October 18, 2026
By Stephen Stofka
Last week I looked at the changing sensibilities between generations. This week I want to explore the separate sensibilities within a generation or proximate generations. The culture and living environments are roughly similar, yet there are persistent ideological controversies that do not remain settled.
Different Lives
In the 1920s urban residents had electricity, some form of central heating, refrigeration, and a telephone or access to one. They had their feet firmly planted in the 20th century. The McFarland Historical Society, located in a suburb of the capital Madison, Wisconsin features an urban 1920s Kitchen (Source – McFarland Historical Society).
Most rural folks had few, if any, of these conveniences. My great uncle, living in a farm community outside of Dallas, Texas, wrote in his autobiography of getting electricity to his home. He removed the gas engine out of the washing machine and installed an electric motor. No longer having to worry about fumes, he installed the washing machine inside the house. The family still filled up the machine with buckets of water from a hand pump.
Many city people enjoyed paved roads. On a trip across Texas, my uncle and his friend pulled a cow on a trailer behind their car. When they got stuck on a dirt road, they hitched up the cow who pulled them to firmer ground.
Life is punctuated by a series of problems to be solved. Rural folks relied on their wits, their family, friends, and neighbors solve daily problems. Oops, let’s not forget the cow and other farm animals. Solutions were local. In rural communities where the laws were few, people relied on norms of behavior.
Those who lived in the city depended on centralized systems. A family’s safety was entrusted to strangers, city leaders and bureaucrats who managed the water, sewer, gas and electrical systems. People from the countryside found themselves burdened with unfamiliar laws and regulations. City living tested the limits of individual freedom and autonomy.
Individual Autonomy
As people moved out of farms and in close proximity with other people, the risk of getting communicable diseases skyrocketed. Public schooling gathered together children of similar ages with immature immune systems. In the 19th century, schools began requiring smallpox vaccinations for school children. As more schools required vaccinations there were several court challenges. In 1922, the Supreme Court issued the second of two decisions affirming that states had the constitutional authority to make such requirements (Source).
What was the extent of in loco parentis? Centuries earlier, English common law had established this principle, that parents delegated their duties of care, authority and discipline to schools. In past centuries, the schools were private and attendance was voluntary. When states passed laws mandating school attendance, parents no longer had a choice in delegating their authority to schools. Law professor Susan Stuart has argued that the principle in loco parentis should be “put out of its misery (Source – pdf). What is the boundary of authority between the state or local jurisdiction and the family? Judicial opinions do not resolve these contentious issues.
Today, childhood vaccines expose children to weakened pathogens that cause these killing diseases. A child’s immune system learns the biological signatures of these viruses and bacteria and is able to mount a defense when encountering the real pathogen. In a very small percentage of children, their immune system overreacts to the weakened pathogen and provokes long term consequences. Is the vaccine or the genetic code of the child’s immune system at fault? We are a nation of lawyers practiced at playing the blame game.
A Nation of Laws
Americans have long prided themselves on the tradition that we are a nation of laws. What exactly are those laws? The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of legal interpretation but a court decision does not resolve a contentious issue. Roger Taney was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who issued the Dred Scott decision, aiming to settle the question of slavery for all time. Negro slaves were not citizens and had no federal constitutional protections (Source). Justice John McLean issued a strong dissent, insisting that birthright citizenship applied to all, black or white (Foner, 2019, p. 14).
Dred Scott did settle an issue. People in the northern states realized that a civil war, long threatened but delayed by compromise for several decades, was inevitable. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court rejected an argument from the Trump administration that birthright citizenship did not apply to all. Some issues stay unresolved, waiting to rise to the surface when circumstances allow.
Boundaries
A common theme in persistent controversies is the difficulty of drawing a boundary line between individual liberty and autonomy, and government authority. The courts try to find a balance between competing concerns but no court decision can establish a balance that satisfies most people in the country. Here are just a few persistent controversies out of the many that have long endured in our society.
Abortion
On the issue of abortion, a woman has a right to bodily autonomy but the state has an obligation to protect human life. There is a clash of certainties. Those who are against abortion profess a certainty in an eternal authority that determines the start of a human life. Those who are pro-choice carry the certainty that no one is entitled to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Gun Ownership
Many people understand this issue as a conflict between the government’s duty to safeguard public safety and an individual’s right to self-defense. Authorities or a jury must judge whether a threat warranted the use of a firearm to commit injury or death. What is the balance between individual autonomy and government authority?
Capital Punishment
Is capital punishment inherently a cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment? What is the extent of a state’s authority? Does a state have the moral authority to execute prisoners who no longer pose a threat to public safety?
Euthanasia
Before the 1970s, there was little relief for the dying. They spent their last days in a hospital with tubes sticking out of them. Hospital personnel knew the end was inevitable but they were legally bound to treat and stabilize all their patients, whether dying or not. Conventional medical practice did not make the comfort of a dying patient – called palliative care – a priority. Medical personnel may have felt compassion for their dying patients but were subject to the same scrutiny of care as with their other patients. Last week I wrote about my grandfather and how he had started working at six years old in a farming community. Needing round the clock care, he spent his last days in an institution, kept alive while dying.
In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published On Death and Dying, making the public aware of the emotional and physical burden of conventional medical care on those who were terminally ill and their families. In 1974, Florence Wald helped found Connecticut Hospice, the first of its kind in America (Source). In 1982, Congress and President Reagan added hospice to the list of Medicare benefits as a temporary program, then made the benefit permanent in 1986. A study involving more than 600 hospice doctors conducted in 2012 revealed that there is a minority of people that still misconstrue common palliative care as euthanasia (Source). Neither laws nor court decisions change minds or perceptions.
Next week
Many persistent controversies involve clashes between individuals and government. We guard our autonomy and freedom against the authority and greater capacity of a government institution, the Leviathan of law and order. Next week I want to explore this topic further. How do we imbue government institutions with enough capacity to protect civil order while protecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens who live within the bounds of that civil authority. Hope to see you next week!
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Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash
Foner, E. (2019). The second founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction remade the Constitution. W. W. Norton & Company.
Hughes, R. (1987). The fatal shore: The epic of Australia’s founding. Alfred A. Knopf.
