[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.]
To this point, this blog has, in its
account of the different obstacles facing civics teachers, described in broad
strokes a number of deficient conditions.
They are the dysfunctional aspects of the nation’s political culture, the
challenge of immaturity among students, and the less than optimal state of
civics education. With this posting, the
blog shifts to the landscape of the political culture itself.
Or in other words, the blog will now
look at the social environmental factors that define the nation’s politics of
the day. Rightly so, the nation has cast
its main attention – beyond the pandemic – on the divisive nature currently
holding sway. That divisiveness affects just
about every aspect of social life – reportedly, it is even affecting family
relationships – and definitely poses an obstacle to civics teachers doing their
jobs.
The aim here is to analyze this
challenge and provide various insights as to its nature and suggests what
teachers and other educators should do in relation to the challenge. To be clear, what is being addressed is the
polarized politics hanging over government in its attempts to issue
policies. And those affected policies
seem to include just about all the possible areas in which government has a
role.
That extends to whether masks should be
mandated, to what should be taught in schools, to defining who this nation’s antagonistic
foes abroad are. All of these up to the
present were not controversial and summoned broad agreement across parties and
other social/political divisions.
And,
as with the rest of this blog, commentary or evaluation will be offered against
the stated criteria that federation theory holds, what that theory sees as
beneficial, functional, and moral. To
reiterate, that would be curricular content that promotes communal, collaborative,
and caring dispositions within the citizenry.
As such, the specific challenge for this review is to point out and
explain how the dominance of the natural rights construct has found such aims to
be misplaced and worthy of being ignored.
And
what is it about the natural rights view that makes it so problematic in terms
of federal beliefs? David Brooks, in his
most recent book, provides vivid imagery of what this problematic thinking
generates. In describing the nation’s
tribalism, one of the dysfunctional conditions he identifies, he writes,
Psychologists say the hardest thing to cure is the patient’s attempt to
self-cure. People who are left naked [in
a self-centered society] and alone by radical individualism do what their genes
and the ancient history of their species tell them to do. They revert to tribe. Individualism, taken too far, leads to
tribalism.[1]
The main point this blog has made in
terms of the natural rights view is that it promotes an extreme individualism.
For advocates of federation theory or
views one can associate with it, this is not just a matter of aesthetics or
taste. The dismissal of such concerns for
community, collaboration, and care for others – or a lack of it – incorrectly instructs
what the US Constitution sets forth.
It, the Constitution, established a republic based on the very
communal commitment toward a polity made up of voluntary partnering – through
the mechanism of a sacred compact – that unified both the people of the United
States and the states of the United States.
The Latin word for this sort of leaguing
is foedus – the Latin word from which federalism is derived and meaning
covenant (the religious version of a compact).[2] Now, Brooks writes of this sort of leaguing as
the product of a love commitment. That
can be toward another person, as in marriage, an ideal, a place, a country. Can a nation be based on the assumption its citizens
hold to such a love? In this, this
writer questions the level of emotion Brooks ascribes to such a commitment, but
the point is made. Citizenship defined
by a compact-al agreement calls for a lot.
Should
such an alignment rely on people’s natural tendencies? Unlike with natural rights, as just
indicated, which does rely heavily on natural proclivities, federation theory
relies on them in part, but not totally.
Yes, humans naturally want community, but are easily convinced to seek
other goals and/or to define community in a highly parochial manner.[3]
Hence, to maintain what the founding
fathers established, subsequent generations have needed to proactively promote
that compact of unity. And to do so, they
have needed to socialize the populous to instill those values, attitudes,
beliefs, and civic modes of behavior that promote this sense of partnership –
it just doesn’t happen naturally.
And it has become somewhat obvious, that
the more recent generations have not sufficiently socialized the incoming generations
so that they are disposed to meet this obligation or commitment – not to the
degree the Constitution proscribes.
Instead, by adopting the natural rights view, they find policies aimed
at furthering this sort of commitment as encroachments on individual prerogatives.
To be further clear, what is being
referred to here, by using derivatives of the word federalism, is not the structural
arrangement of the states and central government of the US. Yes, federalism calls for a non-central
arrangement of government. That, by its
nature, does include, some central entity and more local entities while withholding
complete sovereignty from anyone level of governance. But what is of more importance, is the necessary
rationales for such an arrangement.
As stated earlier in this blog, “… those processes [refer] to modes of political behavior
that furthers a federated citizenry which include[s] healthy doses of social
capital and civic humanism.”[4] And such qualities presuppose a viable
communal society in which its members are disposed to collaborate and cooperate
in their pursuits of common endeavors broadly defined. This is what Elazar calls a federal union’s
processes.
And
however one defines the terms, one can readily see that current levels of
polarized politics – or tribalism, as some refer to what is going on – stands
smack in the way of a people holding the necessary binding values and attitudes
to pull off this active level of engagement.
To what extent is that? Just
visualize one holding a partnership in any aggregate effort such as in a
marriage or a business. It would not be based
on some transaction or set of transactions, but on commitments. How much indifference or nonchalance would
such an endeavor sustain? Not much.
And
that can go for a national unions as well.
Look around; is this nation on a dangerous path to disunity? It almost happened before – admittedly for
other reasons – and was saved by a bloody civil war. And this writer believes that part of this
current story – one mostly ignored – is how the nation’s civics education
program is failing to instill – or more inoffensively stated, to encourage – the
necessary disposed emotions and beliefs.
He
cannot see how true solutions to this polarization – in the long term – can be
achieved without addressing the shortcomings of the nation’s civics education
program. One should remember that one
cannot count on natural tendencies or rational calculations; it has to depend
on its citizens learning how to be committed to others and on its people holding
the necessary values, attitudes, skills, and knowledge to pull it off. And according to Brooks, such unions depend
on love.
[1] David Brooks, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (New York,
NY: Random House), 34.
[2] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models
of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State, 33, 2 (March 1,
1991), 231-254.
[3] Cognitive psychologist, Steven Pinker writes of this
and entails the practical realities resource scarcities have on this
evolutionary trait. See Steven Pinker, How
the Mind Works (New York, NY: W. W.
Norton and Company, 1997).
[4] A political landscape that first promotes social capital, a
la Robert D. Putnam, does so by encouraging an active, public-spirited
citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust
and cooperation. It promotes civic
humanism, as described by Isaac Kramnick, by encouraging among the citizenry
that each citizen be a political actor who realizes his/her fulfilment is
attained through participation in public life and a concern with public good
above selfish ends.
