The Crisis in American Civilization - Will Durant

Four basic problems confront the American people today—problems so vital that their simultaneous attack upon us constitutes a major crisis in our history. The most fundamental of these problems is biological—the threatened deterioration of our stock through the low birth-rate of the able and the replenishment of our population through the high birthrate of mediocrity. This breeding from the bottom and dying at the top frustrates recovery by flooding our cities with new millions of arms and legs at the very time when invention has made mere muscle superabundant in industry and has put a premium upon brains. It frustrates democracy by sterilizing the families that generate statesmen, and creating in our cities manipulable masses who get born, breed and die before they can possibly find out what it is all about. Worst of all, it frustrates education by sterilizing the educated; the development of the American mind is repeatedly held back because the high-rate of ignorance outruns the propagation of intelligence. Natural selection once eliminated the incompetent ruthlessly; generosity and charity now preserve them; fertility now multiplies them. No constitution could be good enough to enable such a stock to preserve their civilization.

The second problem is economic. Our American system of industry, since its high living standards preclude the capture of foreign markets, cannot continue unless the purchasing power of our people rises as fast as their power to produce. But the natural inequality of men inevitably concentrates wealth, prevents the full spread of purchasing power, and periodically stalls the industrial machine. Our economic system, like our political system, seems to demand a higher degree of equality among men than nature has provided.

The third problem is moral. A civilization requires some form of social order; order depends partly upon law, chiefly upon morals; morals are in large measure transmitted through religion and the family. But industrialism has weakened the Puritan-agricultural moral code, and has weakened the institutions that transmit morality. A decaying moral code usually brings marital disorder, political corruption, epicurean cowardice, and increasing crime.

The fourth problem is political. The sources of statesmanship—in the fertility of the able—are drying up even as problems multiply and the security of isolation disappears. Men are selected for office because of their political skill, and are then called upon to deal with issues requiring economic knowledge and a wide background of education and intelligence. Political machines grow out of the mob, and stand between honest ability and public office; we spend more money on education than nearly all the rest of the world combined, and then we make education a disqualification for public office. Our headless democracy advances confidently to the inevitable test, in diplomacy and war, with the trained aristocracies of Europe and Japan.

We need not be discouraged by these problems; America has scaled such obstacles before. Our stock is still vital; our democracy has preserved our liberties and yet is functioning as successfully as any dictatorship; and our economic system, even in its confusion, feeds and clothes and shelters our people immeasurably better than any other system known to us in the present or the past. Willingness to look a problem in the face is already half its solution. No single mind can cope at once with all these issues; the complexity of our civilization has made the presidency an outwearing and outworn institution. Each of us must ponder these difficulties, and offer our constructive suggestions as modestly as we can to the national mind.

Perhaps we should begin to meet the biological problem by segregating defectives against reproduction, and by using every avenue of education, and every device of taxation, to encourage fertility among the able and discourage it among the incompetent; perhaps the high cost of maternity in the middle classes can be offset by the provision of free facilities for motherhood to all women who have secured a medical certificate of fitness for parentage. Perhaps the economic problem can be solved only when the able minority learns to discipline itself sufficiently to permit such a distribution of wealth as will keep the power to purchase on a level with the power to produce. Perhaps we can meet some part of the moral problem by using the old institution of the dowry to restore marriage to a natural age, and to encourage parentage in the married; the revival of the family is the core of moral renewal. Perhaps we can take a step towards political regeneration by equalizing educational opportunity, organizing Schools of Government in our universities, establishing a United States Civil Academy at Washington, and gradually closing all but the highest offices to those who have not been specifically and technically trained for public administration. Education alone should nominate; and democracy should be redefined not as the equal eligibility of all to office, but as the equal opportunity of all to make themselves fit for office.

These are tentative and preliminary suggestions, open to doubt and dispute. What, after mature and realistic thought, would the reader himself propose as measures designed to meet this crisis in our national life?