Iii Cheers for the Wasps

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Three hundred fifty years ago, they sailed here on boats half the size of the Staten Island ferry. They burned witches, built railroads and wrote the Bill of Rights. They also fought wars -- against Indians, George III and (in the Civil War) each other. But now their elites are a desiccated remnant, trailing clouds of glory only in the Social Register, while the country cousins, mostly Southern, have energy without class. From George Washington to George Bush, from Henry Adams to Elvis (dead or alive): such is the decline of the Wasp.

The word Wasp -- white Anglo-Saxon Protestant -- conjures a thumbnail history such as this, compounded of memories of textbooks and shreds of slander. As thumbnail histories go, it is not inaccurate, except that it leaves out the Wasp's greatest legacy: the American character. Whether we like it or not, all the rest of us in becoming American have become more or less Wasps. Americanization has historically meant Waspification. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

The acronym, popularized in the early 1960s by sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, explains who Wasps are and -- more important -- were. White and Protestant are self-explanatory. Anglo-Saxon, a clumsy term, means English, plus English speakers from Northern Ireland and the Scottish lowlands. Wasps formed the vast majority of the early American population: 200 years ago, nearly all Americans were Protestant, and almost two-thirds were of "Anglo- Saxon" stock. First to come, first to serve: Wasps gave early America its first laws, religions and rhetoric, as well as a characteristic mental and personal style.

The Wasp style placed a high value on industry and success and a correspondingly low value on anything that was not useful. All the nose-to- the-grindstone maxims of Benjamin Franklin found eager Wasp readers. Unchallenged by medieval or socialist countermodels, the Protestant work ethic flourished here like an animal species without predators. Admiration for hard work and the expectation that hard workers would have something to show for it became the starlings of the American soul.

When Wasps thought of their duties as members of a group, the group they thought of was society as a whole. Families, social classes and their subunits took a backseat. Being realists, Wasps recognized that narrower loyalties existed, and James Madison built a constitutional theory on the balancing of "factions." But Wasps always viewed particularism with a certain distaste. Vendettas and blood feuds were considered the marks of yokels, while "special interest" has long been a political term of abuse.

When a Wasp thought of his duty to the moral law, the guide he consulted was his own conscience. The conscience was a stern interior monitor. "In Adam's fall/ We sinned all," began the New England Primer. (They weren't big on self-esteem in the 18th century.) Conscience has the added advantage of being portable. Many cultures rely on peer pressure to enforce their rules and regulations. The Wasp with a conscience could feel guilty all by himself. Conscience also reinforced the work ethic: if you made good, you -- and everyone else -- knew that you were good.