National Unity and National Ethics

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American Academy of Political and Social Science

National Unity and National EthicsAuthor(s): Walter G. MuelderReviewed work(s):Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 244, ControllingGroup Prejudice (Mar., 1946), pp. 10-18

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National Unity and National EthicsBy WALTER G. MUELDER

T HE sense of national unity is anatural accompanimentof patrioticzeal in wartime. Slogans of solidarityare freighted with ethical valuations re-flecting the social ideals of the people.In America these ideals have a deeprootage in the past. They constitutewhat has been called the Americancreed and make up the ethical voice ofthe Nation in its heroic moments. Re-ligious sanctions are readily marshaledto support the ideals of national unity.After the storm of battle the demo-cratic dream tends to fade in the lightof commonday, leaving the people with-out great dramatic national objectives,and revealing the conflicts of social pur-pose in the social will. The great needof the Nation is to affirm a unity ofdemocratic values which will canalizethe social energy in constructive proce-dures and which will resolve group con-flict and overcome group prejudice.THE FOCUSON NATIONAL UNITY

IN WARTIMEThe prosecution of the war effort inresponse to the external threat to thenational community solidified the peo-ple to a marked degree in a temporaryunity. There were many appeals tounity: laying aside partisan politics;finding the common "I am an Ameri-can" principle amid the numerous mi-nority elements of the Nation; forget-ting the class struggleon the productionlines and submitting to a "no-strikepledge"; accepting the egalitarian pro-cedures of rationing and priorities;working side by side with persons ofother races in new places and new jobs;building a united morale in the armedforces; and establishing interfaith com-munity among Jews, Protestants, andCatholics. The rallying cry was the

common social purpose and the domi-nant American ideals. Ethically theyexpressed their worthiness to be chosenand the acceptance of citizen responsi-bility for their execution. "To win thewar" meant everything from the mu-nitions plant and the war-bondcounterto Civilian Defense and the beachheadsof Iwo Jima and Normandy. Psycho-logically and ethically the basis of co-operation was the common perceptionof interdependence,of mutual need, ofsharing a common danger and a com-mon hope.Patriotic zeal was organized into apositive psychological and ethical at-tack on the enemies of Americanideals.Hitler and Hirohito were the symbolsand the very embodimentsof racism,ofantidemocracy, of hatred for personalrights, of subjugation of religious andcultural liberty, of suppression of freelabor, of militarism-in short, of alltotalitarian threats to individuality andcommon humanity. War against theAxis served to place behind the ethicsof the "Americandream"the propulsivepowerof nationalism. The uttermost inhuman self-sacrifice was linked to con-sciousness of the highest social values.But the unity movementsand slogansof the "duration"were not only stimu-lated by catastrophic threats fromabroad, they were stimulated by crisesand divisions at home. "Total" warheightens and exaggerates all socialproblemsand tensions,makes for stereo-typed thinking and scapegoating, andtempts men to exalt the proceduresofviolence in attempts to overcome con-flict. More than a hundred thousandJapanese-Americanswere deportedfromtheir homes and relocated; there wereserious race riots.in many parts of theNation; there were innumerableclashes10


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NATIONAL UNITY AND NATIONAL ETHICS 11

among white and non-Caucasianwork-ers; there were countless minor scrapesin schools and on playgrounds; therewas a rising tide of anti-Semitism; big-otry was accentuated; anti-Catholicismwas promoted; discriminationwas prac-ticed in the armedforces; labor felt thatit was hamstrungby a no-strike pledge,and waited for the termination of warto renew its demands; black-marketpractices stirred divisive resentments;and soldierswere propagandizedagainstorganized labor with its high wages.Thus the war abroad had its counter-part in the civil struggle at home. Tomeet the crisis, civic and national unitymovements were promoted on everyside.The unity programs were heavilyweighted with ethical judgments.America fights her wars with a moralpassion which makes her patriotism al-most indistinguishable from religion.As in the last war America fought "tomake the world safe for democracy,"so in this war she fought to make theFour Freedoms secure everywhere inthe world. Statesmen affirmedthe fol-lowing: to give "to decent people every-where a better chance to live andprosper in security and in freedom andin faith"; "to uphold the doctrine thatall men are equal in the sight of God";"to destroy the world-wide force ofruthless conquest and brutal enslave-ment"; to preserve"this new world loveof education and dignity of the commonman"; to abolish "discrimination be-tween peoples because of their race,creed or color"; to repudiate the "mon-strous philosophy of superior race andconquestby force"; to embrace"loyallythe basic principles of peaceful proc-esses"; to defend "free schools"; and torealize "faith in life, liberty, independ-ence and religious freedom." Theseideals were generally summarized n theFour Freedoms,as the President formu-lated them: "not only freedomof speech,

freedomto worshipGod each in his ownway, but freedom from want and free-dom from fear as well."These war ideals were presented notonly as lofty traditions,but as realizablenow and as having the immemorial anc-tion of the Christian faith. And if thechurchesdid not agree that the war was"holy," they emphasized that it was"just." After detailing the Four Free-doms the President added: "That is novision of a distant millennium. It is adefinite basis for a kind of world at-

tainable in our own time and genera-tion." "There must be no compromisebetween justice and injustice; no yield-ing to expediency; no swerving fromthe great human rights and liberties es-tablishedby the AtlanticCharteritself."All these freedoms are "a part of thewhole freedom for which we strive."Other leaders said that we are "one inthe prayer for the victory of the prin-ciples of Christian civilization." Be-fore us lies "the great constructive taskof building human freedom and Chris-tian morality on firmer and broaderfoundations than ever before." In thistask the voice of the United States is toexpress the aspirationsof mankindas itgoes forward to its destiny. "The soulof that destiny is a maximum freedomof the human spirit."ETHICALASPECTSOFAMERICAN

NATIONALISMThere could not have been so power-ful a social fusion in national ideals hadthey not already been rooted in theAmerican conscience. From its incep-tion, the national democratic deals havebeen a secular religion for the masses.Gunnar Myrdal in An American Di-lemma has presented a recent and verypersuasive outline of the unity ofAmerican ideals and the diversity ofAmericanbackgroundsand the conflictsof interests, classes, and races. "Thereis evidently a strong unity in this nation


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12 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYand a basic homogeneity and stabilityin its valuations."1 Comparedto everyother country in Western civilization,the United States "has the most ex-plicitly expressed system of generalideals in reference to human interrela-tions."2 This system may be calledthe American creed; its proportionsconstitute a group of principles which"ought" to rule.The American creed has been statedin innumerable formulations in clubs,churches, schools, courts, unions, andnewspapers. The utterances of WorldWar II leaders, as noted above, assumethem-the essential dignity of man, thefundamental equality of all men, theirinalienable rights of freedom, justice,opportunity,and self-development. TheAmericancreed is a faith in democracy,where democracy expresses an affirma-tion of an unlimited right of personalityto develop a social order for its ownrealization.The Americannational conscience hasengrained in it as one of its basic con-stituents (along with others not sonoble) the divine sanction for the strug-gle to achieve a positive freedom for allmen. Myrdal notes, significantly, thatwhile Americanshave been materialisticand property-minded, though manydemocratic experimentshave failed andothers are badly compromised, thoughconservatismhas often been in the sad-dle, "with few exceptions, only the lib-erals have gone down in history as na-tional heroes." In the same way wemay note that the Constitution, a con-servative document, was acceptable tothe states only on condition of a Bill ofRights.

THE AMERICAN CREEDThe American social ethos is com-

pounded of elements taken from theFrenchEnlightenment,the English com-mon-law tradition, sectarian Protestant-ism, the medieval social ethic, Judaism,and the American frontier. This ethosis not preciseand easily capturedin con-stitutional law and social institutions;it is essentially dynamic, like religiousprophetism. Its spirit is that of a uni-versal democracy, though the very con-ception of democracy was abhorrent tomost of the leadersof the Americancon-stitutional period. It is at once a sub-stantive doctrine, a philosophy of pro-cedure, and an ethical aspiration.Because of its rich complexity ofmotifs, few authors have agreed on anexact formulation of the Americancreed. The leading principles are hu-man equality, personal equality, freekinship, familial autonomy, equality ofopportunity, and social freedom. Thechief rights which these principles as-sure include: food and shelter, growth,health, and reason, conscience and re-sponsibility, private worship and moraldecision, social intercourse and leisure,familial life and freedom, justice, edu-cation, free inquiry, work, and mem-bership in an all-inclusive community.Not all of these have been explicitlyheld in all decades since the Revolution,but have come to the fore from time totime as the social conditions evokedtheir formulation. As a political theory,the democratic philosophy has persist-ently fostered extension of the suffrage,open political discussion, frequent elec-tions, secret ballots, and representativeor parliamentarygovernments. The so-cial rights are peculiarly twentieth-cen-tury in their applications.The crux of the democratic problemhas often allegedly been the idea ofliberty. This has constituted a rathervague ideal, and its meaninghas shifteddepending on whose liberty is empha-sized, the extent of the liberty, and thedirection of the liberty. Proponents of

1 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma(New York: Harper and Bros., 1944), p. 3.2 Ibid.3 Ibid., p. 7.


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NATIONAL UNITY AND NATIONAL ETHICS 13liberty have not always recognizedthatliberty is a polar term whose oppositeis restraint. Liberty is not the mereabsence of restraint, but every libertyinvolves some restraint on someoneandin some regard. Liberty lives on re-straint as well as existing in resistanceto it. The problem of freedom be-comes: What combination of restraintsand liberties constitute the end and themeans of true personal living? Thenotion of liberty in America has con-sistently been referred to the notion ofegalitarianjustice, so that it has alwaysbeen enlivened at the heart of its ethos(though constantly violated in practice)by ethical universalism.Today, official American Judaism,Protestantism, and Catholicism supportsocial democracy. The Judaeo-Chris-tian ethic from the most ancient timescontained elements of humanitarianismand equalitarianism which have reap-peared in American national culture.In New England it fell to the FederalTheologians to work out a cosmic con-stitutionalism which formed the back-ground of political theory. In all thecolonies, lower-class Protestant sectssupplied the proximatecauses for muchdemocratic ideology. As one writersays, "Democracy was envisaged in re-ligious terms long before it assumed apolitical terminology.""To be sure, religious leaders and in-stitutions have often been reactionaryand antidemocratic in the course of theNation's life; and yet there has beenan overwhelmingconviction among themasses of Jews and Christians that de-mocracy is the only real political ex-pression of Christianity. It is of thegreatest significancethat each outstand-ing form of religion in America todaywishes to prove that our democraticethos has roots in its tradition or atleast has similarities to its highest form

of social ethic. Today, on many of thegreat social issues-race relations, col-lective bargaining, civil liberties, socialsecurity, the poll tax, and world order-the great faiths stand shoulderto shoul-der. Despite serious sectarian differ-ences, despite widespread bigotry andanti-Semitism, despite much anti-Ca-tholicism, there is a growingmoral com-munity and a mutually enriching fel-lowship among Christians and Jews.Thus the American creed has religiousroots and religious sanction.

The great impression given to theoutside world in the nineteenth centurywas that America was nationally dedi-cated to be the asylum of the world'sneedy and oppressed. However muchher internal life may have contradictedthe sentiment in detail, it was an ac-curate ascription which was engravedon the Statue of Liberty when it waspresented to the United States byFrance:Give me your tired, your poor,your hud-dledmassesYearning to breathe free, the wretchedrefuse of your teemingshoreSend these, the homeless, tempest-tosttomeI lift my lampbeside the goldendoor.NATIONALISM AS AN AID AND A THREATTO SPIRITUAL UNITY

It is generally recognized that na-tionalism may represent a constructiveforce in the social process moving to-wards unity, or a destructive forcemaking for social disintegration by re-pressive measures at home and by in-hibiting growth towards normal in-ternationalism. Nationalism tends tosubordinate all subgroups within thenation to the unity of the whole by anappeal to loyalty and by canalizing so-cial energy around a national ideal.The drive for conformity may destroythe civil, social, and economic rights of4 E. S. Bates, American Faith (New York:W. W. Norton & Co., 1940), p. 9.


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14 THE. ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYminorities. Nationalism tends also tosubordinate the universal internationalgoal to itself. Domestically, national-ism presents the possible threat of to-talitarian statism. Internationally, theexaltation of national sovereignty mayentail cultural and economic isolation-ism and the erection of great barrierstoworld political co-operation and worldgovernment. Such foreign policies de-termine the quality of internal nationalethics. When the nation saturates itscitizens with the ideology that it pos-sesses superlative comparative meritamong nations, it prevents the pursuitof the good both at home and abroad.But further, when special interests inthe state identify their particular aimswith the national goal, and are able todelude the general public into thinkingthat a so-called "Americanway" is thenation's and hence the world's superla-tive good, then nationalism has becomedangerousindeed.Constructively, national loyalty maymean an enlargementof conscience anda vision of greater social good than anarrowerview wouldprovide. Localism,provincialism, sectionalism, are oftensuccessfully transcended by an appealto the nation. An enlarged area of re-sponsibility is thus achieved. Ultimatesacrifices for the general good meanoftentimes a genuine expansion of per-sonality. Action on the national levelfor the total group gives the ordinaryAmerican an opportunity to followhigher ideals and to practice more re-sponsible democracythan individual ac-tion permits. Acting alone, a person, abusiness, or a union finds it difficult towithstand the pressuresof economic andsocial forces making for segregationanddiscrimination on the basis of race,creed, or national origin; but by attack-ing the problem everywhere at once, itis possible to minimize the difficultiesinvolved in trying to eliminate discrimi-nation piecemeal. One way of ap-

proaching this problem is through not-ing the effort to bring the Americancreed as recorded in the Bill of Rightsup to date.

EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN BILLOF RIGHTS

The term "Bill of Rights" refersherenot only to the first ten amendmentstothe Constitutionbut also to those rightswhich as time has elapsed have beenemphasized as of basic importance.This conception is in harmonywith theNinth Amendment, which recognizesthat the Constitution does not list allindividual rights: "The enumerationinthe Constitution,of certain rights, shallnot be construed to deny or disparageothers retained by the people." In theearly developmentof the AmericanNa-tion the conception of natural rights,was very influential, and, under the in-fluence of the cosmopolitanism of theage of the Enlightenment, extended therights guaranteedin the Constitution toall persons within the state's jurisdic-tion. These included freedom of re-ligion, speech, and the press, the rightof assembly and petition, security ofpersons and property, due process oflaw, impartial jury trial, freedom fromexcessive bail and punishment, and thelike.As the nineteenth century developed,Americans gave themselves to muchindividual freedom. They took free-dom of enterprise for granted, and re-garded laissez faire individualism as anatural right. The state was regardedas the guardian of individual liberty,the policeman of the market place ofself-interest and free contract. But

with the advent of industrial cities andthe closing of the frontier, the so-calledeconomicor social rights have graduallybecome componentparts of what is heldto be the American standard of living,itself regarded as a right. Such ideals


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NATIONAL UNITY AND NATIONAL ETHICS 15include minimum educational, recrea-tional, social security, and labor stand-ards.

To clarify this body of ideals is oneof the primary tasks of contemporaryAmerica. Actually, there is an intenserivalry among the plural "Americanways," with a correspondingconfusionamong economic ideals. But from outof the ideological confusion there isgradually emerginga new canon of theAmericanway. This new canon identi-fies "liberty" less with "rugged indi-vidualism" and more with the demandfor freedomfrom want and fear. Thereis a social-welfare notion of our "in-alienable rights" coming into generalacceptation.Surrounded as it is by tension andconflict, resistance and militancy, vitu-peration and class consciousness, theemergenceof the new canon can hardlybe regardedas stated in its final form.The essence of the creed, however, iswell illustrated in the "New Bill ofRights" formulatedby the National Re-sources Planning Board, which thisboard regarded as a guide to postwarnational policies:

1. The rightto work,usefullyand crea-tively through he productive ears;2. The right to fair pay, adequatetocommand he necessitiesand amenitiesoflife in exchange or work, deas,thrift andother sociallyvaluableservice;3. The right to adequate ood, clothing,shelterand medicalcare;4. The right to security,with freedomfrom fear of old age, want, dependency,sickness,unemployment nd accident;5. The rightto live in a system of freeenterprise, ree from compulsoryabor,ir-responsibleprivatepower, arbitrarypublicauthorityand unregulatedmonopolies;6. The right to come and go, to speakor to be silent, free from the spyingsofsecretpoliticalpolice;7. The right to equalitybefore the law,with equalaccess to justice in fact;8. The rightto education, or work,for

citizenshipand for personalgrowth andhappiness;9. The right to rest, recreationand ad-venture,the opportunityo enjoy life andtake part in an advancing ivilization.

NATIONAL ETHICS AND ECONOMICSThe "New Bill of Rights" just listedhas had wide appeal. In it the "Ameri-can dream" has become a determina-tion to makea mass-production conomythe servant of all the people. "Theresponsibility with which we are all

charged," says one leader, "requiresthat we plan for broad economic andsocial development." Another has heldthat complete victory would not be wonuntil "there is a full and increasinguseof the world's resources to lift livingstandards from one end of this planetto the other. . . . A world at work atdecent wages is a world of economicstability. Idleness is the greatest of allthreats to confidence."In discussing this task, passing ref-erence has usually been made to thebelief that our system of "free" or "pri-vate enterprise" could be made to ac-complish these great objectives. Pro-fessional industrial leaders are alwayscertain to insist that what Americawasfighting for was the "fifth" freedom,free enterprise. However, in manyquarters it is recognized that govern-ment may have to enter fields whereprivate finance cannot adequately meetthe problems. Although men keep onrepeating that "a system of free enter-prise is more effective than an 'order'of concentration camps," and althoughthey affirm faith that "the vitality,strength, and adaptability of a socialorder built on freedom and individualresponsibility will again triumph," itwould seem that the evolution of Ameri-can social purposes has now reached aplace where extensive modifications inthe free enterprisesystem are inevitable.The determinationto meet basic human


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16 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYneeds is bound to transcendany defensewhich the "few" make against submit-ting to the "many."

There is a serious clash of ideals inthe socioeconomic order involving con-flicts in social purposes and social pro-cedures. The national objectives of theAmericanFederation of Labor, the Na-tional Association of Manufacturers,the farm bloc, the Farmers Union, theCongress of Industrial Organizations,the taxpayers' associations, and the So-cialist Party, are exceedingly diverse.On every hand, the national unity isthreatened by pressure groups whoeither do not think in terms of thetotal social good or who identify thenational cause with their special inter-ests. Group co-operation for nationalends in a growing democracy wouldseem to require social changes in thedirection of greater equality in the dis-tribution of wealth and income, reduc-ing the barriersto equal educationalop-portunity, exercising social control tothe extent of keeping the "game opento all," developing a process of con-tinuous education for a system of com-mon ideas in line with the democraticdream, and improving the techniqueand methods of reconciling sharp dif-ferences of opinion. The Nation is indesperate need to shift its attentionfrom values the pursuit of which is di-visive to values the pursuit of which iscommunitarian.In the midst of the complexity oftechnical interrelatedness and in themidst of diversity of ethical standardsand interests, it now appears almostobvious that the social order must ma-jor in democratic planning. There canbe no unity unless a majority, at least,are loyal to methods devoted to the so-cial welfare of the whole. Educationfor the modificationof centrifugalidealsmust be replaced by education con-cretely emphasizingunifying values.The preponderanceof social discus-

sion and public debate leads to the con-clusion that in the twentieth century theidea of liberty has become a philosophyof positive social freedom, with thestate exercising a constructive responsi-bility in the achievement of the com-mon welfare.DEMOCRACYAND RACIAL MINORITIES

Rightly conceived,democracyis madeto order to solve the problems of mi-norities. No state is truly democraticif it pretends to reconcile any oppres-sion of. minorities under a democraticconstitution and government. Ameri-can democracy received a devastatingblow throughits treatmentof Japanese-Americansduring the war. The idea ofpunishment only for individual be-havior, which is basic to all systems ofcivilized law, was lost in a terriblycasual manner. The Supreme Courtseems to have expandedmilitary discre-tion far beyond the limit of toleranceina democraticsociety. ProfessorEugeneV. Rostov says:

The Japanese xclusionprogram estsonfive propositionsof the utmost potentialmenace: (1) protectivecustody,extendingover three or four years, is a permittedform of imprisonmentn the UnitedStates;(2) political opinions,not criminalacts,may containenoughclearandpresentdan-gerto justifysuch mprisonment;3) men,women, and children of a given ethnicgroup,both Americans ndresidentaliens,can be presumed o possess the kind ofdangerous deas which require their im-prisonment;(4) in time of war or emer-gency the military . . . can decidewhatpo-liticalopinions equiremprisonment.. ;and (5) the decisionof the militarycanbecarriedon without indictment, trial, ex-amination ury, the confrontationof wit-nesses, counsel for defense, the privilegeagainst self-incrimination, r any of thesafeguardsof the Bill of Rights.55 Eugene V. Rostov, "The Japanese-Ameri-can Cases-A Disaster," Yale Law Review, 54(June 1945), 532.


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NATIONAL UNITY AND NATIONAL ETHICS 17This is a threat to society and to allmen.What the Japanese-Americanshave

had to endure has become in many re-spects the common lot of innumerableNegroes in the United States. GunnarMyrdal notes the terrible gap whichexists between ideal and practice withrespect to Negroes:From the point of view of the AmericanCreed the status accordedthe Negro inAmerica represents nothing more andnothing less than a century-long ag in

public morals. In principle the Negroproblemwas settled long ago; in practicethe solution is not effectuated. . ... Thisanachronism onstitutes the contemporary"problem" othto Negroesandto whites.6To meet this problem the Nationmust make an all-out or total effort in-

volving a thoroughgoing educationalprogram, a comprehensive program ofFederal protection of jobs as in theCommittee on Fair Employment Prac-tice, a basic housing reform movement,a vigorous political or civil rights pro-gram, and an intensive social and re-ligious program. Since the problemsare so complex, the solution must becomprehensiveand fundamental.How action by the Federal Govern-ment can implement individual ethicalideals has been described above.

NATIONAL UNITY AND RELIGIOUSTOLERATION

We have rapidly surveyed severalareas of group tension within the na-tion from an ethical perspective. Oneof the greatest sources of prejudiceandgroup conflict still to be mentionedandappraised is religion. Fortunately forAmerican life, the great wars of re-ligion had already worn themselves outbefore the period of the formation ofour national state. Some degree ofreligious toleration had already been

achieved in theory and in practice whileAmerica was still a colonial region.Even so, sectarian passions were re-flected in the American doctrine of theseparation of church and state and inthe separation (for all practical pur-poses) of religion and the public school.Despite great improvementin interfaithand interdenominational relations, thefundamental religious diversities arestill rampant in local communitiesthroughout the land.The local disunity and the sectarianrivalry stand in sharp contrast to thesolidarity and mutual understandingatthe national level among the greatfaiths. In facing the problems of na-tionalism, racism, labor-managementre-lations, minorities' rights, and civil lib-erty, the Jews, the Catholics, and theProtestants have preparedofficialmoralpronouncementswhich are entirely con-sistent and coherent with one another.There exists a growing moral commu-nity among the leadership, promptedinto expressionby the threat of the com-mon enemies of totalitarianism andracism. The problem today is to over-come prejudiceand misunderstandingnthe local parish.A healthy national unity has much togain from the growing ecumenicity inthe Protestant churches and from thegradual acceptance of a social creed.Protestantism is a special example inreligionof the dilemmawhich all Ameri-cans experience on the racial question,the dilemma of having solved a prob-lem in principlebut violating it in insti-tutional practice and folkways. Prot-estantism is fundamentally beset by aguilty conscience over its sectarianism.The "broken Body of Christ" is anobvious spiritual scandal. Christ is thesymbol of unity and reconciliation, notof division and hatred. On its con-structive side, the sense of guilt andshameis makingfor humilityand tolera-tion. It is making for the quest for

6 G. Myrdal, An American Dilemma (NewYork: Harper and Bros., 1944), Vol. I, p. 24.


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18 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYunity amid the anarchyof particularism.What is now a problemof concretespir-itual unity for Protestants is also be-coming a problem for all faiths whichadhere to an ethical mponotheism.From the standpoint of importancefor national unity, the emergence ofofficial social creeds in the various de-nominationsand in the Federal Councilof the Churches of Christ in America ishard to overestimate. Since 1908 theAmerican creed in its social and eco-nomic aspects has become official in thegreater denominations of the UnitedStates. The social creeds of Protes-tants, like those of Catholics and Jews,provide today a substantial base onwhich to build bridges from group togroup who are in conflict.But what we have described as anemergent social creed is not yet char-

acteristic of popular American Christi-anity. The clash of absolute claims,universal and unchangeable, has madefor skepticism. Much of the moralconfusion of Americanlife and much ofthe ethical relativism roots in the mutualcancellation of contradictory "divine"commands. Where a possible integralhumanexperience,matureand balanced,has been voided by religious bigotry, aspiritual vacuum is created and the ex-cesses of secularism,nationalism,racism,and class antagonismsenter in. Todaythe public school attempts, with indif-ferent application and success, to bringa unity under the banner of American-ism, where it cannot do so on religiousgrounds. The American creed of thepublic school tends to be a secular ver-sion of Judaeo-Christiansocial ideals interms of an emergingnational culture.

Walter G. Muelder, Ph.D., is dean and professor of social ethics at Boston UniversitySchool of Theology. He has taught philosophy at Berea College and was professor ofChristian theology and Christian ethics at the Graduate School of Religion of the Uni-versity of Southern Californiafrom 1940 to 1945. During the war he was active in com-munity service in behalf of civil liberties, interracial justice, civic unity, and interfaithunderstanding. With Laurence Sears he is co-author of The Development of AmericanPhilosophy, and is a contributor to numerous philosophical and theological journals.

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National Unity and National Ethics