The Individual and the Institution

In my last post I began to touch on the relationship between individuals and institutions in shaping national character. I felt like there was more to say on this topic. 

There is an interesting relationship between the role of individuals and institutions in Lebron's conception of national character. He wants for us to "cultivate moral excellence" at both levels, but it is somewhat unclear as to which can or should come first. He argues that national character encompasses "our self-understanding as agents possessing the power to act morally or not," indicating the significance of our attitudes and actions as individuals. He then turns to the institutional level, examining "the way circumstances of power interact with the agency of the disadvantaged" (3). These circumstances of power are predicated on historical relationships and structures, and Lebron claims that Rawls' ideas of justice are justified on premises that neglect this fact. For racial injustice to be "systemic" it must be a part of a system. And, in our system of institutions "themselves beholden to racial historical precedent" we find them passing on "bad moral lessons," that, due to their institutional origins, are granted moral worth without dispute. How could something less than morally worthy come from our morally superior democratic system, after all? It seems that institutions fail to show us "racial inequality as driven by historical relations of power," and instead are responsible for perpetuating and legitimizing our uneven distribution of social value (5). 

Lebron then moves on to the role of the individual with his anecdote that Anna touched on. When his peer made an offensive joke, he felt that the man had "betrayed more deeply held principles" that we as people should maintain (7). He seems to change his tune, claiming that "most of the necessary rules are in place" to improve our national character, but that "the players sometimes seem unwilling to play by the spirit of the rules" (8). In the face of race, we fall short individually as well. 

I think that these inconsistencies only show up when reading Lebron incorrectly. It seems that he uses the individual and the institution interchangeably, or at least sees that they are greatly connected. If "good persons must stand alongside good institutions for justice to take hold," then we are both actors in the process of reforming "our individual selves and the polity as a collective" (6).