The Dissent of the Governed : A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 235 pages
• Published by: Harvard University Press November 1, 1999
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0674212665
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0674212664
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Weighs: 9.1 ounces

Product Review
In this "meditation on law, religion, and morality," originally delivered as part of Harvard's annual Massey Lectures series, which has attracted speakers from Richard Rorty to Toni Morrison, Stephen L. Carter dwells on themes from his greater books, including The Culture of Disbelief, with particular attention to allegiance (and its opposite, disallegiance) to religion and state.

Working from the text of the Declaration of Independence, Carter proposes that the true measure of a democracy can be found in its treatment of those citizens who dissent with its stated values. This has been especially important in the consideration of those who disagree with the local or federal government on moral grounds rooted in religious belief; in this century alone, that has been a factor in issues ranging from pacifist activism against World War I, the nonviolent civil rights movement of the 1960s, and the continuing debate over abortion rights. It is also relevant today with regard to such issues as the provision of government funds for private (usually religious) schools. Carter reminds us that the purpose of democracy is not to impose one set of values on a diverse citizenry, but to create a space for dialogue among people of varying value systems, each of which is accorded respect and dignity. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
From the marginalizing of religion in U.S. politics and law--his subject in The Culture of Disbelief (1993)--Carter turns to how the federal courts discount religion. His point of departure is a reading of the Declaration of Independence that stresses dissent as the criterion of government legitimacy. The extent to which government accommodates dissent is the index of citizen allegiance; if dissenters' grievances are persistently ignored, that justifies disallegiance and rebellion. Carter thinks many religious citizens' allegiance is now strained because of liberal constitutionalism, which creates a single national community concerned to "get the answers [to problems] right" and "not to worry too much about the process," but which, to do so, dismisses allegiances to other communities, religious ones in particular, that individual citizens regard as fundamental. But other allegiances have been an important corrective to government, even when they led to lawbreaking; Martin Luther King Jr. argued--cogently, Carter believes--that the civil rights movement's civil disobedience, although it arose from religious conviction, was based in a deeper allegiance to the nation. Finally, Carter finds the courts habitually dismissive of dissent (the Supreme Court found against Dr. King, he reminds us) and feeling themselves under no political obligation to individual citizens and citizen groups. He sees in the integration by the courts of constitutional interpretation and political obligation the means to accommodate democratic citizens' several loyalties for the sake of justice. Read this little book and become a better American. Ray Olson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
The Dissent of the Governed edits and expands three lectures which Carter presented at Harvard University in 1995. They found print in 1998, though the book came into general sales only last year. Having followed Carter since The Culture of Disbelief, appreciating him, arguing with him, sometimes disagreeing with him, I opened Dissent with expectation and some trepidation. Would ideas dating from six years ago speak to the America of the twenty-first century? The answer is yes. Carter takes his title from the line in the Declaration of Independence which declares that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Carter argues, persuasively I believe, that a test of whether or not a government is authentic and just is how it handles the dissent of its citizens. The verdict for the United States is mostly negative. The "liberal project" of the twentieth century, symbolized by the New Deal and the Great Society, and given additional energy by the Civil Rights Movement, assumed that a legitimate role of government is to enforce a common set of values in the nation. The preferred method of enforcement is through societal structures, such as the school and the house of worship. Failing that, the government is justified in using law to enforce that common set of values. Carter argues that the project might have derailed, were it not for the Second Civil War (his name for the Civil Rights Movement), which relied on the courts for legitimation. Thus the judiciary became politicized. I read Dissent immediately after the Supreme Court intervened in the 2000 election, and I was amazed at Carter's prescience. That intervention, impossible to conceive were the judiciary truly independent of politics, could indeed have been predicted by the track record of the courts. The Right is correct: The courts do indeed make law. The courts are indeed political entities, part of what Carter calls the Sovereign, or ruling power in the land. The courts have become dangerous, though, precisely because they DENY the very role which they obviously play in the life of the nation. With an argument like this, Carter could play into the hands of the most Right of those on the Right, those who advocate not only resistance to the Sovereign but active efforts to overcome that Sovereign. Carter avoids the trap. Instead, he focuses on the power of what he calls "communities of meaning" both to preserve themselves against the power of the Sovereign and to redeem the life of the nation. Carter means religious communities, all the way from the Jewish town of Kiryas Joel to religion-based schools in otherwise secular municipalities. Active dissent to the power of the Sovereign is the responsibility of such communities of meaning because it is the right of parents to provide for the transmission of their values to their children. Such provision includes dissent from a public education system which not only excludes religious expression but is often actively hostile toward that expression. With decisions like that upholding the right of the state to proscribe the use of peyote in religious rituals, the judiciary has made public policy regarding matters that belong in the hands of communities of meaning. In an age when the weight of history moves America toward diversity, the judiciary assumes a unanimity that can never exist, and probably should not exist. As a Christian pastor in a mainline denomination, Dissent caused me to rethink my attitudes about those institutions that usually call themselves "Christian schools." Having served for nine years in an Indiana town dominated by a conservative denomination, miniscule outside its headquarters town, I had grown weary of the almost "in-your-face" attitude of folks associated with such schools. In a new town, where the Christian school is small and sometimes struggles, I realize that I was experiencing what Christian school supporters feel almost everywhere: Active disdain, and sometimes outright hostility, from the established sovereign. Having returned from a Holy Land trip more convinced than ever of the legitimacy of Christian claims to primacy among the world's religions, I now care whether or not it is "safe" for believers to speak of the things of faith. Naturally, those who believe differently must be protected from a tyranny of either the majority or the minority. Right now, no one is protected, and no one benefits, save the Sovereign. My wife just began teaching part time at our local Christian school. I thought and spoke of Carter's book often as I visited with folks at a recent open house. Read him. Think. Inspiring thought is what Stephen Carter does best, and he thinks about things that need thinking about.