The biggest problem, within the context of the American legal system interacting with today’s objective reality, is the fact that this system is based on the principles of euro-centrism, whereas America is now being officially declared a multicultural country. The metaphysical essence of notions of justice, freedom and intellectual excellence in this country, directly derives out of European mentality and out of European sense of religiosity; therefore, these notions can hardly be thought of as universally applicable to all the citizens of this country. The close reading of the Declaration of Independence reveals it as essentially the legal instrument of insuring cultural and racial homogeneity of the American nation, because our founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson, were rightly pointing out to British colonial rule as having a counter-productive effect on America’s national integrity: “He (King George III) has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions” (Jefferson 1776). Nowadays, the writings of American founding fathers are being commonly referred to as containing essentially humanist undertones. This, of course, cannot be doubted. However, these humanist ideas only applied to those who founding fathers considered as humans, in the full sense of this word – White Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent. This is the reason while discussing the principles of education in his “Notes on Virginia”, Thomas Jefferson implies that only educated people, capable of utilising their sense of rationale (essentially euro-centric concept), are in a position of exercising a political authority in this country: “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree” (Jefferson 1785). In a multicultural society, such Jefferson idea loses its actuality, simply because there can be no criteria for “intellectual improvement” by definition (the practice of IQ testing is now being commonly dismissed as racist). The same applies to the concept of justice – whatever some individual may perceive as a crime, the other individual may very well perceive it as a “celebration of cultural uniqueness”. Those who laid the fundamental principles of justice in America never thought that judges’ ability to be governed solemnly by the word of law, during the course of making legal decisions, would correspond to their racial affiliation, as it is often the case today (O.J.Simpson being found non-guilty on two charges of murder in 1995). Therefore, we can say that the relation of America’s legal system, based on the notion of European rationality, to the reality of the U.S. becoming increasingly multicultural, is now being marked by a high degree of conceptual inconsistency. Today, many Americans do not think that there are good reasons for them to revere the existential philosophy of American founding fathers, given these fathers’ racism and sexism. The spiritual essence of the American Constitution is firmly based on ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of private gun ownership. In their turn, these ideals are now being publicly ridiculed by the very people whose professional responsibilities consist of protecting the American Constitution. We can say that America had ceased to be the country, where the continuous application of the euro-centric concept of law and justice can make any sense. Nowadays, American citizens are being expected to be preoccupied with the “celebration of diversity”, as their foremost social duty. However, their allegiance to the principles of multiculturalism can only derive out of their negative attitude towards what the American legal system was originally meant to stand for – protection of cultural and racial integrity of Protestant Anglo-Saxon society in the New World.
Bibliography
Jefferson, Thomas. 1785. Notes on the State of Virginia. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library.
Jefferson, Thomas. 1776. The Declaration of Independence. Archiving Early America. Web.