I note a review of the NCC (and the new exhibition of the Constitution in the National Archives in Washington) in today's Wall Street Journal, p. D6 by Lee Rosenbaum. Consider the following sentences:
"Visitors to either venue cannot help but reflect on the pervasive, beneficent influence that this durable document has had on our personal and civic lives....
Not just schoolchildren but, especially, world-weary adults could use the jolt of civic pride engendered by the NCC's imaginative, chronological retelling of how the Constitution has been the glue binding together a contentious, diverse populace...."
How would one demonstrate that the Constitution has had a "beneficent influence" on "our personal and civic lives" rather than a detrimental one? I.e., is this a plausible empirical assertion, subject to test, or a statement of "constitutional faith" (as it were)? Similarly, how exactly would one show that it's "been the glue binding [us] together"?
Of course, I'm a curmudgeon who belives that "world-weary adults" need to adopt a more Jeffersonian spirit of critical reflection on the adequacy of our Constitution than the Madisonian "veneration" so perfectly captured in Ms Rosenbaum's review.
(I leave it up to our genial moderator as to whether this is within the jurisdiction of our listserv.)
sandy
