A few months ago, I went riding in Eastern Washington, then just hopped over to Idaho and Montana for a full day exploration. I did this loop via Hwy 2 – Troy – Bull Lake, and finally back to Washington via Hwy 200/2. Needless to say, Montana is gorgeous. Had stopped more than a few times for breathtaking views and fuel. Exquisite views to fuel the weary senses and Chevron for the motorcycle. Like many other journeys, this also involved riding through stretches of rustic towns. Even though the area was novel to me, I was just another motorcyclist for the curious onlookers at the gas stations! Just another nameless rider, looking jaded from the journey, but still exhibiting frequent unexplained bursts of enthusiasm to navigate those winding roads, often at uncomfortable speeds.

Unlike cars, there is a degree of anonymity to motorcycles – a real yet romantic anonymity. It doesn’t matter where you live or what you do; during those long journeys, your identity turns into that of a rider. It’s sort of like John Rawls’ famous veil of ignorance, the unique life circumstances of a motorcyclist hidden beneath the protective gear. There is also a degree of comfort in that anonymity. It’s like you’re admired or derided or just ignored, mostly for your riding, and maybe a bit for the riding gear, but not for other factors like class, ethnicity, etc. There is a relative sense of justice in that evaluation. The essence of such an objective evaluation has larger consequences when it’s institutionalized.

The two main motivations for the larger inquiry in this essay are lived experience and curiosity. Together, they led to analytical hymns of motorcycling woven into several things uniquely American. My dad and great-grandfather also rode motorcycles, so that obsession I’d attribute to inherited tendencies. But curiosity about Americana and, in general, Western civilization is acquired. That curiosity led to a cross-disciplinary inquiry involving history, economics, sociology, and philosophy. This helped connect all the relevant theories and causes for prosperity into a coherent system of ideas. One such identified critical cause of that prosperity is the objective evaluation of individuals.

If it isn’t already obvious, most parts of the world are in a constant state of tension. It varies in degree, but people are, in general, deadlocked in various forms of bickering. Often, these inter-group disputes are hundreds of years old and may even have been inflicted by unknown individuals. Generations are continually born into baggage and their minds shaped by these artifacts of the past. Without reconciling these disputes, there is no peace or path to prosperity. Even if someone manages a truce, it is often fleeting, and the mischief inevitably reemerges.

Thanks to some fortunate accidents in history, the reconciling cultural strand from England survived, and often thrived. From common law jurisprudence and related institutions to its more evolved American Federalism, for hundreds of years, there has been a recurring theme of attempting to reconcile divergent views. This framework is designed to resolve disputes without taking sides or enforcing collective goals. An exceptionally strong 1st Amendment right is a perfect illustration of this tendency. Even when many countries emulated Constitutionalism and its surrounding institutions, they often adopted a variant devoid of that impartial reconciliatory strand.

Impartial justice demands applying the law to factual circumstances, without being unduly biased by broader historical context. Consistent application of this impartial principle to disputes leads to harmony – it shapes social processes where peaceful coexistence becomes the path of least resistance. Strong protection of free speech did not change human nature, but it created conditions where peaceful persuasion was the path of least resistance. Societies burdened by historical baggage will find this harder to execute. To paraphrase F. A. Hayek, civilization advanced when we invented an unbiased justice based on the rule of law, rather than the rule of status derived from historical context like class, occupation, ethnicity, race, tribe, etc.

Not just in individual dispute resolution, peace through reconciliation is evident in all the functioning layers of the English political system. Whether it’s reconciling the majority views with minority opinions, the legislature with the judiciary, pure democracy with Constitutional law, or states’ rights with Federal government — English tradition constantly steered towards that simple goal of reconciliation.

The process evolved over a few centuries, from reconciling the goals of nobles with those of royalty through Magna Carta, to a sophisticated adaptive common law jurisprudence. Consistently reinforcing an institutional pattern of conflict resolution through trade-offs – justice through discovering the acceptable social truth and norms. These institutions evolved in lockstep with larger society and culture, so the specifics changed across time, but the goal of peace through reconciliation remained.

But the mere goal of peaceful coexistence led to lofty outcomes of stability and prosperity. This happened because peace allowed channeling individual energies to higher goals. In short, while simple goals lead to elevated outcomes, numerous political systems striving for explicitly high ideals often collapse into disarray. So, for the next Thanksgiving, we have one more idea to be thankful for — the rarely acknowledged reconciling institutional strand. One critical consequence of impartial rule of law, peace, and general freedom is entrepreneurship – the driver of social architecture through inventions.

Republished at ridersmodel.com