POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

(I’d like to forestall objections by Canadians by noting that Charles and Daniel Krauthammer, whose columns are the topic of this post, seem to interested very little in making an argument for the origins of the holiday and much more interested in exploring what its meaning is for Americans.)

Daniel Krauthammer, the son of Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist who passed away this past June, has written an op-ed for the Post that gets as close to anything that I have read about the meaning of Thanksgiving as an  American holiday. Even if those gathered around our own tables on Thanksgiving often seem to illustrate something quite different, the op-ed is thought-provoking. (I should note that although I often disagreed with Charles Krauthammer’s views, I did respect his ability to articulate those views very effectively, and I admired his determination in the face of terrible physical misfortune.)

Daniel Krauthammer frames his discussion by referring readers back to a column that his father wrote more than three decades ago on the meaning of Thanksgiving, but one of the passages that I found most inspiring is from Daniel Krauthammer himself, even if he is paraphrasing or explaining and somewhat elaborating on what his father originally expressed:

In our own politics, no force prevents our leaders or our electorate from choosing to believe that the “self-evident” and highest purpose of our government should be, say, to “make America great again” or to achieve “social justice.” That is not to say those goals are unworthy (depending on how they are defined). But if our system is to endure, they must remain subordinate to the primary principles of democratic self-government.

The alternative ideologies all offer a predefined and unifying cause that serves a purpose greater than the self. At each of their cores lies a quasi-religious belief in the absolute and unquestioned rightness of that cause, whether it be the glory of king or country or the righteous struggle of one collective tribal identity against another.

In contrast, democracy is not a natural unifier. It allows—indeed, it requires—individuals to choose their own destinies. “Democracy,” my father wrote, “is designed at its core to be spiritually empty,” for “it mandates means (elections, parliaments, markets) but not ends. Democracy leaves the goals of life entirely up to the individual. Where[as] the totalitarian state decrees life’s purposes.” As a result, democracy is at once “the most free, most humane, most decent political system ever invented by man,” and also “the most banal. Dying for it is far more ennobling than living it.” And paradoxically, my father argued, this is exactly the point: “the glories yielded by such a successful politics lie outside itself. Its deepest purpose is to create the conditions for the cultivation of the finer things.”

I think that the insights in the last four sentences will resonate especially with all of those who became political activists, or renewed their commitment to political activism, between the 2016 and 2018 elections.

Daniel Krauthammer’s complete op-ed is available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-lessons-my-father-charles-krauthammer-taught-me-about-being-thankful/2018/11/21/c314bf34-ecee-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.html?utm&utm_term=.5982bda20e2d.