The USA Isn’t Christian. MGT Society Failed.
From “America Is Not a Christian Nation” (Lind, for Salon):
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility [sic], of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never have entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. - Article 11,Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1797
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support … May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. - George Washington in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island in 1790
The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma, if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions. – President John Tyler, in an 1843 letter
One of the great strengths of the United States is … we have a very large Christian population — we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. – President Barack Obama, 2009
Lind is incorrect in his title. President Obama is dead on. The US is a nation unencumbered by the monoptical lens of a single brand of faith. We have as a collective of individuals the right to choose the source of our values and the means by which we adhere to them. We are not forced to follow leaders. We elect them, with the understanding that they must adhere to the same principles or laws that we do. We - through our elected representatives - design, implement and enforce those laws. All of us are accountable: we, as individuals, are accountable to our own, collective, legal corpus, which may be corrected, modified and otherwise improved; and our individual leaders to the collect, “We the People.”
It is a shame that Peter Drucker never quite grew comfortable, in my estimation, with the bottom-up topology of American government. Over the past year and a half becoming familiar with his work, and the redesigning of Democracy into corporate modalities, such as “shared leadership,” governance, accounting and so on, conducted by those who are inspired to marshal on in the spirit of Drucker (which will, one imagines, animate variously in the future), I find it unsatisfactory that Drucker wrote the book on Management, and not the book On Man.
When he divorced people from commodities, at least in his choice of subject, he divested his subject of realism. He also divested the means from meaning, and the value from values. It seems as though he spent a lifetime trying to manage putting them back together again. If his Humpty-Dumpty had started on the ground, he wouldn’t have broken in the fall in the first place.
As it was, management, from Peter’s vertical, Epistemological perspective seemed always bedeviled by imperfection, a need for innovation or entrepreneurship, or a stronger third sector, improved productivity, lower labor costs, reduced regulation, diminished governmental competition, better leadership, better organization, more effective execution, a clarified mission, a designated consumer, a need or desire to satisfy, enhanced inducements for Knowledge Workers and on and on. Drucker could find good examples and ample poor ones to illustrate his points. Over the decades (GM the most recently pertinent), those citations were largely made redundant. The financial sector trumped all three of the sectors Drucker defined, stuck its greedy, dirty, risky fingers in all the pies, and came close to ruining all of them. It may still do so.
Management failed. Deregulation failed. Leadership failed. Accounting (more than all of them) failed. Governance failed. Decentralization failed. Outsourcing failed. Knowledge Workers failed. Government failed. Business failed. Nonprofits failed. Missions failed. Goals failed. Vision failed. And Peter Drucker wasn’t here to put it all back together again.
