The Soul of America: Essays on the 4Th of July

By John Gilligan

The major proposition of the Soul of America is that America consists in a set of beliefstruthsthat bind us together. Its what makes us Americans. And without that belief, no Constitution, no laws, no whatever, except the point of a sword, can keep us together. Truth has moral implications. But truth in American culture has become negotiable. Herein lies the real cultural crisis of America.

Gilligan's Book Is Required Reading For Everyone Who Cares About America's Future

John Gilligan has given us a book for the ages. This work is a compilation of essays he authored over several decades that were published in his local newspaper the Peoria Journal Star. The essays are reader-friendly, packed with historical facts and insights, and written by someone who clearly has great love for his country. The essays progress in three sections from the founding of our country, to our current cultural and political problems, to what it means to be a patriot in our country today. Gilligan is concerned that the American people have lost sight of the beliefs and principles that animate our Declaration of Independence. He discusses civic virtue and the common good. He notes that America is the first people in history to form a nation from a diversity of racial, ethnic, and religious groups under the motto, E Pluribus Unum, unity in diversity, and with the underlying fundamental belief that all men are created equal. But can this nation so conceived endure? In the second section of his book, Gilligan maps out the philosophical, cultural, and political changes that challenge Americas survival: cultural relativism, spiritual cynicism, political apathy, self-indulgence, personal violence, racial and ethnic hatreds, and a general blurring of the distinction between right and wrong. He questions whether there is any longer a unity in the diversity and wonders whether we, as a country, have veered so far from our founders lofty and noble precepts that we have passed the point of no return. He rejects this notion, however, and in the last section of his book Gilligan discusses what it means to be patriotic in todays society. He writes about the American project, and argues that if Americas problems are to be solved, the heavy lifting must start in the local communities. Each citizen must take responsibility for his or her actions if America is to thrive and continue to fulfill the goals and dreams of her founders. This is a wonderful little book that encourages us to reflect on the essence of America, the great experiment all of us are blessed to be a part of, and what we might do to keep America great. It is required reading for everyone who cares about the soul of America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 12, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465331274

John Gilligan

John F. Gilligan, Ph. D, a licensed clinical psychologist, is president emeritus of Fayette Companies. He is the past chairman of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, the Employers' Association of Illinois, and the Central Illinois Workforce board of directors. He currently serves on the on the board of directors for the Creve Coeur Club, the Workforce Development Network, J.C. Proctor Endowment, the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service at Bradley University, Quality Quest for Health, and the Drug Prevention Network of the Americas/Red Interamericana para la Prevencion de las Drogas. He was a founding member of the Leadership Development Center and has provided managerial training and consultation to managers representing more than 200 of the Fortune 500 corporations. He has taught in the School of Business Administration at Bradley University's and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. In addition to published professional research and presentations, he has written numerous editorials. His most recent books were with Charles Stoner, Ph.D.: The Adversity Challenge; and with Congressman Ray LaHood: The Library of Congress: An Embodiment of the American Identity.

Book preview

THE SOUL OF AMERICA

Essays on the Fourth of July

John F. Gilligan, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2009 by John F. Gilligan, Ph.D.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2009901646

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4415-1322-9

Softcover                 978-1-4415-1321-2

ISBN:    ebk   978-1-4653-3127-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

PREFACE

PART I

1

2

3

4

5

6

PART II

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

PART III

14

15

16

17

18

19

CONCLUSION

20

APPENDIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEDICATION

This Land Is Your Land

To

Our Grandchildren

Brian and Michael Baugh

Connor James and Megan Martin

and their

Grandma

Diana Jean Gilligan

PREFACE

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

What’s it mean to be an American?

Americans are a diverse lot. We are composed of people from every human race, ethnicity, religion, and non-religion. Our beliefs, lifestyles, interests, and desires range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Clearly, this is a recipe for social chaos and disaster.

So what holds us together?

For the past 25 years, I have been writing op-ed essays mostly for our local newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star. As a practicing clinical psychologist and president of one of Illinois’ largest treatment centers (Fayette Companies) for mental health and substance abuse, I had developed a keen interest in American culture. After all, human problems are greatly affected and even arise out of the very culture in which they occur.

All the essays picked up on some aspect of American culture that—so I believed—the general public would find informative if not interesting. Apparently, the editors at the Peoria Journal Star, a tough crew who would readily reject or slice and dice an article in a flash, thought so too. They never rejected one, but at times they did some slicing and dicing.

Among the 80 or so essays, I began a tradition in 1990 of writing an op-ed for the Fourth of July. As usual, I tried to include current cultural issues to make the Fourth relevant to the times. I also became aware that the general public was quite weak in their historical knowledge and so by the turn of the century I started to weave some early American history into each essay. In this regard, the editors let me write well beyond the traditional 750 word op-ed piece.

Given the cultural conflicts or culture wars during the past 20 years, the question arose as to what actually holds Americans together and what does it mean to be an American in the first place. Was America really all that polarized? The Fourth of July essays were attempts to address and answer these questions.

And so does this book, The Soul of America, but in a more direct and affirmative way. The simple yet not so simple answer is embedded in one question: If Americans no longer believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, can America continue to exist?

The book’s major proposition is that America consists in a set of beliefs—truths—that bind us together. It’s what makes us Americans. And without that belief, no Constitution, no laws, no whatever can keep us together. America as America would cease to exist. We might become like the Netherlands or Switzerland, wonderful places to live and work, but there would no longer be an America.

The Soul of America consists of essays that speak to what it means to be an American. The book is composed of three parts: the Birth of America, Cultural Strife, and Patriotism.

Part I: Birth of America is an easy way of learning something about the basics origins of the Declaration of Independence and what was going on that led up to the American Revolution.

My sources are from noted scholars of American history. They are referenced in the Bibliography.

Part II: Cultural Strife includes some specific events that have tormented the nation during the past two decades. Whether an essay was written in 1990 during the Savings and Loans crisis or in the time of the 2009 TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the essays remain quite relevant for today.

In fact, by comparing the then and now, the reader can trace how our culture can change incrementally and often for the worse. It’s the reason why I have placed the original publication date at the end of each essay. Wherever the data used in an essay may have changed, it has been updated at the end of the article.

Part III: Patriotism gets to the meat and potatoes of what we Americans must do if we are to maintain the nation. A government of the people, by the people, for the people is one-third formal—elected representative government—and two-thirds informal—We the People. If we think and act as if it is only elected officials that make the country, we will become like Russia and endow our leaders with tyrannical power.

This is what the Soul of America is all about. I hope that you will find it not just informative or interesting, but a source of encouragement and motivation to become personally involved in making our nation a better America.

PART I

Birth of America

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them . . . .

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

1

Seeds of Independence

Out of the cauldron of human conflict great political and moral principles are often forged. It’s not that those truths never existed before; it’s just that there was no particular reason to think about them. The American Revolution is a perfect example.

For more than a century, the American colonies had been managing their own internal affairs. The habits of local self-government and representation at the colonial level