Cutting the Apron Strings

We Americans grow servile, as Tocqueville was persuaded we would. Increasingly we submit sheep- like to a fussily maternalistic central political apparatus, which deprives us (as Tocqueville also predicted) of the opportunity for ever developing to full manhood. One of the causes of this decay is our abandoning of liberal education. To escape from the clutch of latter-day maternalistic liberalism (for nowadays, as Santayana wrote, liberalism relaxes no bond except the marriage tie), we need to regain liberal learning.

For illustrating my first point, the maternalism, I turn to a manual of the Interstate Commerce Commission, recently put into my hands by a young lady who was departing from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to spend some years among simple villagers in the Philippines. This work, in 33 pages, is entitled Summary of Information for Shippers of Household Goods (Form BOp 103, Revised 1974). The authors of this directive (which all common carriers transporting household goods in interstate commerce are required to supply to their customers, who must sign a “Mandatory Receipt”) clearly assume that the vast majority of America’s citizenry are feeble-minded.

RK

About the Author

Russell Kirk

We Americans grow servile, as Tocqueville was persuaded we would. Increasingly we submit sheep- like to a fussily maternalistic central political apparatus, which deprives us (as Tocqueville also predicted) of the opportunity for ever developing to full manhood. One of the causes of this decay is our abandoning of liberal education. To escape from the clutch of latter-day maternalistic liberalism (for nowadays, as Santayana wrote, liberalism relaxes no bond except the marriage tie), we need to regain liberal learning.

For illustrating my first point, the maternalism, I turn to a manual of the Interstate Commerce Commission, recently put into my hands by a young lady who was departing from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to spend some years among simple villagers in the Philippines. This work, in 33 pages, is entitled Summary of Information for Shippers of Household Goods (Form BOp 103, Revised 1974). The authors of this directive (which all common carriers transporting household goods in interstate commerce are required to supply to their customers, who must sign a “Mandatory Receipt”) clearly assume that the vast majority of America’s citizenry are feeble-minded.