Sermon copyright (c) 2025 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. The text below has typographical errors, missing words, etc.
Readings
The first reading was from The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell:
“Scientific technique requires the co-operation of a large number of individuals organized under a single direction. Its tendency, therefore, is against anarchism and even individualism, since it demands a well-knit social structure. Unlike religion, it is ethically neutral: it assures us that we can perform wonders, but does not tell us what wonders to perform. In this way it is incomplete. In practice, the purposes to which scientific skill will be devoted depend largely on chance. The men at the head of the vast organizations which it necessitates can, within limits, turn it this way or that as they please. The power impulse thuswahas a scope which it never had before. The philosophies that have been inspired by scientific technique [as opposed to scientific theory] are power philosophies…. Ends are no longer considered; only the skilfulness of the process is valued. This is a form of madness. It is, in our day, the most dangerous form [of madness].”
The second reading is “Eagle Poem” by Joy Harjo.
Sermon: “WWWD”
When I start to think about ethical issues raised by immigration, my thoughts often turn to the earliest immigrants to southeastern Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, and how they were received by the Wampanaog Indians. That’s where the title of this sermon comes from: “WWWD” stands for “What Would the Wampanoags Do?” And I ask that question, not because I think the Wampanoags are some kind of special moral and ethical exemplars, but because the Wampanoags had to confront the challenging question of what to do when your society is faced by a wave of immigration. Looking past the myths that have grown up around the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags, it seems to me that in 1620, the Wampanoags dealt with the Pilgrims with a salutary mixture of common sense and compromise. And I think their actions offer an interesting insight into immigration.
The story of the Wampanoags is often told like this: The Pilgrims show up in the middle of winter. That first winter, the Wampanoags kindly share food with them so they don’t all starve. In the spring, the Wampanoags show the Pilgrims how to grow corn. Then in the autumn, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags sit down together for the first Thanksgiving dinner.
But that’s an oversimplified version of the story. The real story was a lot more complex. For one thing, the real story began well before 1620. Europeans had been landing on the coast of southeastern New England for a century or more before the Pilgrims arrived. Some of those first Europeans were decent people who treated the Wampanoags well. Others engaged in random acts of violence, like the Englishman who abducted a young Wampanoag named Tisquantum and sold him into slavery in Spain; Tisquantum eventually made it back to his homeland and became known to the Pilgrims as Squanto. So when the Pilgrims arrived in 1620, the Wampanoags had good reason to distrust them, and even treat them as potential adversaries. Why then did the Wampanoags treat the Pilgrims as well as they did?
Partly, it boils down to politics. Prior to 1619, the Wampanoag had been decimated by an epidemic — literally decimated, since in some areas 10% of the population survived the unknown disease.(3) As a result of their greatly reduced population, the Wampanoag grew worried about the military threat posed by their historical antagonists, the Narragansetts, who lived just to the west and who did not experience the same epidemic. From Tisquantum’s personal knowledge, and from other sources, the Wampanoags knew about the Europeans’ impressive military capabilities. Thus it may have made political sense for the Wampanoag to try to build a military alliance with the Europeans.(4) Even though the Wampanoags knew first-hand of the dangers posed by Europeans, the benefits of a military alliance seem to have have outweighed those dangers.
But while politics were clearly involved, there was also an ethical side to the Wampanoag actions: they helped the Pilgrims because it was the right thing to do. This is a perfect example of what we New Englanders call “enlightened self-interest.” We take care of our self-interest, but we do it in such a way that we take into account the needs and concerns of other people. New Englanders talk about “doing well by doing good”: that’s enlightened self-interest. When New England small business owners pay their employees a decent wage, partly because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s also self-interest because their employees are potential customers: this again is enlightened self-interest. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if the New England concept of enlightened self-interest has its roots in the way the Wampanoags treated the Pilgrims.
While enlightened self-interest still exists here in New England, another pattern of behavior is also widespread. Today, our world is dominated by what Bertrand Russell calls “scientific technique,” or technical science as opposed to theoretical science. (This is what we heard about in the first reading this morning.) A society based on “scientific technique” — that is, on technology — requires large numbers of human beings cooperating together under the direction of a single authority. Both capitalism and communism arise from this same principle, the difference being that in capitalism, the coordination of a large group is mostly under the authority of the handful of persons who run large corporations; while in communism, the coordination of large groups is entirely under the authority of the handful of persons who control the Communist Party. These large groups, whether corporations or communists, are ethically neutral, which means that the handful of people in charge of these vast organizations can direct them to whatever ends they please. As a result, said Bertrand Russell, “The power impulse thus has a scope which it never had before.” To this he adds: “Ends are no longer considered; only the skilfulness of the process is valued. This is a form of madness.”(5)
Russell wrote these words in 1943, while the Second World War was going on. Clearly he had the madness of fascism in mind while he was writing. But he was also aware of the dangers of the power impulse inherent in any society dominated by complex technology, because there are no widely-accepted ethical guidelines to determine societal goals.
In today’s American society, quite a few people actually agree with Bertrand Russell that we lack ethical guidelines. Because of this, many right-wing Christians genuinely believe that they need to inject their own ethical principles into American society. I happen to disagree with the ethical principles of right-wing Christianity, and I have no use for those who use right-wing Christianity as a cover for naked grabs at power — but I respect the desire of the genuinely ethical right-wing Christians to attempt to articulate ethical principles which they sincerely believe would help direct the goals of our society. I can also respect the secular progressives who sincerely champion diversity, equity, and inclusion policies based on their ethical grounding in natural law and human rights. Again, I have no use for anyone who uses DEI as a way to grab power for themselves — but I respect the desire of the genuinely ethical political progressives to try to articulate ethical principles which they sincerely believe could help direct the goals of our society.
Neither the right-wing Christians nor the proponents of diversity, equity, and inclusion have been able to convince a majority of Americans that their ethical framework should be central to our society. Nor has anyone else been able to propose an ethical framework that attracts broad-based support. This has left us vulnerable to persons with no firm ethical principles, who seek power simply for the sake of seeking power.
In the middle of the last century, we did arrive at a consensus for an ethical framework. This framework was our ethical commitment to democracy, which included individual rights, the rule of law, and checks and balances in government. All this was derived from the political philosophy of John Locke, a political philosopher who inspired the founders of the United States. But the polarization of the United States in the past half century means we no longer have such a consensus, and so we have descended into an era of power politics.
Contrast this with the situation in the days of the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims. Both Wampanoag society and Pilgrim society were founded on solid ethical principles. Four centuries on, it’s difficult to put ourselves in the worldview of either the Pilgrims or the Wampanoags. But it appears that the Wampanoag had a strong ethic based on kinship and community; and the concept of kinship probably extended beyond humans to non-human beings.(6) As for the Pilgrims, they believed in subordination: the subordination of the ordinary man to the magistrate, the subordination of woman to man, the subordination of child to father, and above all subordination of man to God.(7) While the ethical principles of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag had radical differences, nevertheless both groups felt the importance of connection between individual and family and community, and between individuals and the transcendent. Thus Pilgrims and Wampanoag had enough common ground in their ethics to be able to establish relations that remained mostly peaceful for four decades. Of course there were conflicts, sometimes violent ones. But for a long time, both groups managed to hold on to their higher ethical commitments. Forty years of peace is no small achievement.
That was in the early 1600s. Now let’s return to the year 2025. The United States is now a technological society requiring the cooperation of large groups of people under the single direction of a very small number of persons. As the mid-twentieth century ethic of individual rights, the rule of law, and checks and balances has eroded, the power impulse has come to dominate our politics. Fewer and fewer political leaders or corporate leaders practice enlightened self-interest any more; fewer and fewer of our leaders have genuine ethical commitments.
The lack of ethical commitment leads to a unfortunate result. Our political system is based on the political theories of John Locke. One of the flaws in Locke’s political philosophy is that in certain disputes, there is no good way to judge between the two sides of the dispute, with the result that in these cases decisions can only be made by fighting it out. In noting this weakness in Locke’s system, Bertrand Russell pointed out: “Where such a view is embodied in the Constitution, the only way to avoid occasional civil war is to practise compromise and common sense. But compromise and common sense are habits of the mind, and cannot be embodied in a written constitution.”(7)
This helps explain what has been going on with immigration policy over the past few decades. Too many of our elected officials have lost the habits of mind of compromise and common sense. The inability to compromise, even when common sense indicates the necessity, is characteristic of power politics. This is not good for anyone.
How can we return to the habits of compromise and common sense? How can we get back to enlightened self-interest? I found one possible answer coming from a source I had not expected. In his book “White Poverty,” published last year, William J. Barber suggests that confronting White poverty could help Americans of all political persuasions to work together.
This makes sense to me because I’ve long felt that the most important problem facing America today is the problem of poverty. In 2018, the Federal Reserve — a body that tries to remain non-partisan — issued a report stating that “Four in 10 adults, if faced with an unexpected expense of $400, would either not be able to cover it or would cover it by selling something or borrowing money.”(8) Given what I’ve seen over my years as a minister, this sounds about right. And from what I’ve seen, poverty cuts across racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, whether you’re able-bodied, and so on. Even here in Cohasset, despite our picture-postcard-perfect image, too many households are just one medical emergency away from economic disaster. Nor has either political party been able to make much of an impact on poverty. From what I’ve seen as a minister, both the Democrats and the Republicans need to acknowledge that they have not done enough to address the fact that too many people live so close to economic disaster.
So Barber’s book caught my attention because of his focus on poverty. In addition, Barber is a Black man, yet he says we must deal with White poverty. This shows his common sense, because he’s trying to get past polarization and divisiveness by focusing on an issue where he believes people of all political persuasions can find common cause. This also shows his willingness to compromise, because even though he’s Black he’s willing to focus on White poverty, knowing that if we address White poverty, we will have to address all poverty.(9)
While it may seem as though I’ve diverged from the topic of immigration, I haven’t. Think about it this way. Four in ten Americans could not cover an emergency expense of $400. One in four Americans skipped necessary medical care in 2017 because they felt they couldn’t afford it. Three out of five non-retired adults say their retirement savings are on track.(10) It is true that compared to the developing world, we Americans have a very comfortable lifestyle; nevertheless, a great many of us do not feel economically secure. If you do not feel economically secure, it would not be surprising if you wondered whether immigrants were going to have an impact on your economic well-being.
In other words, perhaps we can begin to address the immigration crisis by invoking enlightened self-interest. The “enlightened” part of “enlightened self-interest” recognizes that we do have some degree of ethical responsibility for people from elsewhere in the world who show up on our doorstep. The “self-interest” part of “enlightened self-interest” makes sure that we ourselves get taken care of, and also that we’re taking care of people already in America; this includes attending to already existing poverty in this country.
What would the Wampanoags do? Back in 1620, they followed enlightened self-interest. They were enlightened when they extended a helping hand to the strangers who showed up in their land without invitation. This was also an act of self-interest, since these newcomers were potential allies and supporters. And as is always the case with enlightened self-interest, the Wampanoag used both compromise and by common sense to achieve their ends.
As for those of us sitting here in the Meetinghouse, I think we can set an example of enlightened self-interest for others; and we can exemplify the habits of compromise and common sense that go along with it. How can we do this? I’ve heard from quite a few of you that you make a real effort to listen respectfully to those with differing political opinions. This is an example of enlightened self-interest; these days, no one wants to listen to opposing political viewpoints, but it is in our self-interest to do so; for by doing so, we set an example of how to restore democracy. This is a small example, but it is something that one person can accomplish by themselves.
Beyond that, common sense indicates that it makes sense to find some issue that people of many different political affiliations can work on together. Perhaps that issue could be White poverty, although I’m open to compromise and willing to listen to other common sense ideas. However, I would point out that our congregation is already addressing White poverty. The South Shore where we live is roughly 95% White, and we are staunch supporters of anti-poverty initiatives such as the Cohasset Food Pantry, Habitat for Humanity, and the new Cohasset Community Aid Fund. It is true that addressing White poverty doesn’t directly address the issue of immigration. But it does address the underlying issue of needing to strengthen our democracy.
And with that in mind, I’ll close with a short common sense poem by Unitarian minister Everett Edward Hale:
I am only one
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something,
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Notes
(3) Scholars still debate what the disease was. For the most recent hypothesis, see J. S. Marr and J. T. Cathey, “New Hypothesis for Cause of Epidemic among Native Americans, New England, 1616–1619,” Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 16, no. 2, 2016, pp. 281–286 — this paper reviews some of the earlier hypotheses, and concludes, “The causes of most historical epidemics may never be proven.”
(4) Many of the historical facts come from Kathleen J. Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1650–1775 (University of Oklahoma, Press, 1996). However, the interpretation of the historical record is mine.
(5) Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, Simon & Schuster, 1945/1972.
(6) Bragdon, chapter 6, “Kinship as Ideology.”
(7) For a good discussion of this worldview, see Mary Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (Knopf Doubleday, 1997). Norton cites the political philosophy of Sir Robert Filmer as exemplifying this, which she calls a “Filmerian” worldview. (Filmer was one of the thinkers against whom John Locke was arguing.)
(8) Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017 (Washington, DC, Federal Reserve Board), p. 2.
(9) For an overview of Barber’s argument, see chapter one in William J. Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove, White Poverty: How Exposing the Myths about Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (W. W. Norton, 2024).
(10) Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, pp. 2-3.