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, October 25, 2019

A MENTAL DIALECTIC


The last posting of this blog presented information in a form not previously used by this blog.  That is, it presented and compared elements of three mental constructs in a chart.  The three constructs are federation theory, natural rights, and critical theory.  This blog judges federation theory to be, in certain key aspects, a compromise between natural rights and critical theory constructs. 
That means, federation theory has adopted certain claims the other two constructs set forth.  To gain a sense of this “cross pollination,” the reader is invited to click on the last posting to see the chart, but this posting wants to address how critical theory informs federation theory on the concepts of solidarity and equality. 
To begin, in terms of critical theory, its ultimate or trump value is equality.  Equality for critical theorists means equal results; that is, equality is reached when society distributes equally its wealth and income.  Under such a regime, the people of that society share a sense of comradeship that reflects a solidarity among the populous.
          And how does such a view see liberty or freedom?  This is a real concern, especially to American sensitivities and beliefs.  With a strong view of unity – solidarity – Americans are apt to shun this level of oneness among a citizenry.  They would worry about their individualism if ever a serious attempt were made to enforce the critical theory view. 
This worry is well placed.  From the chart, liberty is seen as the “[f]reedom from the exploitation by dominant class …”  This, for the advocates of critical theory, leads to a “true” freedom; one in which people are free to discover their true humanity.  It also means the diminution of what most Americans regard as their sacred rights – especially rights associated with property.
          This posting aims to expand on this last point.  It extends the ideas expressed on a previous posting, “Be As I Am, Or Not,”[1] in which this writer reported on the ideas of Paulo Freire.[2]  Specifically, Freire outlines how in exploitive societies, the exploited take on the standards of the exploiters.  Chief among these standards is that the exploited pine to become exploiters.  This, along with the actual realities of exploitation, offends the humanity of those involved, both the exploited and the exploiters. 
Therefore, according to that view, true liberation entails breaking this psychological connection.  Why?  Because to be truly human, one cannot harbor such a sense of who one is, who his/her fellow citizens are, or what he/she or they should become.  The fate of each and the fate of all are inextricably tied. 
The exploitation path might lead to riches for the oppressors, but only to be enjoyed in a perverted reality where constant vigilance and suspicion prevails.  When people are exploited, the realities associated with the desire for justice are constantly at issue and the resulting demands, on the part of the oppressed, never disappear.
When the oppressed struggle to be free, they are seeking liberation.  That can be a perverted sense of liberation – when the oppressed want to become oppressors – or a state of true liberation – when the oppressed strive to eliminate the system of exploitation.  But the struggle for true liberation is not easy and the oppressed often do not see or understand it. 
But when it is sought, it is difficult and it often involves a slow process in order to accomplish it.  Freire uses the analogy of being reborn.  In its way, the challenge is due to the very psychological factors just mentioned.  It calls for a “birth” of a new person that sheds any desire to exploit.  That is a person that is neither an oppressor nor an oppressed person. 
What can one say about the process to achieve this birth?  Most of the initial processes have to do with one’s thinking and feeling.  Those mental processes must be arranged to be encompassing of two realms of thoughts and feelings:  over the objectified realities involved, and over the normative judgments made of those realities. 
If done, this psychological accomplishment opens the possibility of exiting the oppression in that it allows a belief, that liberation can be achieved.  One needs, first, to be convinced that the world in which they are living is not a closed one where there is no exit.  And that insight, in turn, can become the motivation to move on. 
In this there is an objective reality to know – mostly of the forces sustaining the exploitation – and there are valuations or espoused theories to formulate and define – a vision of what is just, legitimate, and in the best interests of all involved.  Despite the “dialectic” relationship between these two mental realms (one needs to introduce Hegelian language), a realization can descend on the oppressed:  the oppressor cannot exploit – cannot reap his/her wealth – without the oppressed.  And that is a liberating realization.
And for the oppressor, such realizations can also be liberating.  Afterall, who wants to be given the title of oppressor with all its degrading character?  He/she, history shows, is apt to engage in what he/she sees as actions undermining such a designation.  “Rationalizing his[/her] guilt through paternalistic treatment of the oppressed, all the while holding them fast in a position of dependence, will not do.  Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture.”[3]
What the oppressed people need is not paternalistic treatment – meant to continue dependency by smoothing its rougher edges – but for the oppressors to take on another strategy.  Not a strategy to continue the exploitive relationship they hold over the oppressed, but by actively fighting, along with the oppressed, for true liberation for all.  Obviously, this calls for a transformation of their beliefs, attitudes, and values similar to those changes needed from the oppressed.
They, the oppressors, need to see the oppressed as real people, not as some abstract figure to be pitied or for whom to feel sorry.  He/she needs to adopt a true love for these people as people, each with their own stories, challenges, and hopes.  The oppressed are not a category but are beings with humanity. 
This other humanistic sense, to be satisfied or actualized, must be accompanied by the subject engaging in related practices – praxis – that actuates a newer view of who the oppressed are.  Two aspects emerge:  the objective reality and the subjective valuation of that reality and they must be accommodated within one’s thinking and feeling.  This internal dialectic characterizes the psychology of the liberated oppressed and of the liberated, former oppressor.
          Therefore,
Making “real oppression more oppressive still by adding to it the realization of oppression” corresponds to the dialectical relation between the subjective and the objective.  Only in this interdependence is an authentic praxis possible, without which it is impossible to resolve the oppressor-oppressed contradiction.  To achieve this goal, the oppressed must confront reality critically, simultaneously objectifying and acting upon that reality.  A mere perception of reality not followed by this critical intervention will not lead to a transformation of objective reality – precisely because it is not a true perception.[4]
A liberated person does not divorce or attempt to separate the reality (objectified to attain reliable knowledge) from the judgement (the normative valuations of how and why oppression is unjust); he/she, to be effective at achieving true liberation, thinks, analyzes, and arrives at workable solutions for the dichotomies his/her mind observes and must account for in any resulting praxis.
          The next posting will address the implications of this argument on federation theory.


[1] Robert Gutierrez, “Be As I Am, Or Not,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, January 5, 2018, accessed October 25, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2018/01/be-as-i-am-or-not.html .

[2] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, NY:  Continuum Publishing Company, 1999).

[3] Ibid., 31.

[4] Ibid., 33-34.

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