C. Vann Woodward, the noted historian of the American South, once observed that the fundamental difference between the North and the South was that the North’s value system was premised on Conscience, and the South’s on Code. This difference in world view helped explain the difference in their cultures and politics, and his observation has often been helpful to me in trying to find my own place in America, to understand its broadest cultural divide. It is helpful to me now in trying to make sense of the staggering disconnect between the McCain camp’s and the Obama camp’s views of the world.
The Code of the South was "honor," and it lives on in eminent military academies today. While there were many praiseworthy aspects to it, while there were many truly admirable people holding power under it, and while its deeply idealistic rhetoric gave it a permanent appeal, the evil at its heart overcame those positive advantages. The collective Conscience of the North, in turn, justified many ugly aspects of its culture – including, for example, its own support of slavery and segregation, the Salem witch trials, and corporate corruption. These two value systems overlapped and to some extent fed off each other.
But slowly, ultimately, history has revealed the "Code" approach to be the weaker of the two, in an increasingly complex and speeded-up world. "Code" meant never questioning assumptions, gave small place to the life of the mind, deflected all evidence contrary to the assumptions that did form the Code. "Conscience" meant using the mind – perhaps to justify or rationalize existing assumptions, but that was at least a start. It meant observing the world around you, gathering and weighing evidence – perhaps over a lifetime or two – and measuring those observations against one’s own moral impulses, against the aspirations of the church or other culture of which one was a part.
I believe we are seeing in this campaign, in particularly sharp focus, a titanic collision of Code and Conscience. What’s most compelling is the value that each side seems to place on information – information that survives the kind of scrutiny that the best journalists still apply. That scrutiny requires repeatedly putting courage over comfort – courage, in the risk implied when questioning assumptions, and the possible tedium in active listening and in retaining details that are sometimes unwelcome. Courage, in not launching into prejudicial spin at the first opportunity. Courage, in accepting that I may have to make some personal sacrifices, as the precarious balance of my life so far recalibrates itself under our collective impact.
To look at a political figure and say, because I feel fully comfortable with you, and because you show such confidence in yourself, I will give you the benefit of any degree of doubt, and will use, spin or reject any information towards perpetuating that comfort which we share – that is Code, not Conscience. Its day is done: the world in which it was ever viable is gone. And an uninformed, desperate version of Conscience is no better.