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 SUMMATIVE ESSAY: JOHN LOCKE AND MODERN AMERICA

By P.R. Eaton



Some elements within the American body politic have manipulated the ideas of liberalism to negate and replace religion with a desire to centralize authority for certain controls; the ideas espoused by John Locke have been embraced by both of the main political parties of the United States but with very different results with liberalism of the left by fully embracing Locke's concepts of individualism yet rejecting theology and religion, and replacing it with centralized government.


How have Lockean ideas played out in modern American politics?


Do the writings and ideas of John Locke manifest themselves in public policy today?


What is fundamentally missing from Locke’s ideas on government?

 

John Locke founded the idea or concept of a ‘protective democracy’ that was bound by a social contract between the people, as a body, and those that represented the people. John Locke’s ideas continue to influence concepts associated with liberal individualism, individual rights, and political independence.

John Locke influenced the framers of American independence and the architects of the Constitution. The framers forcefully addressed the desire for liberty; individual freedoms of life, liberty, and property. The ideas espoused by Locke, known as liberalism, are being fought over today by the two dominant political parties of the United States.

Locke gave birth to the ideas of individualism, freedom, and limited government. The very ideas of liberalism, especially within one political party, has jettisoned the outright association with religion and has replaced it a selfish identity.

T.S. Eliot cautions that liberalism, however, can be used to control, to negate, and is a movement more defined by its starting point rather than by its end and as such, liberalism is incapable of enduring.

 

Footnotes

 

M. J. Cresswell, “Legitimizing Force: A Lockean Account,” Armed Forces and Society, (July 1, 2004 Research Article),

https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1177/0095327X0403000406

 

Daniel McCarthy, “John Locke: Liberal, Libertarian, Or License To Kill?” The American Conservative, (3 October, 2013),

            https://www.theamericanconservative.com/mccarthy/john-locke-liberal-libertarian-or-license-to-kill/

 

 

Jake Meador, “T.S. Eliot on Liberalism’s Greatest Problem,” The Calvinist International, (26 December, 2014),

            https://calvinistinternational.com/2014/12/26/ts-eliot-liberalisms-greatest-problem/

 

 

R.R. Reno, “Eliot and Liberalism,” First Things, (4 January, 2016),

            https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/01/eliot-and-liberalism

 

Lee Ward, “Locke on the Moral Basis of International Relations,” American Journal of Political Science, (21 June 2006), 

https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00210.x

 

 

Armitage, David, Foundations of Modern International Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012) doi:10.1017/CBO9781139032940.

 

Eicholz, Hans L. Harmonizing Sentiments: The Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian Idea of Self-Government. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.

Hannan, Daniel. Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World (New York: Harper Collins, 2013).

Locke, John, Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Volume I, (Edinburgh: Mundell & Sons, 1798).

 

Nevins, Paul L, The Politics of Selfishness: How John Locke's Legacy Is Paralyzing America, (Santa Barbara:  Praeger, 2010).

 

McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. University Press of Kansas, 1985.

Robbins, Caroline. The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004.

 

 

 

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