FROM NATURAL RIGHTS TO CRITICAL THEORY

 

This blog has presented, explained, and evaluated the natural rights construct – what some might call the classical liberal perspective.  It, the blog, claimed that this perspective is the dominant view among the American public in terms of governance and politics.  Also, to a great degree, it assists those citizens in defining, understanding, and passing judgment over their expectations regarding their civic selves, that of other citizens, and of the government.

          As such, this foundational construct goes to provide the manner in which the nation’s civics instruction is developed and shared in American classrooms.  In this presentation, the blog focused on various elements of this view, particularly its moral element.  Also, a good deal of effort was made to describe how the view affects the quality of interaction between students and teachers, including how it influences policy and practice regarding discipline.

          The moral element was presented to highlight the way natural rights argues for individual free choice and behavior – only limited by the rights of others to the same standing – and that any counter condition to this liberality constitutes subjugation.  As for its link to academic input, the view was described as having a theoretical attachment to the political systems approach in the study of politics.  In that, the blog specifically highlighted the models presented by David Easton[1] and Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr.[2]

          These models were reviewed in relation to Eugene Meehan’s criteria[3] for viable and reliable constructs.  The Meehan-style review led naturally to a critique which emphasized the perspective’s excessive promotion of individualism and the detrimental effects such an emphasis has caused in the teaching of government and civics.

          And as with any view, any construct, any dominant perspective, there will be those among the populace who will not agree.  In true dialectic tradition, the natural rights view is not immune to such challenges.  This blog favors one such opposing view, that being federation theory.  But in truth, currently, the most prominent view picking up the challenge is critical theory, and this blog will next turn its attention to this other view. 

It is a view with an interesting history and has spread its appeal among academics in certain socially related fields – sociology, political science, education, etc.  Unlike natural rights, with a relatively simple basic set of ideas, critical theory has a varied foundation.  Some of its basic concerns are exploitation, injustice (as it defines justice), and an imbalance the way power is distributed in society.  Many advocates disagree with themselves in a variety of claims and positions, but all share, to some level, an adherence to Marxian principles.

A recent development that reflects the strength of this view is how the Democratic Party seems to be divided between a moderate wing – noncritical theory partisans – and the progressive wing – the critical theory contingency.  One way to measure how “critical” a particular politician is, is how apt that policymaker is to favor a governmental interposition – including ownership – to meet some human problem area such as the environment, the economy, health, etc.

As with the constructs already reviewed in this blog – that being the parochial federalist view and the natural rights view – this account of critical theory will set out to provide responses to this blog’s list of research questions.  To remind readers, the overall concern is:  does critical theory as a view of governance and politics provide a legitimate and viable way to study government and politics at the secondary level, i.e., in middle schools and in high schools?  There, the targeted courses would be civics and American government, respectively.

With this overarching concern, the review employs subsidiary questions.  They are directed by the dialectic stance projected by the dominant view, natural rights, and by this challenging view, the fairly leftist stance which constitutes the critical theory.  These views are in many ways not only at odds with each other, but place in opposition the role schools should play in American society.  Within this context, further questioning is:

 

1.    What role has the history of critical theory played in the development of civics curriculum?

2.    What consequences have resulted from the efforts of critical theorists in the teaching of civics?

3.    Ideally, if critical theorists were to “get their way,” how would American social arrangements be affected?

4.    And how would those desired social arrangements – per the percepts of the construct – be achieved?  

 

If critical theory were to attain the nation’s support, how would Americans proceed as the future unfolds, at least as the advocates of this view, view it?

          Utilizing a developmental arrangement of competing notions as to how the opposing perspectives foresee the effects of their claims and policy proposals, hopefully readers will be able to compare how this antithesis compares with the thesis, i.e., how critical theory compares to natural rights. 

This will be at times be overshadowed by this blog’s effort to inform readers about how critical theory came about – through relating some of its history.  But guiding the effort will be the commonplaces of curriculum developed by William Schubert[4] and include the subject matter, teachers, learners, and milieu.  In turn, the commonplaces serve to organize a good deal of what will follow.

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[1] David Easton, The Political System (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1953) AND David Easton, A System Analysis of Political Life (New York, NY:  John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1965).

[2] Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown. 1966). 

[3] Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).

[4] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The commonplaces can be defined as follows:

·       The subject matter refers to the academic content presented in the curriculum. 

·       The teacher is the professional instructor authorized to present and supervise curricular activities within the classroom setting. 

·       Learners are defined as those individuals attending school for the purpose of acquiring the education entailed with a particular curriculum.

·       Milieu refers to the general cultural setting and ambiance within the varied social settings found at the school site.

 

CRITIQUE OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS VIEW, IX

 

The last posting stressed how the self-esteem movement has taken hold in American schools – how it both affects approaches to curricular content and in how school staff handle disciplinary issues.  This posting provides an overview of how self-esteem affects teacher-student interactions.  Generally, the focus of this movement is to emphasize the individual students’ perceptions; how they define the social world around them. 

Observers of any age, such as this blogger, can readily detect meaningful change – some good, some not so good – in how those interactions take place, what assumptions are at play, and surely how outcomes materialize.  For example, time dimensions seem to have altered; yesterday’s effects are now cast as unimportant and with them, a source of shame for wrongdoing is forgotten. 

First, Americans did away with sin when they disposed of Calvinism[1] and now they do away with social standards.  As the self-esteem view puts it, statements about generally accepted notions of right and wrong behavior are seen as cumbersome and in the way.  And along with this trend, views considering discipline are affected.  Discipline and its demands are deemed to be irrelevant, except as it might be useful to acquire material success (a middle-class belief that seems to be shrinking along with the size of the middle class). 

Roy Baumeister has done meaningful research on the effects of boosted self-esteem advocacy or to be more accurate, advocacy for humanistic learning theory.  In 2006 he reports,

 

Unfortunately for the low-self-esteem theory, researchers have gradually built up a composite image of what it is like to have low self-esteem, and that image does not mesh well with what we know about aggressive perpetrators. People who have a negative view of themselves are typically muddling through life, trying to avoid embarrassment, giving no sign of a desperate need to prove their superiority. Aggressive attack is risky; people with low self-esteem tend to avoid risks. When people with low self-esteem fail, they usually blame themselves, not others.

Faced with these incongruities, we cast about for an alternative theory. A crucial influence on our thinking was the seemingly lofty self-regard of prominent violent people. Saddam Hussein [dictator of Iraq who was alive when these words were written] is not known as a modest, cautious, self-doubting individual. Adolf Hitler's exaltation of the "master race" was hardly a slogan of low self-esteem. These examples suggest that high self-esteem, not low, is indeed an important cause of aggression.

We eventually formulated our hypothesis in terms of threatened egotism. Not all people who think highly of themselves are prone to violence. That favorable opinion must be combined with some external threat to the opinion. Somebody must question it, dispute it, undermine it. People like to think well of themselves, and so they are loath to make downward revisions in their self-esteem. When someone suggests such a revision, many individuals--those with inflated, tenuous and unstable forms of high self-esteem--prefer to shoot the messenger.[2]

 

What this suggests is that the whole notion of self-esteem – which everyone should have a realistic dose of – is a more nuanced factor in how people, even young ones, function in social settings like those of schools.

          Baumeister goes on to argue in another published work that if children are taught a false sense of self-esteem, i.e., a child is convinced he or she is more talented than the child’s ability justifies, such incongruence with reality will encourage violent behavior on the part of the subject.  This is apparently due to the frustration engendered by the person’s expectations and the reality the person encounters.  He writes,

 

High self-esteem means thinking well of oneself, regardless of whether that perception is based on substantive achievement or wishful thinking and self-deception.  High self-esteem can mean confident and secure – but it can also mean conceited, arrogant, narcissistic, and egotistical.[3]

 

          The progressive pedagogy, and its philosophy, pragmaticism, lack a firm ethical base[4] and this has made it susceptible to the humanistic learning theory arguments.  Peter F. Oliva identifies this psychology, which he calls perceptual psychology, as a main branch of progressive education.[5]  Strangely, perceptual psychology seems to be the one element of progressive education that has been extensively adopted in the nation’s schools[6] – is its popularity by way of attempting to keep the “customer” base happy or, at least, appeased? 

          As such, one finds two consequences.  One, the effects of excessive concerns for self-esteem on civics education have been bolstered by the assumptions laden within the natural rights perspective in ways described earlier in this blog.  Primarily, that would be in terms of rights – one has the right to self-define oneself regardless of what the facts are.  And two, this bias easily becomes part of the “hidden curriculum”[7] which has transferred its messages of individualism and anti-communal sentiment in ways more effective than any formal instruction could.

          And with this review of humanistic learning theory and its effects on American schooling, the critique of the natural rights view comes to an end.  The next posting will provide a summary statement of the natural rights construct and a “bridge” to its most vibrant antithesis, critical theory.  This latter area of contention – natural rights vs. critical theory – weaves a contemporary tale that is finding its way more frequently into the evening news.

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[1] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” The Annals of America, 13, (Chicago, IL:  Encycloaedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), 277-288.  Readers should not consider this posting as an argument to reinstate Calvinism as a dominant view of morality or even of good behavior.

[2] Roy F. Baumeister, “Violent Pride,” Scientific American, August 1, 2006, accessed February 26, 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/violent-pride/.

[3] Roy F. Baumeister, “Should Schools Try to Boost Self-esteem?,” American Educator, 20, 2 (Summer, 1996), 14-19 & 43, 41 (emphasis in the original).

[4] Boyd H. Bode, How We Learn (Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1940).

[5] Peter F. Oliva and William Gordon, Developing Curriculum, 8^th Edition (Boston, MA:  Pearson, 2013).

[6] As the last posting pointed out, in American schools progressivism doesn’t prevail.  That honor goes to essentialism.  That view can be defined as:

Essentialism tries to instill all students with the most essential or basic academic knowledge and skills and character development. Essentialists believe that teachers should try to embed traditional moral values and virtues such as respect for authority, perseverance, fidelity to duty, consideration for others, and practicality and intellectual knowledge that students need to become model citizens. The foundation of essentialist curriculum is based on traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and literature.

See “Essentialism,” SIUE (n.d.), accessed March 5, 2023, htpps://www.siue.edu/~ ptheodo/foundations/essentialism.htlm.  SIUE refers to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s School of Education.

[7] “The term ‘hidden curriculum’ refers to an amorphous collection of ‘implicit academic, social, and cultural messages,’ ‘unwritten rules and unspoken expectations,’ and ‘unofficial norms, behaviours and values’ of the dominant-culture context in which all teaching and learning is situated.”  See “Teaching the Hidden Curriculum,” Boston University (n.d.), accessed March 4, 2023, https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/resources/teaching-the-hidden-curriculum/#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Chidden%20curriculum%E2%80%9D%20refers,teaching%20and%20learning%20is%20situated.