A famous and bitter maxim of the French left states, "Mythology is always on the side of the Right." For much of the world, this is true. Those who want social change find that they must fight not only entrenched economic organizations with a strong interest in the status quo; they confront a host of institutions and, worse, ideas and images that pull public opinion toward the values and ideas of the past.
In the English-speaking world, however, that ain't necessarily so. The political and religious conflicts that convulsed England, Scotland and Ireland in the 17th century led to a new kind of society in which the values of religion, tradition and identity were often on the side of innovation, change and reform. In the English-speaking world, reformers and innovators were able to identify their causes with tradition and religion rather than against them. Indeed, the most durable and even revolutionary changes in the English-speaking world have come when radicals were able to persuade the public that the changes they sought would defend rather than annul traditional social and religious values.
Take the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson and his associates argued that they were true conservatives: they were fighting to defend their traditional rights against a usurping Parliament and King. Jefferson argued that George III and his ministers were subverting ancient liberties and laws of Englishmen based in Christian values and dating back to the thousand-year-old law codes of the Anglo-Saxons. The Declaration of Independence borrowed its logic and its language, as well as its title, from the Declaration of Rights that the revolutionaries who created the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England wrote to justify their overthrow of James II. We are only doing in 1776 what the English did in 1688, argued the colonists: overthrowing a king who by a long train of abuses and misrule, has forfeited his right to rule.
Take the greatest, most important and ultimately the most successful movements for domestic reform in U.S. history: the abolitionist and civil rights movements. Under leaders like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr., both movements rooted their rhetoric and their aims in the religious and political traditions of Anglo-American history. Though both movements understood very well that Anglo-American history is full of injustice, both chose to summon Americans to live up to the ideals of that history -- rather than to renounce their history and their ideals.
Rather than rejecting Anglo-American history and society as racist and imperialist, they argued that the essence of Anglo-American history was a long effort to transcend its imperfections. The abolitionists and the civil rights campaigners triumphed by stressing the links between their agendas and the true core values of English-speaking liberal society.
Suffragettes, social reformers, labor activists: throughout our history successful campaigners for change rooted their message in progressive readings of the religious and civic mythology of the Anglo-American past.
It may sound paradoxical, but WASP studies -- the study of the religious, cultural and political foundations of Anglo-American history -- remains the essential study today for those who want to advance the concepts of liberty and equality in American politics. These values continue to attract immigrants -- especially Latinos; America's ever increasing ethnic diversity is unlikely to weaken the hold of these values.
Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. were deeply schooled in these traditions. Through their understanding of these cultural roots they were able to inspire their contemporaries to advance into new territory. They identified priorities that resonated with the values of the American public. They were able to convince Americans that change was not a threat to American identity; change is the essence of American identity.
From the American Revolution forward, stand-pat conservatism has again and again been routed by movements of democratic change that defined themselves in the language and values of Anglo-American liberal tradition. The language of individual rights, human equality, tolerance rooted in the values of individualistic religion, equal representation and the rule of law over powerful individuals and interest groups trumps the language of privilege and exclusivity.
Those who ignore this history do so at their peril. The traditional values of American society, including the pluralistic but vigorous American attachment to Christianity, remain strong. Movements for social change that fly in the face of these values fail.
In America, mythology is on the side of the future. Those who understand these myths are those who will shape the future of our country.