By: Shana Forta, Senior Fellow
Listen to this sentence. See how odd it might sound to anyone but an American.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
Those truths are anything but self-evident. They would have been unintelligible to Plato, Aristotle, or every hierarchical society the world has ever known.
They are self-evident only to people, to Jews and Christians, who have internalized the Hebrew Bible. And that is what made G. K. Chesterton call America “a nation with the soul of a church.”
Only one nation known to me had the same dual founding as biblical Israel: the United States of America, which had its social covenant in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and its social contract in the Constitution in 1787.
Biblical Israel had a society long before it had a state, before it even crossed the Jordan and entered the land, which explains why Jews were able to keep their identity for 2,000 years in exile and dispersion because although they’d lost their state, they still had their society. Although they’d lost their contract, they still had their covenant.
You only have to look around to know that America and the West are in deep trouble. There is a new religion in town, and it requires absolute adherence and subservience.
Unfortunately, we are barraged with constant misinformation, and few take the time to research and educate themselves correctly. You may ask how DEI is making such a foothold in America and the wider West. Books are being rewritten to fit the narrative, statues are being torn down, and family values are under attack. This new religion is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). It is destroying the fabric of America as we know it. From medicine to art to music to literature, it is through the lens of color, gender, and minorities that we are asked to be equitable, not by talent. We are no longer living in a meritocracy but an equality of outcomes.
Now, why does this matter to America? Because America understands more clearly than any other Western nation that freedom requires a state and, even more importantly, a society built of strong covenantal institutions of marriages, families, congregations, communities, charities, and voluntary associations.
The social contract is still there in America, but the social covenant is being lost. And because half of America doesn’t have strong families and communities standing between the individual and the state, people begin to think that the state can solve all political problems. But they can’t. And when you think they can, politics begins to indulge in magical thinking. You get the far-right dreaming of a golden past that never was and the far-left yearning for a utopian future that never will be. And then comes populism, the belief that a strong leader can solve all our problems for us. And that is the first step down the road to tyranny, whether right or left.
Listen to this sentence. See how odd it might sound to anyone but an American.
United we stand, divided we fall.
About the Author:
Shana Forta is a research fellow at GIIS, where she focuses on Holocaust and anti-Semitism studies, applying the lessons of the past to future challenges.
