He would always stand up for what he believed to be just, yet he did not do this for attention or wealth or any sort of personal gain, he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do.

I am also impressed by his role as a family man. He and Abigail are, of course, famous for their letters. It is a blessing to have that correspondence so thoroughly preserved. Someday I would love to read their letters thoroughly--as of now I haven't (I have read one or two but not enough to create an intelligible picture of their relationship in my mind). But, as far as my understanding is correct, their relationship was very admirable and they clung to each other as best they could, through correspondence, during John's long stays away from home. In a day of rationalism and pre-romantic philosophy, it is refreshing to hear of a happy, successful marriages in which the man and wife are so mutually supportive. In addition to his role as loving husband, he was also the father of several children. Considering his many political accomplishments, it is highly unlikely that he was able to be very present as a father, and yet his children ended up living very successful lives. It is a tribute to him that his son John Quincy became the president, and that many of this posterity have taken up office, following in his footsteps. Though he may not have always been present in the home, his fatherly influence was certainly great, considering the success of his children.

I'm grateful that his temple work has been done. It will be interesting to talk to him in the hereafter to check if my take on his character is correct.

Now for the weekly Youtube treats. The musical Finian's Rainbow, recently revived on Broadway, is my new favorite. Here's a little tidbit of a video from this latest production. More videos will follow in future blogs. Enjoy!



Love,
Christian

Types and Shadows

Dear Readers--

Here are some thoughts on an exhibit in the Museum of Art that my class recently viewed.

Types and Shadows

To me, Types and Shadows is representative of everything that BYU is about. In this exhibit, each piece was intended, at least in context, to point to Christ. Though each work was quite different from all the others, Christ was there in some way. This, I think, is the aim of a BYU education. Though all of us who attend the university will live unique and individual lives, it is the aim of the university to educate students each year whose lives will be centered on Christ and who will point the way to Christ for all those with whom they interact. There is a quote that I like (unfortunately I do not know who first said it) that charges us to “live so that those who do not know Christ but do know you will want to know him because they know you.”

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. Back to the exhibit. Several pieces really stood out to me, but I’ll discuss just one here. The first is one of the first pieces in the exhibit, a bronze in low-relief that depicts a boy or young man either falling from or reaching (almost as if jumping) to a rod that extends from the fingers of a man in a very cruciform position. I guess the artist didn’t necessarily intend for that man to be Christ, that particular interpretation makes sense to me. The detail in this piece, especially in the modeling of the body parts, astounds me. For example, the feet of the young man are very specifically shaped. They are pointed downward and slightly sickled, as if gravity is working its hardest on them. He may be falling—that was my initial thought because of the downward motion of the line of his legs and feet. But then I thought about the foot articulation work we’ve been doing in my Modern dance class and I realized that his feet are pointed in the exact way a foot acts after pushing off the ground. Moving all the way up his body to his extended hand, it does not look to me like a hand that has barely slipped from the rod and is letting go. It looks like a hand that is reaching for it and is about to grasp it. That hand seems to be the focus of all the energy in his body. I love that. I love the desperation in both figures—the boy who is expending all the energy of his soul towards reaching up and the man who is giving everything he can to reach out, despite the veil in between them. I think that this piece does an excellent job of depicting certain aspects of our relationship with Christ—the boy has obviously jumped with all the strength he has, and Christ’s power, in bronze shown as a rod extending from his hand, is there to bear him up.

I could write much more about this piece, and similar amounts about each piece in the exhibit, but that would far exceed the limits of this blog post. I hope I can find the time to take in each piece more thoroughly in the future. I hope I can discover more of how each artist testifies of Christ.

On a completely different note, here are some videos that I absolutely love love love. Being sick the past couple days, I've thought back on sick days in my childhood. Whenever I stayed home from school I would always watch PBS kids, and Sesame Street was one of my favorite shows. I never actually saw any of these videos, except for the theme song when I was young, but I have since discovered them and I sure love them.







--Christian

Sober Expectations

Dear Readers,

Here's the second of my Honors 240 Blogs. This in particular is in response to Martin Diamond's "A Revolution of Sober Expectations." I recommend it to all of you--it was a very interesting article.

Sober Expectations

Martin Diamond’s concept of sober expectations is particularly brilliant, and reflective of the brilliance of the Founding Fathers. Diamond’s essay sheds light on the perfect balance between idealism and realism that the Founding Father’s so perfectly crafted in declaring independence. These men weren’t fighting to put one form of government in place over another. They weren’t fighting for an unrealistic utopian ideal. They weren’t even fighting with a specific form of government in mind, which one can easily see from looking at history—it took years of chaos under the ineffectual Articles of Confederation before the Founding Fathers even thought about drafting the constitution. These men were simply rebelling according to their own consciences against an institution they reasoned to be evil. In declaring independence they did not demand or even offer any alternative form of government. Indeed, specifically democratic government is never explicitly suggested. The closest the document comes to it is insisting that government can only rightfully be formed by the consent of the governed. That government must be operated by the consent of the governed is neither mentioned nor hinted at. Had the newly independent Americans desired another monarchy, they could have formed one and stayed entirely within the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

This is the genius of the document. This is why it is truly inspired. Firstly, had the Declaration specifically designed an alternative government at the time, many colonies, groups, and individuals would surely have been alienated by and opposed to the new form. This would have created many problems in the course of the war and the solidarity that kept the colonies together and ultimately led to their success might well have been weakened or dissolved. It was the purposeful lack of specificity that contributed to the unity of the colonies and helped them to succeed. Moving on to the inspired aspect of the document, the intended vagueness allows for these principles to be applied in many, if not all, settings. There certainly are and have been places in the world where freedom and liberty are not enjoyed, but a democratic government would not be the proper way to ensure them to the people. I believe the Lord guided the writing of the Declaration of Independence so that it could be a model for any other nation to follow—a formula that could be flexibly applied to any context. I believe that the principles of the Declaration of Independence, if read and applied at face value, could realistically serve as an effective guide in creating any form of government that wishes to protect the rights of the people. I believe that the principles in the Declaration of Independence are eternal. Applied them to a more spiritual setting, they hold true. As Latter-day Saints, we know that we can choose to be subject to the Adversary or subject to the Lord. Because we have agency, neither the Lord nor the Adversary can govern us without our permission. This gospel truth fits right into the ideas of the Declaration of Independence and is just one of many similar examples I could list.

The Founding Fathers knew that they were declaring the independence of a nation of imperfect men, and so they set realistic, achievable goals instead of wasting their time with impossibly lofty ideals (idealistic though they were). This “soberness” allows for the flexibility that the document currently has. This “soberness” is what makes the document not only a masterpiece, but a miracle.

Have a great week!

--Christian

P.S. Here's a video: