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.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

GLOBAL NECESSITIES?


Knowledge has been the subject of various conceptualizations over what it is and how it is structured.  There are a number of graphic representations of how experts have visualized that structure; for example, H. Lynn Erickson provides such a representation.[1]  In sharing this writer’s understanding, the elements of that structure are presented; they reflect one visualization of that structure.  People, at the most abstract level of thinking, harbor in their minds theories and models.  These represent knowledge at its most abstract level.
When people learn or develop a reliable explanation of some aspect of reality that is known as a theory.  A theory is not accepted as truth – it is subject to being disproved – but to justify the title of theory, there is ample evidence to support its viability in explaining its corresponding reality. 
Short of that level of reliability, there can be a good account of an aspect of reality that logically provides, given what is known or what other theories indicate is true, a reasonable explanation for some phenomena but there is not enough evidence to call it a theory.  That is known as a model.
A good pair of examples, one of a theory and one of a model, can be cited by meteorologists in reporting hurricanes and presented on TV weather reports.  While weather reporters can boast having developed theories as to what causes hurricanes and why they appear during certain times – June through November – they can’t assuredly predict where they will go.
Instead they show off those “spaghetti” lines that “predict” various possible routes.  Which one is correct, if any are, only time will tell.  Why do they lack in predictive power?  Because they are based on models, not theories.  Through research, meteorologists aim to perfect those models so that only one or a few predictive lines emerge from the known data.  When the number gets to one or two, then one can say a theory for hurricane paths has been developed or discovered. 
That theory will be a theory because it will provide a reliable prediction of what a hurricane will do given the concurrent factors at work.  But until that day, meteorologists and, in turn, the public must rely on models.  In the natural sciences, the general public is used to the benefit of having theories explaining much of the observed reality modern humans observe.  Examples range from how and why things fall to surface of the earth to why injuries, untreated, can lead to degradation of organic material.
The social sciences have not been so successful.  Human behavior has proven to be eluding reliable explanations or theories.  Therefore, social scientists are used to dealing with models.  For example, one model is why and where revolutions will erupt.  Davies’ J-Curve provides a model in which the factor of rising expectations emanating from improvements among a people followed by a sudden downturn engenders intolerable anger among a population.  That, according to this model, leads a people to be disposed to take part in revolutionary activities.[2]
With that short review of theories and models, one area of interest in the social sciences is the study of urban societies.  One near theory in that field has to do with either the allure or unattractiveness of cities as places for people to live.  What attracts people and what repels people to cities?  Those are questions demographers and urbanists have been studying. 
They are interested in them since a great many socially determined events and movements rely on whether cities are growing or not; on whether their growth or decline reflects other social/economic developments.  For example, a question related to this overall concern is:  How do employment opportunities affect not only whether cities become popular places to move to, but whether urban living encourages a more global, as opposed to nationalistic, bias among certain populations?
Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler share the urbanist Richard Florida’s view on these questions.  They write:
Do people really follow jobs?  Not anymore, [Florida] claimed.  Today, jobs follow people.  Because of the close link between growth and creativity, there is a battle for creative talent.  The winners of this battle will not be nations but cities and regions that can offer a combination of the “3 Ts” [Technology, Talent, and Tolerance] … We want to add another “T” to these three factors: Time Perspective.[3]
          Some of these factors, upon reflection, are obvious but to present this model, one should provide, at least, a general sense of what each of these qualities include.  So, technology functions to make the development of newer products possible.  Growth depends on that sort of development and, in turn, provides the new and attractive employment opportunities.
          Technology, as it becomes evermore sophisticated and reliant on workers to understand complex realities – mechanical, chemical, and/or organic – relies on workforces with highly developed talents.  These talents can be of various varieties such as those that are entrepreneurial, artistic and creative, and/or those that rely on programming skills.  They also depend on the ability to work within teams of such talented people.
          And to secure these pools of talent, localities need people who are open to working with people who come from various backgrounds and geographic localities.  Despite the claims of neoconservatives or nationalists, openness to alternative life views is essential for the newer technologies.  In turn, they emanate from different cultural backgrounds. 
Therefore, businesses appreciate localities that provide the kinds of skills and outlooks necessary to fill corresponding jobs.  They need to secure the sorts of talent from a variety of places – both domestic and foreign places.  In turn, to pull such diversity to the workplace, tolerance is mandatory.
          Finally, according to Jost and Mentovich, a productive time perspective needs to be applied in which all this accumulation of talent and the other qualities can come together in real, as opposed to virtual, places.  Skype conferences cannot substitute for real communities inhabiting real places.  Success depends on worksites where real relationships emerge and that development takes time, time to build the trust, creativity, and tolerance the other qualities either represent or upon which they depend.
          Is this true?  It makes intuitive sense.  It is presented in a logical order.  But is there enough evidence to say it is a dependable view of modern economic realities?  Given the rise of more nationalistic policies and politics both in the US and Europe, one will probably be able to observe a great deal of real time evidence as various nations today are looking inward and are shunning a global perspective and bias.  Will such moves negatively affect economic growth?  According to the model described here, it should.
For example, Great Britain is attempting to drop out of the European Union and the US, in its foreign policy, seems to be similarly looking inward.  Will Britishers and Americans pay an economic price if they go and turn away from more global policies?  That will depend on the degree to which they abandon internationally organized economic activities and developments.  Stay tuned.


[1] See “What You Need to Know about the Structure of Process,” Corwin Connect, October 15, 2016, accessed October 14, 2019, https://corwin-connect.com/2016/11/need-know-structure-process/ .

[2] John T. Jost and Avital Mentovich, “J-Curve Hypothesis,” Sociology and Political Science, n. d., accessed October 14, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/J-curve-hypothesis .

[3] Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler, The Change Book:  How Things Happen (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015).

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