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, September 29, 2020

BELIEVING WHAT ONE WANTS, PART I

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

 

This blogger, before addressing the general challenges civics teachers face regarding political values and how they play out in the classroom, wishes to remind the reader what this blog’s goal is in the current set of postings.  That goal is to provide an explanation of how a natural rights political culture affects federalist aims a teacher might hold. 

So, this posting in a summary way, reviews some of the basic moral claims that a natural rights political culture promotes.  To begin, part and parcel of a dominant political view is to identify what it holds to be moral when it comes to political calculations.  This is especially important when the issues at hand are not so easily discerned as to what people should do on a moral basis.  Those types of concerns pop up all the time and not just politicians or elected officials need to address them, but the average citizen needs to do so as well.

          And when it comes to the typical situations that Americans face, two political values tend to be paramount in such calculations.  That is the values of liberty and equality.  It seems that these two concerns come to the fore most often among the array of issues that policy makers consider.  And usually a good deal of contention characterizes those deliberations.

For example, policies over welfare or health care illustrate the point.  People who support government involvement tend to cite equality as their relevant concern; while those who oppose government action look to liberty to bolster their claims.  And one can divide these fights, to some degree, between those who hold natural rights positions – as in everyone is responsible for his/her own fate – and those who hold onto more communal responses that seem to count on federalist values – as in “we’re all in this together.”

Natural rights’ rationales advocate against communal responses especially, if by communal, one means government action – along with its coercive abilities.  After all, government can put people in jail.  They support their contentions with the belief that counts on people being responsible for their own fates and any reliance on government, among other negative consequences, undermines people meeting their responsibilities. 

Another important example in which natural rights advocates repeatedly express their concerns is over government regulations of businesses.  They generally argue that such government interference only hurts economic growth and, therefore, hurts everyone.  This is claimed despite evidence to the contrary assuming regulations are within reasonable boundaries.[1]

On an emotional-moral level, what advocates seem to stress is the near sanctity of the individual.  It is he/she whose sense of worth motivates him/her to accomplish good or even great things.  One is reminded of the novel or movie, The Fountainhead,[2] originally written by Ayn Rand.  In that story, the main character, Howard Roark, is brought to trial for dynamiting a building project that he designed as its architect.  This designing was done surreptitiously, and the project went astray from his design.  At trial, in his only statement of defense, he states he was deprived of his agreed upon basis for doing the project – that his design not be changed.

In his speech he gives probably the most cogent rationale for the natural rights view.  Here is a taste of that testimony:

The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed.  He places relations first.  He declares that man exists in order to serve others.  He preaches altruism.

          Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

No man can live for another.  He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body.  But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and versed the base of mankind’s moral principles.  Men have taught every precept that destroys the creator.  Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent.  He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves.  The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption.  It is impossible in concept.  The nearest approach to it in reality – the man who lives to serve others – is the slave.  If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit?  The conquered slave has a vestige of honor.  He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil.  But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures.  He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love.  But this is essence of altruism.[3]

But as for this view as an overall bias, the point to draw is that it holds a particular sense of liberty or, as it is called, natural liberty.  Succinctly, that form of liberty holds that people has the right to determine one’s values and beliefs and to be able to behave accordingly (short of interfering with others to do likewise).  A “true believer” of this construct holds natural liberty as his/her ultimate or trump value.  Or stated another way, for him/her, he/she could claim:  “Give me liberty or give me death.” 



[1]See Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times (New York, NY:  Public Affairs, 2019).

[2] Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (Indianapolis, IN:  Bobbs-Merrill, 1943) AND King Vidor (director), The Fountainhead (the film), Warner Brothers, 1949.

[3] “Howard Roark’s Courtroom Speech,” Work the System, n.d., accessed September 29, 2020, https://www.workthesystem.com/getting-it/howard-roarks-courtroom-speech/ .

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