A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, March 25, 2016

THEY’RE NOT LOCKEAN

A lot of political, social, and economic waters have gone under the metaphorical bridge since John Locke gave us the first concise argument of liberalism – the liberalism that promotes a moral code based on natural rights.[1]  In that code, liberty is its trump value.  This view has been viewed by many, including myself, as encouraging, or at least enabling, a level of individualism that is counterproductive to the long term interests of a society.  Since our society has opted to adopt this view as its predominant perspective, I have tried to point out how such a collective decision has deleteriously affected the welfare of our nation.  Of course, not all theorists agree with this assessment.  One such thinker is Richard C. Sinopoli.[2]  What I find as is the case of these defenders is a good deal of reference to John Locke.  The problem is that he wrote in the late 1600s, and a lot has happened since then.

Let me contextualize my comments a bit.  I agree with some of what Locke had to offer.  His analysis of rights was necessary at a time when the chief enemy of federalist ideals was the lingering class of those privileged groups who inherited their privilege from the feudal legacy that still existed, albeit seriously challenged.  By advancing a sense of a social contract, it bolsters the federalist call for a binding covenant or compact to establish a polity.  The “natural” aspect of rights, as Locke wrote of them, in its way, leads one to assume a form of equality.  The binding process relies on free consent, a central quality of a covenantal or compacted union.  As such, individuals who so agree are consenting to the provisions of the agreement and swear (affirm) to such an allegiance.  The theoretical parting of the ways has to do with what the legalistic boundaries of such arrangements are.  Liberalism, legally (if not socially), gives the individual a license to pursue any course of action he/she chooses short of offending or prohibiting others from the same options.  Under this regime of constitutionalism, one is free to adopt whatever morality one chooses:  one can follow a strict Calvinistic code, a pragmatic code, or a licentious code.  The only limit, legally, is that one does not interfere with others’ choices.  Laws are, in part, limited to guaranteeing such ground rules.  I write “in part” in that the view allows laws to maintain security – a good question is:  does liberalism promote, tolerate, or ban compulsory military service?  Those laws that guarantee rights tend to be negative laws; i.e., laws that tell us what we cannot do legally – such as, steal.  They avoid, almost to total exclusion, positive laws; i.e., laws that tell us what to do – such as serve in a socially geared program such as the Peace Corps.  I write “almost” since we do find a few exceptions such as insisting people send their children to school if they are under a certain age.  The general disposition of this view when it comes to laws is:  let people do what they want to do.

I have two reactions.  One, Locke was not so “live and let live” in his outlook.  I would argue that what I just expressed above is the product of general liberal ideals being in effect after several centuries of political, social, and economic history.  Locke was highly opinionated about how people should live their lives and he extended such concerns over the content of laws.  For example, he argued for “working schools” for the children of the poor so as to strip them of the idleness which plagued their parents – why else would they be poor?[3]  He wrote as a champion of the burgeoning class of entrepreneurs who were burdened by the privileges of the idle nobility and of the idle poor.  He promoted laws that would favor business interests and found any inherited advantages as anathema to the common good.  But this moral disdain has been compromised beyond recognition, at least as it pertained to legal matters (and I would maintain, many social matters as well).  Today, the bias is, as good businesspeople would be inclined to cater to consumer whims, do your own thing and, by the way, my product will help you do it.  The forces of consumerism have not been limited to social domains, but have been extended to legal matters.  The one example I listed above, the mandated requirement of education, is currently under severe attack and I see charter schools as seriously undermining the whole ideal of meaningful education for the masses.

Sinopoli offers three incidents or arguments people offer to undermine liberalism’s concern for the common good.  One, people who are socialized to believe in rights – their view of rights having a mystical quality of being ordained as a natural condition – tend to adopt a “rights illusion.”  That is, they view rights as the whole of morality as I have argued that proponents have done, to a great degree, in our contemporary times (since World War II).  Two, people who come to believe they have a right will pursue it because they have the right at the expense of others’ welfare.  And three, those who meet with success tend to minimize or completely refute the role the community (society) has played in their success.  Sinopoli contends that the conditions these arguments reflect are not essential consequences of liberalism – as a matter of fact, these tendencies can be found in other systems.  But since they do exist under liberalist regimes, they should be addressed.  I will in the future review his treatment of these arguments, but for now, let me point out that Western nations, particularly the US, have significant portions of their populations that share in these tendencies and that their frequency is increasing.  I offer the trend in our political discourse as primary evidence.[4]



[1] Not a liberalism espoused by progressive Democrats.

[2] Sinopoli, R. C.  (1992).  The foundations of American citizenship:  Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue.  New York, NY:  Oxford University Press.

[3] Kramnick, I.  (1992).  John Locke and liberal constitutionalism.  In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I:  The colonial era through reconstruction (pp. 97-114).  Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company.

[4] For example, the surge of Trump in the polls and his popularity among primary Republican voters is, to a great degree, attributed to the attention the media has afforded this candidate.  The media outlets, one can argue, are not allocating that attention due to Trump’s positions on issues, but due to the number of readers and viewers his outlandish behavior has attracted.  The media is in the business of securing ratings or selling print.  Trump is a godsend, albeit not, a priori, anymore apt to secure the common good than any one of the other candidates.

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