Ann Coulter is Half-Right

In her recent book Godless, Ann Coulter presents the thesis that American Liberalism is actually a godless religion. In that respect she is half-right. Liberalism is a religion, Christianity, which certainly is not godless. If one boils down Liberalism to its base, it is actually the belief that the individual is strongest when working consensually and cooperatively with others who share similar needs and wants. Christianity, when stripped of the barnacles that have become attached over the centuries, is the belief that when one loves God, loves his neighbor as himself, and treats others as he would like to be treated, something divine and miraculous happens -- justice, peace, and prosperity are furthered. The disinterested self-sufficiency that is lionized by those more to the right of the political spectrum is antithetical to the Spirit of Jesus, who advised the rich to give all of their money to the poor. Critics of Liberalism frequently accuse it of being a watered-down Communism. However, like true Christianity, Liberalism is actually undone by coercion. In both systems, people cooperate with others so that others will cooperate with them -- and everyone benefits.

Individual and Collective Responsibility

"I am a gay American..." These were the words of New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey as he admitted to an extra-marital affair that exposed his government to scandal. With those words, he contextualized his individual sins within America's over-arching sin of homophobia. Many have blamed the governor for trying to use the typical liberal excuse, blaming society for one's own mistakes. In our culture there has been a moral argument between those who tend to blame society for the wrongdoings of individuals and those who tend to blame individuals for their own sins without taking into account the ills of society that promote the need to commit the sins in the first place. However, there is a third perspective: perhaps Governor McGreevey is guilty of what he has done, and society is guilty for what it has done.

Few people, whatever their stance on this argument, deny the concept of individual responsibility. However, few on the side promoting the primacy of individual responsibility acknowledge that indeed there is a valid concept of collective responsibility. Society does commit sins. Society does have responsbility for what it does wrong.

Governor McGreevey certainly has responsibility for his own actions. But America has responsibility for fostering a society in which he has felt necessary to hide his nature from everyone close to him, from his colleagues, and from his constituents.
To use another example, if a society fosters an environment where there is widespread hunger, the individual still has the responsibility to refrain from stealing food, and must suffer the consequences if they do not adhere to that restriction. However, the sympathy that should be shown to the person who steals food in that context is much greater than that which should be shown to an individual who steals food out of laziness in a world of plenty.

Both McGreevey and society at large are both responsible for their own specific wrongs in this situation and both should be held accountable.