RESIST CYNICISM: EVERYONE IS PLAYING A ROLE OF SORTS

Traveling in West Virginia last week, I had occasion to meet a young man who works for the state legislature. He spoke for many, it seems, when he described himself as a "skeptic" about all things political.

Cynicism is in fashion. And there is little question that the current occupant of the White House contributes to it. Polls unfailingly show that voters think the president's behavior is a) wrong and b) par for the course.

Nor can the current Republican leaders escape their share of responsibility. Newt Gingrich thundered into office as the avenging angel of conservative principles and was, within a couple of years, reduced to hailing a three-tenths of 1 percent cut in the capital gains tax rate as victory, scurrying for the tall grass whenever the topic of affirmative action is raised and capitulating to President Clinton on higher levels of government spending (misleadingly labeled a "balanced budget").

The press has a particular role in selling cynicism since reporters would rather die than be made fools of. Eager to prove their immunity to slick political pitches, they impugn every appeal to patriotism or principle.

An informed electorate ought not yield to cynicism. Cynicism is the poor man's wisdom. It makes uninformed people sound sophisticated, but it overlooks a great deal. It's easier to claim that "they're all corrupt" than to actually take the trouble to learn who is and who isn't.

Today's cynicism is part of a loss of confidence on the part of many Americans in the national project. People are tending their own gardens, which is fine to a point, and God knows some of those gardens are badly in need of weeding, but throwing up one's hands at politics and the larger purposes and interests of the country is not healthy.

Last May, historian Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote an illuminating piece for Commentary titled "Love of Country." The words sound "almost archaic," she acknowledges, but that's because we've lost sight of the fact that love of country is "an ennobling sentiment, quite as ennobling as love of family and community. It elevates us, invests our daily life with a larger meaning, dignifies the individual even as it humanizes politics."

Conservatives, she argues, should not permit their anti-welfare state zeal to spill over into delegitimizing legitimate government. As Aristotle was the first to observe, man is a "political animal," by which he meant "born for citizenship." It is only through politics that men fulfill their true potential. Other animals may be gregarious, may even form families and tribes. But only human beings pursue their vision of justice and goodness by establishing societies through politics.

Conservatives may object to many of the uses to which liberals have put the state. But the proper response is to use the state wisely in the future -- or, indeed, to undo the things that have been unwise -- but not to turn our backs on government altogether. If the laws have encouraged divorce, let's alter them to encourage fidelity. If the laws have inhibited communities from policing pornography, obscenity and abortion, let's change them.

It isn't just that government will suffer without our full and keen participation, but we will, too. We already have. Since the end of the Cold War, Americans have become dispirited and demoralized. Himmelfarb argues that while tending to one's own family and community promotes certain virtues -- civility, temperance, courtesy, neighborliness -- there are other virtues that require a larger stage.

"Ambition, zeal, energy, venturesomeness, leadership and heroism transcend family and community." Not every citizen will possess these qualities. In fact, most fine citizens will not. But if the country provides no range for these qualities to take flight in the few who do possess them, we are all impoverished. The very spirit of patriotism is endangered.

America is, or should be, an ongoing project, the embodiment of certain principals and ideals. Every American has a stake in seeing to it that the project succeeds. How else can we understand the sacrifices of our forebears and the eloquence of our heroes? To retreat into cynicism is to turn our backs on the greatest political experiment in history.

Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.