[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 blog
makes a distinction between how civics’ subject matter is presented in American
classrooms and how it should be presented.
How it is presented reflects the guidance that the natural rights
perspective promotes. This blog, on the
other hand, promotes the guidance that federation theory provides.
Naturally, federation theory promotes a federalist view about how reality
relating to governance and politics should be conceptualized. If utilized, lessons would take on a
different look from what is common today.
For example, educators might take on the following processes:
·
superimpose a different substantive
structure on the subject matter (e.g., place more emphasis on local governance),
·
identify conducive instructional
approaches (e.g., have students investigate or be told about local political
activities), and
·
place in priority what federalism
highlights (e.g., the promotion of civil qualities within local environments
such as the school site).
Overall,
federation theory attempts to assist educators in their efforts to promote good
citizenship in ways that reflect its ideals.
But in terms of guiding the work of
political scientists, there is apart from the pedagogical view of federation
theory another related construct, federal theory. And to see what distinguishes the two, one might
consider the basic aims of political scientists. To that end, Daniel Elazar identifies three
reasons for why political scientists do what they do.
The purposes or aims of those academics are to
pursue the quality of justice, to discover generalizable factors that correlate
with various political actions, and to promote a civil society. Elazar points out that meeting the first two
aims helps meet the third. He relates
federalism to “choice” polities by offering it a special character. [1] That is a character reflecting the qualities
of collaboration, community, and mutuality.
To look at the distinction between the
guidance of federal theory and that of the natural rights theory, the former
does not look at only the ubiquitous transactional nature of politics. It extends the interest of researchers to
those factors that advance or strengthens normative factors which support a
federated partnership that is characterized by the above qualities.
And
this distinction does not look at only what aspects of political reality should
be studied, but also the methods used in that study. Given the almost exclusive transactional lenses
political scientists of the natural rights school use, their attention is primarily
fixed on the behaviors of political actors.
It is behaviors that have the highest range of observable “choices” upon
which political actors act. Therefore,
those researchers mostly “count” on behavioral studies that, it turns out, rely
heavily on statistical analysis.
While
this more restricted view of political science is prevalent in academia, the
fact remains that the American political system is still foundationally based
on a compact-al agreement or agreements if one also includes the constitutions
of the various states. And these
agreements entail factors that are not always, at least directly or
satisfactorily, analyzed through the measurements of behaviors. For example, this blog’s treatment of the
holistic nature of maturation points out that shortcoming.[2]
Research,
that sets out to approach the aims Elazar points out, needs to address more
than self-defined ambitions.
Substantively, such research needs to look beyond reductionist factors,
but seeks methods that address broad, holistic conditions. And this demands methods that take on broader
landscapes than targeted cause and effect relationships. Yes, those relationships, when proved to be
powerful, are important and should be discovered, but more is involved. Federal theory assists political scientists
who wish to pursue grander questions over justice and civility.
One
would expect, in a polity where these basic federalist characteristics are well
ensconced, that the characteristics or attributes would be part and parcel of
the nation’s cultural norms. As a
consequence, the resulting legislated laws of such a system would be ideally well-thought
out so as to not jeopardize or undermine the integrity of each partner. But more is involved.
A
federated arrangement insists that there exists an expectation that citizens
take on a proactive posture in the polity’s governance. This, in other words, would become (and was
according to Tocqueville the case in the US of the 1830s) integral to its
political culture. And to the extent it
is not, that would indicate how out of favor federalist thinking has become.
On
the surface, a federalist mode of behavior and behavior guided by the natural
rights view might very well appear the same.
In each, citizens can go about their business basically doing what they
want. But upon a closer look, federated activity
seeks to advance the interests of the commonwealth since the citizenry is more
apt to seek those ends – at least in the ideal and to a meaningful degree in
how those citizens actually act.
For
that to be the case, those citizens need to be disposed to options that consider
other than their self-defined interests.
This might very well result in government policies imposing costs on the
citizenry, often in the form of higher taxes or other obligations. And to boot, fulfillment of such support will
be more efficient since voluntary compliance would usually be more “normal” and
of less cost.
But
as repeatedly noted in this blog, Americans do not primarily ascribe to federation
theory. Instead they predominately hold
unto the natural rights perspective. Consequently,
for example, counting on citizens to wear masks during a pandemic becomes
problematic. And that reality affects how
Americans define their public morality.
Accordingly, this blog will in the next posting look into the natural
rights view of good and bad, right or wrong.
Why
is this a concern? Since the natural
rights view leaves moral questions to the individual – except for its
insistence in promoting and protecting the value of natural liberty – that
construct maintains a neutrality to almost all other moral precepts. As such, especially in terms of civics
education and its aim to promote good citizenship, how this “sovereign” individual
views moral concerns becomes an important aspect of that rubric, good
citizenship.
Interested
parties might ask of a natural rights guided, civics curriculum: can one observe where those schools operate, trends
in how people make moral choices? Do the
ways people make those choices affect the common welfare? Do those civics classrooms even address moral
questions and, if they do, what strategies do they employ? Questions such as these will guide what
follows in subsequent postings.
[1]
Daniel J.
Elazar, Exploring Federalism
(Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of
Alabama Press, 1987).
[2] See Philip Selznick’s treatment of Hegal’s ideas
concerning maturation. Selznick,
Philip, The Moral Commonwealth: Social
Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1992).
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