Habits of the Heart and Character of Mind

Subject: Habits of the Heart and Character of Mind Wed Dec 04, 2019 11:58 pm

In American election cycles all of the possible candidates for government office of both major political parties assure those who may vote for them in primaries and the general election that they are voices for the real or true “American values.” Voting for them is voting for what America has been, is, or should be all about. But what are “American values”?

Habits of the Heart and Character of Mind Webp.net-resizeimage-2-300x167

Habits of the Heart and Character of Mind Webp.net-resizeimage-2-300x167

After the famous Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) visited the young United States in the 1830s, he wrote what is still considered one of the great classics of political philosophy, Democracy in America (1836; 1840). He said that what stood out most about the Americans was their “habits of the heart” and their “character of mind.”
The quality of the people amazed him, with their belief in personal freedom, self-responsibility, a strong spirit of enterprise, and an attitude that social problems were not the concern of government, but could and should be effectively handled through voluntary association and local community effort.
Here were a people — blended together from many different lands — who refused to bow before kings, who believed in their capacity to be self-governing individuals over their own lives, and who considered the role of government to be a protector of their liberty, not the controller of their destinies.

The long history of ruler and ruled

More: https://blog.heartland.org/2019/12/habits-of-the-heart-and-character-of-mind/

Habits of the Heart and Character of Mind

Habits of the Heart and Character of Mind

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