THE FACTORS OF “ME” POLITICS

 

This blog is in the midst of describing the theory that guides its efforts.  Since this blogger wishes to prescribe what he believes would be a better way to approach civics education, the subject would best originate in political science.  And as sciences do, it describes and explains the relationships that its practitioners highlight in their research, i.e., how relevant variables relate with each other if at all.

          The last posting left the reader with what Daniel Elazar claims are the two central variables that political scientists should study.  They are power and justice.  The first, according to Harold Lasswell, is about who gets what, when, and how (this blogger flippantly adds “and how much”), and Elazar states that justice is about who should get what, when, and how – and why.[1]  And to add a wrinkle, unlike other variables that political scientists measure and analyze such as voting, justice demands normative theorizing.

          This blog incorporates the normative theory of federalism as it applies to education and in that, this blogger uses the term federation theory and prescribes its use as the central theoretical basis for the teaching of governance and politics in the nation’s civics’ classrooms.  It does so because the alternative perspectives, according to Elazar, either do not relate to the rule of the many (what the US has) or have not provided suitable “guidelines for using power in order to live well.”[2]

          This blogger has argued that in the US there currently is the natural rights theory predominantly serving as the basis for what is taught in government or civics courses at the secondary level.  This other view, based on the legal concepts of the natural law philosophy, has experienced change since the beginning of the nation.  And within its current rendition, the perspective is not so much a legal idea but a cultural one.

          Basically, it is defined as the notion that one is allowed to engage in any activity as long as one does not interfere with the rights of others.  This, among many Americans, has become the belief to the degree that not even this last qualifier pertains.  But at any level, it generally does not impose any responsibilities and duties on people beyond obeying the law, i.e., laws not offensive to natural laws.

          What those rights are is an open question.  They definitely include the enumerated rights contained in the Bill of Rights but are not limited by them.[3]  This perspective dovetails nicely with an individualistic political culture that is prevalent today.[4]

          On the other hand, a federalist paradigm or theory can generally be described as a view that society is based on a partnership among citizens, imposing the responsibilities such an arrangement entails.[5]  Needless to say, the adherents of each perspective – natural rights and federalist rights – find themselves at odds with each other as issues such as, for example, censorship arise in the national media. 

Usually, the respective feelings are ill-defined because, as is often the case with cultural beliefs, the acquisition of the perspectives is through experiences in which respective values are treated as assumptions, providing an implied or hidden element.  Back in 1996, Michael Sandel, using the label – the liberal political philosophy – for the natural rights perspective, describes it as follows:

 

The political philosophy by which we live is a certain version of liberal political theory.  Its central idea is that government should be neutral toward the moral and religious views its citizens espouse.  Since people disagree about the best way to live, government should not affirm in law any particular vision of the good life.  Instead, it should provide a framework of rights that respects persons as free and independent selves, capable of choosing their own values and ends. Since this liberalism asserts the priority of fair procedures over particular ends, the public life it informs might be called the procedural republic.[6]

 

This perspective is the prevailing political theory to which this nation adheres.[7]

          Its adopted lessons – its ideals and ideas – are accumulated through life and are supported in schools, leaving a strong influence on the individual.  Sandel continues:

So familiar is this vision of freedom that it seems a permanent feature of the American political and constitutional tradition.  But Americans have not always understood freedom in this way.  As a reigning public philosophy, the vision of liberalism that informs our present debates is a recent arrival, a development of the last forty or fifty years [of this writing in 1996].  Its distinctive character can best be seen by contrast with a rival public philosophy that it gradually displaced.  This rival public philosophy is a version of republican political theory.[8]

 

Again, the terminology is different, but “republican political theory” is the broader category and federalism is a type of that theory.  And more specifically, Sandel is expressing federalist propositions when he points out that this philosophy emphasizes self-government that presupposes an active and intra-active citizenry.

This form of republican rule is concerned beyond ends and addresses the prerequisites for meaningful self-rule.  “It means deliberating with fellow citizens about the common good and helping to shape the destiny of the political community [which] requires a knowledge of public affairs, and also a sense of belonging, a concern for the whole, a moral bond with the community whose fate is at stake.”[9]

This sense has spurred reaction.  Currently, there are movements attempting to inform and promote a more communal view of governance and politics.  The next posting will report on them but before becoming aware of those efforts, the reader might consider what the implications of a polity guided by excessive individual thought causes.  One can make the argument that the current polarized political landscape is a direct result of adopting the natural rights view as the nation’s prominent view of governance and politics.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State, 33 (Spring, 1991), 231-254.

[2] Ibid., 231.

[3] Randy E. Barnett, “Ninth Amendment” in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, edited by Kermit L. Hall (New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1991), 589-592 AND “Ninth Amendment,” The Annenberg Guide to the United States Constitution (n.d.), accessed November 24, 2021, https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/ninth-amendment/ . 

[4] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent:  America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996) AND Ava Rosenbaum, “Personal Space and American Individualism, Brown Political Review (October 31, 2018), accessed November 24, 2021, https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2018/10/personal-space-american-individualism/ .

[5] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly!” Elazar, D. J. (1994). How federal is the Constitution? Thoroughly. In a booklet of readings, Readings for Classes Taught by Professor Elazar (1994), prepared for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute. Conducted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 1-30.

[6] Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, 4.

[7] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966) AND Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent AND Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism:  A Double-Edged Sword (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1996).

[8] Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, 5.

[9] Ibid.