Garry Wills is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Universal Press Syndicate, and the Henry Luce Professor of American Culture and Public Policy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is the author of several books, including Explaining America, Inventing America, and Nixon Agonistes.
Wills is perhaps best known for his impassioned editorial writings during the Vietnam war, which helped to articulate the vision of the peace movement and sharpen opposition to the war. A periodic contributor to Sojourners and a Catholic, Wills was interviewed by Sojourners' staff in early January.--The Editors
Sojourners: How do you assess the results of the fall election? Would you say that liberalism has failed?
Garry Wills: It's hard to know what liberalism really is. In so far as it's an historical body of principles, I think it failed long ago. In the popular sense, liberalism means greater government spending for everything except defense.
I think people are saying that the welfare reform of the '60s, like the New Deal of the '30s, accomplished some things but now lacks the discipline of its original vision. And they want an alternative. But Reagan is not going to cut back significantly on the reforms of the '60s any more than Eisenhower cut back on the New Deal. His "alternative" will be, by and large, a failure.
Unfortunately, the U.S. is in one of those sabre-rattling moods which seems to come from the shocking realization that not only is Vietnam able to defy us, but also the oil emirates, the Iranian mullahs, and the OPEC cartel.
America came out of World War II with the idea that we had won the war, and that under the terms of unconditional surrender, would be able to dispose of the world for our own good. But it turned out that it was not possible to so impose our will, which shocked the psyche of America. It meant, for one thing, that perhaps we had done all that killing for nothing.
Then we got the Bomb and thought we could tell Russia what to do, but Russia wouldn't obey either.
So the assumption bred into Americans out of the World War II experience is being shattered, not only in terms of direct confrontation, but in terms of economic competition as well, with Japan for instance. It hurts our national ego. Reagan, of course, is using all the World War II rhetoric--we are the good guys.
The weird thing about American politics is that it's always easier for the party that wins an election to move beyond the demands of its constituency than it is for the losing party. That's because in an election campaign, a candidate begins with a base constituency and moves toward the middle. The more a candidate moves toward the middle, the more flexible and accommodating he seems, and the more he comes before the electorate as the president of all. The U.S. operates with a non-ideological politics of compromise.
So I don't think there's cause for absolute despair when a candidate from the other party wins--he'll often be able to do your work better than you could yourself, although the trouble is that you never know when he might decide to do so.
Sojourners: You seem to be self-consciously rooting your own politics in biblical religion. Some people think that the two subjects of religion and politics can't be combined, and yet your columns are often about both and the relationship between the two.
Wills: Well, there's nothing original about my doing it. I think Americans have always done so. We just have never reflected on how we have combined religion and politics.
Given the American two-party system, the formulation of issues has traditionally taken place outside politics, and very often in religious circles. Since we have a secular politics, religion is more free to formulate issues in terms of principle and put pressure on society through teaching, preaching, demonstrating--not through electoral politics.
That was true in the time of the abolitionists, and it was true of the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s, which was strongly influenced by southern baptist preachers: Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young. Reform in Jane Addams' time had a strong religious base; and the temperance movement, the Quakers, and other religious groups have played an important role in the history of American politics.
In all efforts of change in the United States, the initial step can't be taken within the political process because that process is aimed at compromise, vote-getting, and success: winning elections. At the outset of any movement for social change there is no chance of winning an election; the movement is still formulating issues and principles and acquiring a constituency. That work is done by preachers, teachers, and academicians.
As time has gone by, the party system has become more governed by compromise, and the importance of religion in creating a community of concern over an issue has been increasingly more central, it seems to me, than it was even in the 19th century.
Sojourners: So you would say that people of faith must take the initiative in politics?
Wills: Yes, but there's a paradox in that. On the one hand, our secular politics has freed religion to become quite effective in its own right. On the other hand, we've pretended it wasn't there; we didn't look at it. Our coverage of politics has focused on politicians, which is less than half the story.
Lyndon Johnson and Everett Dirksen finally rammed through the civil rights bill in 1964. But of course the real originators or true sponsors and effective agents who were involved were Dr. King and other people who went to jail and died. That kind of work and sacrifice is hidden by the conventional politics which journalists cover.
Sojourners: Do you think that the United States, as an imperial nation on the decline, might be more dangerous than it was in its ascent?
Wills: I think there is a danger. A professor at the University of Tokyo told me last summer that handling decline is always hard, especially for a country that was, in 1945, the most powerful in the world. And Americans have shown that we will be irrationally supportive of anyone who asserts that we are not in decline.
For example, look at the totally crazy and unproductive incidents of the Mayaguez raid and Carter's desert fiasco in April, 1980: Both were destructive of lives, and yet both brought about a great popular expression of support for the president.
It's an open question whether the United States' decline puts more pressure on Democrats, who have to prove that they're tough because they are thought to be weak, or on Republicans, whose constituents are constantly clamoring for more evidence of America's might.
We have been, however, with whatever ill grace, facing up to decline. We got out of Vietnam, cut back on some of our pretensions, and are coming to terms with the fact that we cannot defy the oil countries. In some ways we are almost slavishly admitting that the Japanese and others do some things better than we do. I never allow myself to be very pessimistic. Americans like a bellicose gesture, but when it comes to action, they often pull back.
Sojourners: The Islamic revolution, Latin American liberation theology, the Catholic Worker, Sojourners, the Moral Majority, and the Polish workers all agree that faith has political meaning. What do you think is the significance of the upsurge of such varied religiously based political movements?
Wills: The United States, though secular in terms of overt politics, was in origin largely Calvinist-Protestant sociologically. Changes that were brought about by the immigration influx took place below the level of explicit politics.
What groups like the Moral Majority have done is to assume a number of the social poses of the old Protestant American consensus, without much theological depth. These groups combine and compromise various strains within Protestantism, bringing them down to the least common denominator.
In a country like America--large, secular, mobile, individualistic--building community is very difficult. It goes against expressed creeds which say that everyone is a lone agent voting for the best man, not a member of a stable party who votes the party line.
In that kind of society, religion has the terrific task of making people realize their interdependence, their need for one another and for mutual support. There is little in American expressed theory which says that we must form ourselves into communities.
The United States lacks the feeling of the sacredness of the American life at home. We are missing that sense of solidarity, of the sacredness of the society, except when we assume a bellicose posture abroad. Germans or Iranians had better not harm an American, but that sense doesn't exist regarding a fellow citizen at home. The entire argument against gun control is that our freedom depends on our ultimate ability to protect ourselves against our fellow citizens. The cult of the gun in America is that you cannot trust anyone with your own liberty: Only you can defend it in the end--you and your gun.
Even people who are not "gun nuts," who are rather liberal, enlightened members of the society, are afraid of community in America. Our vision of freedom in America depends on being not only free of community but over against the community: I am defying the crowd, and if I am not defying the crowd, then I lose this precious independence of the American way of life.
In a country like ours, building community is a terribly difficult task, as labor unions have found out. It takes an almost mystical defiance of common norms to express the ideals of community in America.
Americans do feel the need at various times, in various ways, for community. The Moral Majority is trying to supply it, using nostalgic terms, implying that if we just return to the past, we can all be at peace again. Ronald Reagan has said that when he grew up, everybody got along--well, of course, his world was one that didn't see the oppression and violence.
But that yearning for community can and does take gospel form among people who refuse to be nostalgic--people who say that there is nothing good about a world that used oppression to achieve homogeneity.
The civil rights movement was a good example of how that attitude operates. Ecumenism, which had never gotten anywhere discussing theology, got a terrific shot in the arm during that period. Ministers, priests, rabbis were down in the streets with the people, marching together. They had a community of concern growing out of their various traditions.
Now I hope something like that can take place in a movement against nuclear weapons. Such a movement, it seems to me, is the modern version of the abolitionist movement: It is both a crying need at the moment and yet totally in defiance of political probability. In the 1830s it was crazy to think you could ever abolish slavery in the United States; there was no political channel through which to work. People had to have a basis in faith to believe that the elimination of slavery was imperative and to persevere, whether or not it was practical.
Sojourners: But isn't disarmament today hindered by an interlocking fear on both sides?
Wills: All politicians in America have professed a desire to disarm, but they always say the process must be mutual, respective, and gradual. That will never happen, because the process that is supposed to inspire trust inspires distrust.
For instance, one of the arguments for SALT I was that it was a beginning: It would allow us to bargain, open channels, get to know and trust each other, so that the next step would be easier. It hasn't worked that way, of course. SALT I has made SALT II even harder, for a very simple reason. In order to reach agreement, you bargain and compromise so that you allow each other a little ambiguity, a little play. That means that even if both sides observe the treaty in good faith, the ambiguity always offers the possibility of charging the other side with non-compliance.
The question cannot be: "Do we trust them? Can we depend on them?" If we depend on them, it will never happen. The only way for disarmament to become a reality is for us to disarm unilaterally. I know that sounds crazy, but only because people haven't considered it.
I have raised the option of unilateral disarmament to advocates of disarmament, and have found that even the people who are moral ly concerned about the issue are not even considering this possibility. That is a tremendous failing.
For one thing, they should consider it simply in terms of the moral imperative. There is no moral defense of nuclear weaponry, because even a policy of retaliation requires the willingness to kill a certain number of innocent people. So even if we have nuclear weapons, we could never use them. If that's the case, why have them?
But aside from that, my argument is that nuclear weapons have not deterred any action of the Russians. After all, we had a monopoly on nuclear weapons at the end of World War II, and we have not deterred the Russians at all by our possession of these weapons.
The Russians have the built-in problem of managing their empire. We now know from records that Stalin was not behind all of the communist activity in the world, that he was not very interested in the Chinese communists at the end of World War II, that he was not very interested in the Greek communists, that he had his hands full establishing his control over the occupied territories gained after the war. And the same is true today.
The Soviets are having a hard enough time holding down their satellites, Poland and Czechoslovakia; and they have failed to hold down others of their satellites and allies like China, Rumania, Yugoslavia. It is not nuclear weaponry which has checked the Russians; if we got rid of nuclear weapons tomorrow, it would not change the situation at all.
People also have a hard time with the idea of giving up an apparent economic advantage. The argument against abolition was that slavery was an economic necessity to the South and therefore a political and military necessity for the nation. Actually, of course, slavery was a drain. People wouldn't face up to that fact. The same is true of nuclear weaponry today.
These great means of destruction have outraced any political use. That was true even before we had nuclear weapons. After our strategic conventional bombing in World War II, studies showed that our great power to destroy had practically no impact on the war. We didn't disrupt German history: Rail lines were instantly re-established. Rather than breaking the people's will by bombing their cities to the ground, we hardened their will.
The history of highly destructive bombing has been a very sad one for the people who did it. Hitler didn't break the will of the English in the Blitz; we didn't break the will of the Germans at Dresden; we didn't break the will of the Vietnamese in Hanoi.
The assumption has been that if you can conquer somebody, you can control them. And in conventional, old-time warfare, that was probably true, because the means of conquest used manpower. You had manpower on the scene, which could not only destroy, but also police, organize, administer. Now, we are in the position of being able to destroy a country, but not being able to control it.
Let's take the worst possible scenario. Say we unilaterally disarm tonight, and tomorrow the Soviet Union blows up the United States. It's hard to know why the Soviets would, of course; what advantage would it give them? It would poison a hemisphere for them and would certainly not make the rest of the world any more well disposed toward them.
But suppose the Russians do attack. What follows? Nothing. They can't come over and occupy us; they can't force us to pay tribute to them--what are they going to say? "Send us all of your helicopters"? Who'll be left to do it?
The breakdown between conquest and control has occurred now on such a scale that it makes no sense to undertake a conquest. There is a great difference between the destruction of a nation's people and resources and the useful manipulation of them. Yet we continue to think that because we have the power to destroy, we have the power to control.
As I said earlier, the normal political process can't raise these issues. Only the people who speak out on principle can--especially those who speak out of religious imperatives not to kill. Religious motives for nonviolence are the simplest, clearest, and most difficult to argue with--as was true of the religious motives for not owning slaves.
Sojourners: Would you talk a little about your personal faith?
Wills: I grew up in a very anti-communist, Catholic family where the ties between belief and politics were clear: Godless atheism was attacking my country and my church. I went to Catholic schools, and was influenced by G.K. Chesterton and Hillar Belloc, who gave me the first indication that perhaps my growth would lead me into opposition to the super-patriotism espoused by the church. Later, as a young journalist, I also found cause for reflection in the civil rights movement and the Catholic Worker.
Dorothy Day was a Catholic, and so I had always known of her. I was very resistant to her at the outset because she was not anti-communist in the crazy way the rest of the church was. And from the outset she opposed nuclear weapons. I first really started paying attention to her when she was arrested in the '50s for refusing to enter shelters during air raid drills in New York. I was in seminary then, and of course we debated what she did and why she shouldn't have done it. Later, I was at Yale graduate school and she came and spoke, and my resistance to her started to fade.
I left seminary in 1957 and wrote freelance articles for Commonweal, America, and William F. Buckley's National Review. Most of my interests then were theological and literary. But my agreement with conservatives was all on the anti-communist issue, never on economics.
Sojourners: What do you see for the future of American politics and the American church?
Wills: I never predict. Predicting is so obviously foolish--and obviously doesn't work. Also, there's something mean-spirited about looking at the odds for the future.
People who are really good at effecting change are the people who don't pay attention to the results of their action. That's why people of faith can start things that no one else can, because they are not making a calculus of the probability of success; they are doing it because they are called. Prophets are always called to apparently useless tasks at the outset.
I think that the principal moral issue today is nuclear weapons. That is the area the churches must move into. Some of them are doing so, even in formal ways in the hierarchies, boards, and ministries.
The church organizes best around perceived needs that it must respond to. The civil rights movement was important not only for the sake of integration, but because in working for that good, Christians of all types got to know one another. I hope the same thing will happen in opposition to nuclear weapons.
Sojourners: Where do you look for signs of hope?
Wills: To the saints. That's where Christians should always look. The growth of Christianity has been through a recognition of the need for saints, martyrs. The cult of the martyrs was the organizing principle of early Christianity.
The early Christians expected the Second Coming momentarily. That sense of urgency should be present in our lives all the time. For a Christian, Christ has always died. That is true no matter what period of history you live in.
The drama of Christ dying for us is always the same whether it is in a nuclear age or during the decline of the Roman empire. We must always realize the faith of the saints--that there is no historical tragedy that can equal the crucifixion. The drama of salvation is always the same.
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