Hal Rothman on why this nation needs a Statue of Responsibility

Sunday, July 2, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

We have now had 230 years of this little experiment of ours called American democracy, and I am not altogether convinced that the Founding Fathers would entirely approve of what we have done with their ideas. It is a long way from there to here, but they would certainly be mystified at our vision of freedom.

When Paul Revere looked across at the Old North Church to see if the British were coming by land or sea, he had a pretty good idea of what freedom meant. In the world of the 18th century, freedom was the right to do as you pleased within the confines that your larger community established. This was more than enough in his era; after all, they were less than a century removed from the Salem witch trials.

But Revere and his revolutionary compatriots were on to something. Freedom in their world was not the province of the individual. It was a right granted by nature and the deity, enforced by the judgment of all around. In essence, the community created a large psychic space, and individuals were free to careen around as long as they did not bust the boundary line.

Today, freedom is about the self. In our age, we see freedom as the right to do what you want, where you want, how you want, when you want, and with whomever you want. Like much else in our society, freedom is exclusively defined by the individual. It has little to do with larger concepts like community.

Now it is hard to complain about this change, given the rights revolution of the past 60 years, but it has cost us something important. In Paul Revere's day, people understood that rights came bundled with obligations. We have somehow left the latter part of this equation out of our calculus.

We have a Statue of Liberty to enshrine our rights. It sits in New York harbor, its torch thrust upward, a symbol of American freedom. It is a thing of beauty, a powerful image that defines us to ourselves as well as to much of the sane world.

What we are missing is a Statue of Responsibility, a reminder of the way rights and obligations are intertwined. I cannot imagine what this would look like, but I think I have the place for it: Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. This former prison, the site of an occupation by Native Americans, would be perfect for a symbol of what we owe. It would be a bookend, one on each side of the country, giving us a vision of the transcontinental link between the two components of American freedom.

Imagine that! A society in which people gave their obligations to community and nation the gravity they now only feel for their personal rights. People would act differently; they would participate instead of whine, they would vote rather than sit on the couch changing channels, and they would challenge what the media and politicians put forward.

In that America, vibrant discussion would take place - as it does today - except that its governing principle would be the betterment of community, not the feathering of the individual nest. People would engage those who disagreed with them, rather than blow them off in the caustic and vituperative manner of too many of today's commentators. You know the type, people who would rather win than be right and will stop at nothing to have their way.

Of course, the discourse was no more enlightened in Paul Revere's day than it is today. In 1798, just 20 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Federalists, John Adams' party, passed something called the Alien and Sedition Acts. These nefarious laws outlawed criticism of the party in power in an attempt to save a failing administration from defeat at the polls.

So, nobody is perfect. Still, I'm entranced by the idea of a Statue of Responsibility, a counterpoint to the overemphasis on the individual that pervades early 21st century America. Done properly, such a piece of symbolic art could illustrate the many ways rights carry obligations with them.

Thomas Jefferson reminded us that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." In this day and age, we are sufficiently vigilant, but not always in the right ways.