One of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s claims to fame was his advocacy of the political theory of the social contract, which views society as a contract (either explicit or tacit) between rulers and the ruled. According to this theory, members of a society or state forfeit some of their “natural rights and freedoms” to the state in exchange for the state’s protection of their remaining rights and freedoms and for the state’s maintenance of social order. Edmund Burke, the British statesman and political philosopher, admitted that society could indeed be viewed in this way, but he thought society is better viewed as a trust rather than a contract.
According to Burke, society is a trust among the dead, the living, and the unborn members of that society, in which the living members of the society are trustees who have an obligation to conserve and enhance the benefits they have inherited from their forebears (which include the social institutions and traditions established by previous generations and their accumulated knowledge and wisdom) and also to pass those benefits on to succeeding generations. Burke was concerned that framing society as a contract placed too much power in the hands of the currently living members of that society, who could choose to reject the benefits which previous generations had passed on to them and/or to squander those social and economic resources with little or no regard for future generations. Burke preferred (and rightly so, I would argue) to view society as a trust because this places a greater emphasis upon the ongoing relationships that exist among the deceased, the living, and the future members of that society, and upon the solemn responsibility that each generation has to receive inherited benefits with gratitude and to preserve and pass on all that is good in what they have received to succeeding generations.
We can choose to assume more responsibility for producing and caring for the well-being and flourishing of those people who will come after us.
So how are we doing currently with regard to living out Burke’s vision of “society as trust”? Sadly, not very well, either with regard to our relationship to our forebears or our relationship with the generations who will follow after us. Roger Scruton has referred to contemporary Western culture as a “culture of repudiation”; many of us, especially members of our self-proclaimed cultural “elites,” are rejecting huge swaths of our social inheritance—for example, religious faith and religious freedom, the nature and meaning of marriage, the value and importance of strong families, the beauty and wisdom found in the traditional canon of Western literature, patriotism, and respect for the accomplishments of, and sacrifices made by, those who have gone before us (as is shown by the willful desecration and destruction of statues and monuments erected in memory of some of those people—yes, they were flawed people, but so are we all, and those flaws don’t justify rejecting the good that some of them passed on to us or attempting to erase the fact that they are part of our history as a society).
As poorly as we are doing at valuing and honoring and enhancing the inheritance we have received from the generations who preceded us, we are, I would contend, doing an even worse job of passing those benefits on to those who will come after us. At an economic level, numerous countries spend way beyond their means, borrowing so heavily to finance that spending that they saddle generations yet to be born with potentially crushing levels of debt. At a psychological level, far too many of our adolescents and young adults find themselves struggling with depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders. At a spiritual level, many of us have not done a good job of passing on our religious faith to the next generation, as witnessed by the concerning rise of the “nones”—those people who profess no religious affiliation at all. And at the most fundamental level of all, many people are choosing not even to produce that next generation to begin with, with fertility rates at or below the replacement rate in many countries, often aided and abetted by the evil of elective abortion.
No, we have not done well in recent years (decades, actually) at living out Burke’s vision of society as trust. But we can change that. We can strive to regain, and maintain, an appreciation for all of the good that those who have gone before us have passed on to us, and we can choose to assume more responsibility for producing and caring for the well-being and flourishing of those people who will come after us.
In some ways, Burke’s vision of society as a trust among the dead, the living, and those yet to be born can be viewed as a temporal analog of that far more profound, and indeed eternal, community to which God calls all human beings, past, present, and future: the communio sanctorum or “communion of saints.” There’s something truly beautiful about a view of secular society that emphasizes the connections that can and should exist among the dead, the living, and those yet to be born, thereby encouraging a deeper spirit of community, solidarity, and continuity across generations and imparting to the members of that society a sense of belonging, rootedness, meaning, and purpose—all of which are difficult for some members of our society to find these days.
When we’re tempted to despair at so many of the destructive changes that we see occurring in our society and in Western culture as a whole, it helps to remind ourselves that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come” (Heb 13:14). But in the meantime, we’re also called to do our best to help bring about that “city which is to come,” and striving to rebuild our society’s connections to those who have gone before us and those who will come after us makes for a good start.