Garry Wills in his 1998 book, A NECESSARY EVIL, finds links between our values and our anger. We bear large political burdens seemingly forever without revolting. Suddenly some new but minor burden is added and we fly into disproportionate rages. Take buckling up while driving. Considering a hundred other regulations of driving which we already accept: regarding our age, eyesight, staying off the sidewalk, getting licenses, etc.--whose cumulative effect is enormous--why  rage against seat belts?

It is the same with Asheville North Carolina's "WE STILL PRAY" and other similar reactions to a recent supreme court decision forbidding the use of school loudspeaker systems for public prayer. Why did precisely this relatively minor affront to personal liberties make so many people so angry? For the same people had grumbled for decades but done nothing when Bible reading was driven out of classrooms. They had fussed a bit watching  school curricula became utterly secular. They heard of  teachers questioning students about  behavior of parents in their homes. Parents grumbled but did not revolt about sex education and availability of contraceptives in public schools.

Garry Wills identifies whole clusters of values which run together in most people's minds. When one value is attacked, all or most of the others appear threatened as well.

We do not like it when any level of government, including school boards and courts, forbids us to be ourselves: amateurish, religious, open and candid, traditional, rights-oriented, volunteers, participatory, laid back, doing things the MAJORITY way. That is how private Americans like to get things done.

Governments do things differently. Many of us do not like it that
government at its best (unlike ourselves at our best) is cosmopolitan,
professional, speaks with authority, is efficient, secretive, complex,
future-oriented, elite, machine-like, emphasizes duties not rights, is
utterly secular, rules-making, passing authority top downwards, dividing labor into pigeonholes and (in theory) assigning the most qualified people to do the jobs. (Wills, p. 38)

Praying before football games would be, to Garry Wills, one of a cluster of "anti-governmental" values. It is mainly old-timey, Southern, spontaneous, voluntary and participatory, above board, not concerned with how a minority feels, and builds esprit de corps.

Some people promoting "WE STILL PRAY" want a constitutional amendment to guarantee prayer in the American public forum. That is not necessary. Nor does it go to the root of the problem. We are in today's mess, I think, because of the following developments:

--State governments, judging that a democracy needs educated citizens, compel our young between certain ages to be formally instructed.

--State governments, feeling a bit ashamed at having compelled the young to learn, commit to provide the means for them to learn.

--States were wrong to insist that the sole or principal means be government employees teaching in government-owned building. To draw a parallel, a State is right to help the needy buy groceries but does not compel them to shop in government stores. Government gives to individuals food stamps which are usable in private grocery stores. Government can help education the same way if it chooses to.

--Once States play the dominant role in educating the young, the courts also acquire huge influence. But less so in private schools.

--What "WE STILL PRAY" usefully awakens us to is that all
Government-owned facilities in pluralistic America are becoming
relentlessly, probably irreversibly, secular. That means that government schools, in which children spend a huge proportion of their impressionable waking hours, also inculcate values often hostile to what parents and family teach children at home.

We the people should stay angry but also rethink our problem. For it is
far easier to persuade one State legislature to compensate families
through vouchers for compelling our children to be schooled than it is to amend the Constitution.

-OOO-

for Asheville TRIBUNE