This posting continues this blog’s review of
William Schubert’s commonplaces of curriculum development by describing the
commonplace, the student, and its concerns.
After providing accounts of other concerns – personal, social, and
economic student interests – this posting will turn its attention to political
student interests.
Previously this blog has placed
an emphasis on the idea that American individual political interests are
foremost defined in terms of individual rights.
Regarding the natural rights perspective, which is prominent today, the
whole approach places emphasis on the premise that individuals’ worth is
established by their ability to make choices and act upon them. This is what the natural rights perspective
holds in highest priority.
To those who advocate
this natural rights position, the centrality of rights takes on a moral status. That moral stand holds that human beings
should conduct themselves to maximize the range or scope of everyone’s
liberty. Liberty, or freedom, is defined
as the ability to control one’s life according to the dictates of one’s own
judgments. Any activity that diminishes that
freedom for oneself or others is seen as being immoral. This principle is what Jeffrey Reiman calls individual
sovereignty.[1]
In
an earlier description of the liberated federalism model, as opposed to natural
rights, this blog addressed the concept of constitutional integrity. This other construct veers away from the natural
rights’ almost radical view of individual prerogatives. According to Philip Selznick, whose writings are
more aligned with federalist thought, all persons have the same claims of
equality of treatment as an expression of their intrinsic worth.[2]
So, the liberated
federalism perspective puts a high regard on individual rights as a component
of the federalist view,[3]
but counters a view that glorifies the nation’s individualism and the rights
attached to it.[4] Liberated federalism, in other words, adds a strong
concern for communal needs beyond the individual, but maintains a strong
commitment to what constitutes the rights and integrity of the individual.
Despite
this emphasis on the individual in the nation’s professed political ideology,
Americans have become highly dependent on government services.[5] Since it is incongruent with the
individualism of the nation, the collective feeling is one of resenting this
dependence. The incongruence encourages
an even higher demand for governmental neutrality. Choices in resulting public programs are made
through certain curious practices such as cost-benefit analysis which attempts
to dehumanize the factors that go into governmental decision-making.
Cost-benefit analysis
places dollars and cents measures to preferences, but in doing so, shuns
overarching moral principles and disregards the interests of the generations
yet to be born.[6] Economists write of using marginal analysis (what
engenders the most benefit for the least cost at the margin) to determine
rational decision-making factors, again with the effect of dehumanizing those
human factors.
Decision-making, as is
called for in the liberated federalism perspective, should consider human
commitments and moral assumptions. These
factors should be supported by social policy, but they are intangible and not
subject to the calculations of marginal or cost-benefit analyses. Students’ interests in all this are about how
they are introduced to the appropriate role of government to meet not only the
needs of individuals, but also the welfare of the commonwealth.
The
political interest of students includes becoming aware of the social practices
that exist. They should also be made
aware that there are other moral standards that do not necessarily see such analyses
as cost-benefit, as immoral or counterproductive, but merely deficient. The liberated federalism perspective does not
hold that these analyzing practices cease, but that in using marginal analysis
or cost-benefit analysis, the practitioners or the consumers of such studies
should be aware of their shortcomings.
With
this basic introduction to what affects student political interests, the next
posting will address the more personal factors that students have in relation
to the vying influences they face in their civics coursework.
[1] Jeffrey J. Reiman, “Liberalism and Its Critics,” in The
Liberalism-Communitarian Debate, edited by Cornelius F. Delaney (Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,
Inc., 1994).
[2] Philip Selznick, The
Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and
the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1992).
[3] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal
of Church and State, 33, 2 (March 1, 1991).
[4] Matthew M. F. Miller, “The Radical Individualism
Raging throughout America,” Shondaland (November 20, 2020), accessed September
27, 2023, https://www.shondaland.com/act/news-politics/a34729330/the-radical-individualism-raging-throughout-america/ AND Jean M. Twenge, Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z,
Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents – and What They Mean for America’s
Future (New York, NY: Atria Books,
2023).
[5] Matthew Spalding, “Why the U.S. Has a Culture of
Dependency,” CNN (September 21, 2012), accessed September 27, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/21/opinion/spalding-welfare-state-dependency/index.html#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20the%20Wall%20Street,some%20type%20of%20government%20benefit.
[6] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M.
Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, The Good Society (New York,
NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).
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