TWIDDLE DEE AND SOMETHING ELSE

A review of the prevailing polarization hanging over the current national political scene cannot be complete without addressing how that level of division is affecting the political parties – the Democratic and Republican Parties.  According to the journalist Ezra Klein,[1] covering that scene, especially from the perspective one gets in the nation’s capital, has fundamentally changed since the year Klein moved to Washington in 2005.

          Highlighting the work of Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, a pair of political scientists who usually work at a liberal think-tank, in the case of Mann, and a conservative think-tank, in the case of Ornstein, Klein reports that the duo became popular for their balanced, combined reporting.  They usually shared their findings and interpretations of polling information.  But of late, they find their jobs overly challenging in that while they are balanced, their “beat” became imbalanced.

          In their 2012 book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, they give their readers a sense of how imbalanced the political landscape had become.

Today’s Republican Party … is an insurgent outlier.  It has become ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition, all but declaring war on the government.  The Democratic Party, while no paragon of civic virtue, is more ideologically centered and diverse, protective of the government’s role as it developed over the course of the last century, open to incremental changes in policy fashioned through bargaining with the Republicans, and less disposed to or adept at take-no-prisoners conflict between the parties.  This asymmetry between the parties, which journalists and scholars often brush aside or whitewash in a quest for “balance,” constitutes a huge obstacle to effective governance.[2]

While this blog avoids reporting, much less portraying a partisan stand, a review of polarization cannot avoid making observations about the current divide between the nation’s major political parties.  The closest it can sustain its impartial commitment is to share what these “balanced” political scientists have found.

          Yet, their findings, indicated by the above quote, cast the two as “controversial” by the prevailing media outlets and, Klein reports, they found themselves not being invited to the Sunday shows, such as Meet the Press.  But their book warned their audience of how extreme things were becoming.  And with the subsequent election of Trump to the presidency four years later, their warning had substance.  At least, that is how Klein casts Mann and Ornstein’s cautious tale.

          In another publication, the conservative, Ornstein, further warned how this polarization was being manifested in the outerings of GOP congress members, Tea Party radicals, and the inability of more moderate voices in the Republican Party to co-opt the more extreme actors.  In sum, the party was teed up to accept and promote Trump.

          By comparing the two major candidates in 2016, it provides one a clear distinction of what the divide looked like.  Trump expressed contempt of established norms, threatened to lock up opponents, and espoused or was friendly toward conspiracy theories and their advocates.  Hillary Clinton and her party didn’t engage in these sorts of broadsides.  One is left with the question:  if the above is true, why is it so?  Why does this divide exist in presidential and Congressional politics, at least to this degree?

          Here, this writer finds it helpful to review a model he has utilized more than once in this blog.  That is a model that E. E. Schattschneider describes in his book, The Semi-Sovereign People.[3]  It is a simple model that makes a lot of sense.  It basically reflects the commonsensical notion that if one is winning a competition and expects to win, one is unmotivated to seek and secure help from other parties.  Afterall, if one is going win, why share the spoils?

          Obviously, if one is in a disadvantaged position, relative to the opposition, one is motivated to seek help and usually that means seeking out and establishing relationships with other relatively weak competitors of other competitive situations.  While winning will probably mean sharing the spoils, successful partnerships promise the possibility of winning not just for oneself, but, as a result of reciprocity, for those partners in their competitive struggles.

          An example of the former situation is a large corporation, say the oil industry, doesn’t need help in advancing and protecting its interests.  Usually, through the common practice of campaign donations and lobbying, it seems to fair quite well.  It doesn’t actively seek help from, say, the tech industry.  Each moneyed interest minds its own affairs and happily enjoys the fruits of its own victories.  Of course, the isolation is not a hundred percent. 

For one thing, it needs the support of a political party.  And that party is the one that associates itself with business interests, the Republican Party.  It generally advances policies that honor, if not promote, this isolation by opposing, among other things, government intrusions. That would especially apply to the markets, such as with regulations.

On the other hand, there is the side, represented by the Democratic Party, that does seek alliances among the weaker actors.  They include such groups as civil rights organizations, labor organizations, environmental organizations, organizations established to protect and advance public services like public schools, etc. 

One main attribute that this side has is that, by just counting heads, they have far more people to draw on as potential members or allies and as voters.  There are far more people with meager resources than there are who have an abundance of resources, especially financial resources.

But there are other interests, outside of money, that influence how people see their political choices.  There are, for example, religious interests or there are feelings concerning race or feelings concerning one’s nation.  And here is what Klein identifies as the main motivating force behind what propels polarization, i.e., identity in its various forms.

This is this writer’s interpretation:  the political party that lacks appeal in the general population when solely considering economic questions, has to make up that deficiency by catering to people in other realms of interests.  That motivates the decision-makers of that side, that party, to cater to other natural drives, such as those that reflect the concerns over identity. 

Usually, if one analyzes the language of that side one finds craftily formulated messaging.  Effective combatants – those within that side’s political party – use an appeal to identity, in some form, and that appeal lies below the surface.

Why this subterfuge?  Because appealing to identity, by its nature, smacks in the face of the espoused national theory that Americans hold about themselves, i.e., the support for equality.  Advancing one’s identity group, say race, to the expense of another – especially when it comes to public policy – deprives, to some degree, equal accessibility to resources that public policy should extend to all individuals, say educational opportunities.

A concrete example in the nation’s history and even today, is unequal access to these opportunities.  And the policies that promote this unequal access need to be hidden to some extent by coming up with all sorts of qualifiers especially after the federal government enacted the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s.  Examples are funding school policies or requirements for teacher certification. 

This general strategy, though, has become more and more difficult to maintain.  Therefore, the efforts have become less and less subtle.  The result is two-fold:  more targeted policies that in effect limit equality and the use of language that has become less coded and more direct.

Given the above, certain consequences come into play.  Klein writes,

Democrats [those of the weaker-actors’ party] have an immune system of diversity and democracy.  The Republican Party doesn’t.  This has not left the Democrats unaffected by the forces of polarization, to be sure.  But if polarization has given the Democratic Party the flu, the Republican Party has caught pneumonia.[4]

It seems that this once subtle strategy has gotten out of hand, it has metastasized.  This, in turn, has disrupted the political arena and by doing so, has endangered the general array of political norms and values.  Polarization is dangerous and might threaten the American way of politics that has sustained its democratic institutions for over two centuries.  More on this to come.

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[1] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (New York, NY:  Avid Reader Press, 2020).

[2] Ibid., 226.

[3] E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People:  A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (New York, NY:  Hole, Rinehart and Winston, 1960).

[4] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized, 229.

A TRUE SELF IMAGE?

 

Polarization, a bedeviling state of affairs affecting the current American political scene, has been attributed to a sense of identity.  The journalist Ezra Klein makes that connection in his book, Why We’re Polarized?[1]  And no aspect of identity is more intensely felt then when it comes to racism, the bugaboo of the American story.

The social scientific work that has been most linked to the study of this problem – the scholarly study that painted this problem’s broad implications – is An American Dilemma by Gunnar Myrdal.[2]  That two-volume work (over a thousand pages) has, through the years, had an enormous influence on public policy especially during the Johnson Administration.  But as the years have gone by, one of the work’s central – albeit unproven – thesis has been subjected to increasing criticism.

That criticism, if true, gets at explaining a central motivating force feeding the current polarization; but that is getting ahead of the story.  Myrdal in his work – and that of his extensive team of social scientists that combed the South to acquire the raw data upon which his study was based – assumed that Americans had/have a set of richly espoused values and supporting beliefs in an American Creed.

That creed has been composed of certain substantive qualities; those being liberty, justice, and equality that would be demonstrated by extending fair opportunity to everyone.  This, in turn, casts Americans as being a moral people harboring a moral consciousness of the realities that runs counter to this creed. 

Yet, his study documented the obvious and extensive realities African Americans experienced in their daily lives within the area of study, that of the South.  That existence was characterized by a social/political/economic existence that resembled nothing approaching liberty, justice, and/or equality.

All Americans needed to do to become unconflicted with this “dilemma” was to stop discriminating against blacks, which the study proposed was the main cause of that minority population’s deplorable conditions.  Maribel Morey writes,

As he prepared the final manuscript, Myrdal collected countless studies and memoranda illustrating the leading role of racial discrimination in creating racial differences in the United States.  He commissioned original memoranda from over forty leading social scientists on topics including racial stereotyping, patterns of racial segregation, and black labor.[3]

Under the current state, many question this self-imaging many Americans seem to have about the type of people they are.

          The primary cause for the state of race relations to this day, some would argue, is not so much a lack of living out one’s espoused values.  The disease is more entrenched.  To have a viable ongoing issue in a viable polarized state of political affairs, one needs a significantly established set of beliefs that counter this higher “moral” character.  Why did Myrdal, a sophisticated, “impartial” foreigner not see what many today judge to be obvious?

One can look at Myrdal and the individual situation he and his wife were experiencing during the development of this work to understand potential ulterior motives or biases for the slant the final product took.  They were Swedes in America while Nazi Germany was imposing its unspeakable crimes on Europe – but that’s another story.  Leave it to suggest that the Myrdals wanted to project a more humane image of America that could more boldly counter that of Germany.

          What is relevant here is that this higher moral view of the American psyche underestimated the strength and united commitment by many to allow the wrongs being imposed on blacks.  It seems to have missed the strengths of senses of right and wrong that went counter to this alleged noble democratic creed.  And this was not just in the South but in the North and West also.  Evidence?  Well, one need only look at the state of blacks in the ensuing years until today.

          Yes, there have been improvements, but are they of the degree to prove what Myrdal postulated?  Morey quotes Yale sociologist, Maurice Davie, “Though the treatment of the Negro is without doubt the greatest challenge to American democracy, the conscience of white America does not appear to be as aware and disturbed as Myrdal thinks it is from the rational moral standpoint.”[4]  And she further reports on the work of Ernest Campbell.

          That work tested Myrdal’s assumption on three-hundred Southern university students.  He found that this “moral,” deep-seated disposition is not passed on to significant numbers of people when it comes to dealing with people of another race.  “Further, a segregated system provides its own set of counter-norms, a rationale, that justifies the system while it helps the actor in the system to compartmentalize or re-interpret the American Creed.”[5]  One, so affected, senses no resulting contradiction, therefore, he/she feels no angst over the obvious state of incongruency.

          What this current state of polarization has done, a message earlier stated in this blog, is to help lay bare this incubation of a problem – in this case stemming from such rationalizing or sustaining a “moral” view that justifies the inequality in the treatment of blacks.  But what is worse? 

Is it a belief that Americans will ultimately not tolerate inequality and champion a fix – i.e., that ends discriminatory practices – or is it this rationalization or counter value system?  If one believes the fix will inevitably come, to be successful, one is in effect ignoring an opposition that finds segregation as either irrelevant or in line with the nation’s basic principles.

          That is, the Myrdal assumption underestimates the challenge.  What seems to be needed are extensive conversations over basic attitudes, values, and dispositions that in a polarized atmosphere seems well beyond what is possible.  Yet, what better atmosphere to start these basic discussions than in civics classrooms that impart a curriculum favoring the federation of its citizens of all races, ethnicities, gender, ages, etc.?

There, in those classrooms, one can hold sacred an American Creed as defined by Myrdal but understands there are competing images about what Americanism should be.  This blogger would add it is not enough to identify the gap between the creed Myrdal identifies and competing images of another American value system, but that the sought-after image needs to be fuller and more comprehensive of the forces at play. 

There needs be a reasoned rationale for the creed’s existence, as one offered by federation theory.  And pedagogically, that should lead to a developed content and instructional processes to handle the entailed challenge, not in an accusatorial tone, but one that invites inclusion.

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[1] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (New York, NY:  Avid Reader Press).

[2] Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York, NY:  Harper and Brothers, 1944).

[3] Meribel Morey, “Are Americans Really Champions of Racial Equality?”  The Atlantic (April 12, 2015), accessed August 10, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/are-americans-champions-of-racial-equality/389826/ .

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

CATEGORIZING TO A FAULT

        

Over a number of postings, this blog has shared with readers the thoughts of various writers on those factors that contribute to the existence and strength of tribal thinking.  The purpose has been to shed light for the benefit of civics educators and other interested parties of the detrimental effects a polarized political landscape has on the promotion of good citizenship.  This posting continues that effort.  It attempts to turn the attention of readers to a related natural, psychological tendency humans have.  

It turns out, humans have a strong natural bias that encourages tribalism.  An early writer who presented a cogent argument regarding this human disposition is cognitive linguist, George Lakoff.[1]  He points out that it is natural and functional for people to conceptualize – that is, to form categories – in their attempts to make sense of reality.  Without that ability, the mind would be overcome by all the factual bits of information a person encounters. 

Categorizing allows one to make “information boxes” in which perceived information can be organized.  But following the tradition set down by Aristotle, people seek definite definitions for those categories or concepts, and this is problematic.  Why?  Reality is not that conducive to being defined in such a definite way or to such a definite degree.  Lakoff, in effect, complains that this practice leads to thinking and speaking pattern that assumes sharp distinctions within and among the meanings of those categories and usually those distinctions are not justified. 

The problem is that reality is simply not so simple.  And no area of interest is this truer than when one considers human behaviors, roles, expectations, attitudes, knowledge, or values.  In previous postings, this blog has argued that the inability of the social sciences to replicate the successes of the natural sciences has to do with the number of variables affecting human behavior.   One of those postings made the comparison to trying to predict the weather. 

Adding to the number of factors involved is the practical limitation posed by this overwhelming challenge to define those factors, variables, or concepts – what do those boxes mean?  Take any category, say one dealing with roles, and see if one can clearly, unambiguously define it?  For example, “boss” or “manager” can be simply defined as one who supervises those under his/her authoritative responsibility.  But can a boss be a mentor, a father/mother figure, a friend, an enemy, a rival, or ride to work? 

And as that person fulfills one or more of these functions, does that affect his/her bossing behavior?  Add to that the methodological practice in the sciences to reduce analysis of those variables under study, one can see how this abstraction can be problematic. 

[Idealizations] are never visible in pure form, but are no less real for all that.  No one has ever actually sighted a triangle without thickness, a frictionless plane, a point mass, an ideal gas, or an infinite, randomly interbreeding population.  That is not because they are useless figments but because they are masked by the complexity and finiteness of the world and by many layers of noise.  The concept of “mother” [or “boss”] is perfectly well defined within a number of idealized theories.[2]

So, as one can see, this ailment hinders all sciences and is part and parcel of reductionism.

          Of course, this is not an argument to do away with scientific methods or conceptualizing, but to hold them with some reservation or nuance.  And further, short of the higher standards of scientific thinking, in everyday thinking that people practice, this problem is further magnified.  That is, the human tendency to put things – really ideas of things – into boxes has its shortcomings especially as humans tend to fall in love with those boxes.  Afterall, that’s how they see things. 

On another level, one can call them stereotypes and those can be based on a variety of types.  Of most relevance to the topic of polarization is racism, but there are other types.  There is sexism, xenophobia, agism, and now there is even “maskism.”  Oh, if one wears a mask during the pandemic, one must be a Commie.  This tendency feeds the beliefs underlying the motivational forces that leads one to be on one side of the polarizing divide or the other.

Steven Pinker identifies this stereotyping as a “bug” in one’s cognitive or mental software.  And here is a common line of thinking that bolsters the unreasonable results that such thinking generates.  One might observe a correlation – when X happens, Y happens – and, therefore, either X causes Y or the other way around.

Yes, there can even be statistical verification for the results that a stereotype promotes.  Negative examples of this can be cited, but to make the point, a positive example is better.  It turns out that people from high income families are much more likely to attain higher educational degrees.[3]  X can be income and Y can be education.  Therefore, being well-off causes a person to develop those attributes that lead to acquiring higher levels of education.

Is one justified to form the conclusion that since Mr. X is from a higher income family, he, therefore, will attain a higher degree?  No, that would be unreasonable (yet rational).  It is attributing a group characteristic to an individual.  It also conflates various factors that interact to cause the cited result that might not exist in a person or a subgroup within the overall population of those who represent one or the other factor or both. 

Now, one can apply these unreasonable qualities to any stereotype and if one considers the above nuances, ignoring them can generate beliefs that have led to tragic consequences.  If one reviews the arguments of hate groups, this is the type of thinking that leads them to believe in the negative characteristics they attribute to minorities and further are used to justify their hateful activities usually aimed at individuals.  It undermines swaths of people from being able to be accorded their rightful level of integrity.

On this point, Pinker writes,

But sadly, some stereotypes may be based on good statistics about real people. … Ordinary people’s estimates of these differences are fairly accurate, and in some cases, people with more contact with a minority group … have more pessimistic, and unfortunately more accurate, estimates of the frequency of negative traits such as illegitimacy and welfare dependency. … [A]ctuarially sound but morally repugnant decisions about individual cases [are made].  This behavior is racist [for example] not because it is irrational (in the sense of statistically inaccurate) but because it flouts the moral principle that it is wrong to judge an individual using the statistics of a racial or ethnic group.[4]

And more than likely, the true causes of any positive or negative attributes are misidentified by using the most obvious correlations.  Wealth, in itself, does not “cause” intellectual prowess, but it does afford the attaining of those factors that do.  Race or foreign ethnicity does not cause crime, but poverty and its related conditions do and unfortunately too many members of minority groups are denied the opportunities that lead to acquiring higher income levels.

          So, in sum, humans tend to categorize – it makes life easier, at least in the immediate situation.  Unfortunately, these categories tend to be poorly defined.  People also grow emotionally attached to those categories especially if they are attained during formative years and are associated with other symbolic elements of one’s life like family, ethnic group, geographic area, educational institutions, sports teams, etc. 

          Using those categories, in the form of concepts or factors and variables, one can form cause and effect relationships, but since they tend to be poorly defined, they also are the source of poor theorizing, i.e., inaccurate cause and effect statements.  And even if there is statistical verification of some correlational relationship, one can be led to inaccurate conclusions that promote unjustifiable treatment of fellow Americans or of foreign populations, especially as the relationships are applied to individuals and subgroups.

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[1] George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1987).

[2] Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1997), 312 (Kindle version).

[3] Nick Morrison, “Higher Education Gap between Rich and Poor Reaches 10-Year High,” Forbes (December 17, 2019), accessed August 6, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2019/12/17/higher-education-gap-between-rich-and-poor-reaches-10-year-high/#6c8b09fc749a .

[4] Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works, 313 (emphasis in the original).

THE MEANING OF “UNUM,” Part III

The last two postings presented the essence of Arthur M. Schlesinger’s argument[1] bolstering an assimilationist approach to immigration policy.  This was described in counter position to a multiculturalist approach, especially as expressed by critical theorists.  According to that historian, the multicultural position would have immigrants rejecting the central American culture – one which is based on Western cultural tradition – and be able to maintain their various cultural modes of behavior and belief structures in defining their social and private affairs.

Schlesinger sees this as depriving the nation of a central cultural base which if maintained would serve to functionally establish basic expectations in social intercourse.  Rounding his argument, he reviews a list of attributes an alignment to a single, Western culturally based tradition should have.

First, that tradition is/will not be a solidified orthodoxy but more of a cultural process by which the effects of incoming traditions of current and future immigrants are incorporated into the dominant way of life.  “It is an ever-evolving philosophy, fulfilling its ideals through debate, self-criticism, protest, disrespect, and irreverence; a tradition in which all have right of heterodoxy and opportunities for self-assertion.”[2]

Second, to acknowledge the essentially European origins of the American culture as, one, a historical fact, and, two, an origin that allows – Schlesinger seems to say invites – for the acceptance and accommodation of various cultural traditions.  It does not disdain other traditions but allows for evolving views – a one step at a time – of acceptance and selected adaptation of beliefs, values, attitudes, and styles from non-European traditions.

Third, a cultural commitment not based on the notion that it is better for all humans, but better for the American people.  It is history that has given this nation this tradition and that does not just mean an accidental fact, but a fact that has a complicated, extensive, and thorough defining effect on the American people.  In short, it provides the nation its identity.

Fourth, a central commitment to a political culture that is not based on group rights, as multicultural arguments seem to bolster, but based on a foundational commitment to protect and advance individual integrity through a respect for individual rights as defined by the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democratic processes.  This is further advanced by a cultural disposition toward communal arrangements of social settings, from families to national and international associations.

And fifth, that cultural tradition provides reasonable expectations that in terms of any multilayered reality – which includes any reality of any consequence – allows for necessary efficiencies.  For example, as William K. Tabb points out, economic health depends on economic actors having some level of a predictive ability and be able to share general views about how the economy functionally works.[3]

All this poses a challenge for the nation to hit upon the optimal compromise between the nationalist bias toward exclusion of non-Western influences and the multiculturalist bias toward prohibiting efforts at enculturating the nation’s population to Western based cultural norms and standards.  This compromise needs happen to maintain and strengthen a true republic.

Our task is to combine due appreciation of the splendid diversity of the nation with due emphasis on the great unifying Western ideas of individual freedom, political democracy, and human rights.  These are the ideas that define American nationality – and today empower people of all continents, races, and creeds.[4]

And another quote; this one from an account of Abraham Lincoln’s last journey – his body being transported back to Springfield, Illinois – by the historian, Ted Widmer,

[The American people] trusted Lincoln’s vision of an America that aspired to keep the promises of the Declaration of Independence.  Even if they had lost him, they knew that “the Union is not assassinated,” as Whitman put it.  They were not naïve; they knew that the Declaration set a difficult standard, one that they would often fail to reach.  But to pretend it did not exist was to slowly become a different kind of country, with no moral standard at all.[5]

And that Declaration was a product of a long development of the Western tradition.

          This writer has indicated in prior postings that he accepts the basis of Schlesinger’s argument but takes issues with its finer points.  The argument rightly points out the dysfunctionality of a nation with disparate cultural traditions – beyond that of what Canada has with its dual cultural base between its British and French traditions – made up of cultural elements from around the world.  But this blogger feels he soft-peddles the lack of effort Americans have made to live up to its federalist values.

          The Widmer quote above mentions the difficult standard the Declaration sets for the American people, but how divergent does the record have to be before one just considers that proclaimed set of values as just a pile of words?  In a current issue of The Atlantic, Ed Young[6] points out how the current pandemic has laid bare the inequalities that exist.

And much of that inequality, in terms of occurrence, can be superimposed on the racial and ethnic divisions of the nation.  Yes, poverty is the culprit but if that poverty aligns inordinately along racial and ethnic lines, then one can readily see the implied inequality reflecting a less than enculturated commitment to the nation’s own stated principles and values.  Young writes, 

Latinos were three times as likely to be infected as white people. Asian Americans faced racist abuse. Far from being a “great equalizer,” the pandemic fell unevenly upon the U.S., taking advantage of injustices that had been brewing throughout the nation’s history. …

 Of the 3.1 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance, more than half are people of color, and 30 percent are Black.  This is no accident.  In the decades after the Civil War, the white leaders of former slave states deliberately withheld care from Black Americans, apportioning medicine more according to the logic of Jim Crow than Hippocrates.  They built hospitals away from Black communities, segregated Black patients into separate wings, and blocked Black students from medical school.  In the 20^th century, they helped construct America’s system of private, employer-based insurance, which has kept many Black people from receiving adequate medical treatment …

A number of former slave states also have among the lowest investment in public health, the lowest quality of medical care, the highest proportion of Black citizens, and the greatest racial divides in health outcomes. …

As of the early July, one in every 1,450 Black Americans had died from COVID-19 – a rate more than twice that of white Americans.[7]

Young goes on to point out a set of data points that adequately support the claim that minorities are not treated as white Americans when it comes to health care.

One can easily draw the conclusion that Americans are not meeting the “difficult standard” the Declaration of Independence stakes out.  That is, any meaningful definition of “Unum” demands more.

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[1] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America:  Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1992).

[2] Ibid., 136.

[3] William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 2012).

[4] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America, 138.

[5] Ted Widmer, Lincoln on the Verge:  Thirteen Days to Washington (New York, NY:  Simon and Schuster, 2020), 461.

[6] Ed Young, “How the Pandemic Defeated America,” The Atlantic (September 2020).

[7] Ibid., accessed August 4, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/ .

THE MEANING OF “UNUM,” Part II

The last posting began a review of the ideas of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. regarding the differences between critical multiculturalists and assimilationists.[1]  That posting left the reader with Schlesinger’s opinion that critical multiculturalists can’t divorce themselves from the contributions of Western culture.  That that tradition provides the sentiments and reasoned rationales upon which these advocates base their calls for liberty and equality.

          This posting delves into what the substance of that tradition is.  The liberal historian does not deny the crimes of that tradition, but that those crimes have spurred their “antidotes.”  Among those counter beliefs include rationales to end slavery, to upgrade the status of women, to do away with legalized torture, to wage the fight against racism, to uphold (if not invent) the practice of free inquiry and expression, and to lay the foundation and practice of individual liberty and the enumeration of human rights.

          The historical record shows that these “democratic” attributes got their starts in Europe and included the belief in the rule of law and that cultures should not face extinction by dominant ways of life.  Take one of these, freedom of inquiry; it has allowed a rich tradition of artistic expression.  Schlesinger, to make this point, cites the case of Salman Rushdie.

That novelist portrayed a story offensive to the followers of a Middle East religious tradition.  Well, some of the followers issued death threats against the writer because their tradition did not share the ideals of tolerance that would allow such writings.  Yet, in the West, many could not even understand this reaction; it was so non-Western.

          Summarizing, Schlesinger writes, “Individualism itself is looked on with abhorrence and dread by collectivist cultures in which loyalty to the group overrides personal goals – cultures that, social scientists say, comprise about 70 percent of the world’s population.”[2]  A key word in this quote is “collectivist.” 

That word represents the basic difference – and here this blogger is interjecting – between critical theory thought and federation theory thought.  Central to critical thought is the group, the collective; central to federation theory thought is the compact-ing of consensual individuals.  Under this latter view the result is not a collective, but a community that allows for congregations to meet common challenges while protecting the integrity of each member. 

The historian charges:  “White guilt can be pushed too far.”  And this “pushing” has led to various counterproductive aims.  Ethnic ideologues seem to be advocating a central policy choice:  bilingual curricula in public schools.  This would be punctuated with choices to segregate minority children from American society.

It would also promote the message that these students do not take part in American democratic tradition and adopt the language and thought of them being victims with a reliance on alibis.  This, in effect, leads to a generation turning away from opportunities to attain the gains by the strenuous work of prior civil right workers and, yes, white guilt.

Here, one can find a union between the writings of Gunnar Myrdal[3] and federation theory.  That being that a stand against a single society will ultimately fail and will not deliver its promise of a better life.  And among the rank and file of minority citizens, the dream still exists:  to shed ethnicity and land up in the suburbs in as short a time as possible. 

Rank and file does not include all:  “Others may enjoy their ethnic neighborhoods but see no conflict between foreign descent and American loyalty.  Unlike the multiculturalists, they celebrate not only what is distinctive in their own backgrounds but what they hold in common with the rest of the population.”[4]

As mentioned in the last posting, this blogger agrees a lot with Schlesinger ideas and sentiments, but not all of it.  But at a time when there seems to be a collapsing of diverse opinions in the great polarization of the national political arena, and a newer form of incubation seems to be in effect, one should not lose cognizance of what is brewing below the surface.

One can sort of see it in Portland where some protesters are expressing moderate objections to racism and some are more virulent and extreme in what they want to happen.  The factions are united because the current political realities demand it, but this does not mean they have disappeared.  The next posting will continue this blog’s treatment of Schlesinger’s argument.

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[1] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America:  Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1992).

[2] Ibid., 127.

[3] Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York, NY:  Harper and Brothers, 1944).

[4] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America, 132.

THE MEANING OF “UNUM,” Part I

The words of this posting are written as the body of John Lewis lies in state at the US Capitol.  His long career in civil rights and as a Congressman reflects the issue of national division mostly along racial lines.  While this writer does not attribute to Lewis a commitment to any critical multiculturalism this blog addressed not long ago, his passing does encourage one to think about the points of contention between multiculturalists and assimilationists.

          While the reader is more than likely aware of how Lewis became nationally known – through his participation in a peaceful demonstration in Alabama that turned ugly – a short review is proper.  That was an incident, “Bloody Sunday,” in 1965 when Lewis and people from a group organized by a top lieutenant of Martin Luther King, staged a march near the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

The demonstrators were attacked by the Alabama State Troopers after the troopers had ordered the demonstrators to disperse, but they stood their ground.  As a result, Lewis suffered a fractured skull after being hit by a trooper’s baton.  And this was not the only time Lewis was hurt or jailed in his long career.

          But from what this writer has heard, in terms of Lewis, through the years or through some of his allegiances, one would be hard pressed to label the civil rights icon a critical multiculturalist.  Instead, the opinion here is that he was proud of his heritage, but that what he foresaw best for his fellow African Americans was for them to become respectfully assimilated – an assimilation that addressed the past wrongs while recognizing their rights to fully participate in what one can describe as partnering in their citizenship.  After all, the 1965 effort was about respecting blacks’ constitutional right to vote, a cornerstone of such partnering.

          So, how do those who favor assimilation see civil rights and the aims and goals Americans should strive for to achieve “E Pluribus Unum?”  In short, what does “Unum” mean while maintaining the integrity of the “Pluribus.”  To address this question, this posting revisits the thoughts of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the historian and presidential advisor.

          Schlesinger was an advisor of the liberal president, John F. Kennedy, and also advised Robert F. Kennedy during the younger Kennedy’s run for the presidency.  He, therefore, can be easily considered a left-of-center historical character.  As such, his career reflected a serious commitment to a civil rights agenda as the assimilators defined those aims and goals.  This posting’s account of his ideas is not in an effort to promote all of what the historian proposed, but as an attempt to share a well-thought-out argument explaining from where his sentiments originate.[1]

          But before reviewing that argument, here is a set of numbers that can serve as a backdrop for Schlesinger’s ideas.  As of 2010 census, the following distribution in the American population exists:  Western European (white) descendants account for 72.4% of the population; African Americans stand at 13%; Immigrant population, 14.4%; Latino/a population, 16.7%; Anglo-Saxon, 8.7%.[2]  These numbers have a factual effect, they serve to define the environment in which these concerns unfold.

          And off these numbers, Schlesinger makes his first point in regard to striving toward the “Unum.”  While immigrants, in the ’80s, accounted for about 30% of the population, this does not diminish the dominance of natural born citizens.  More recent numbers indicate that in 2015, of the total population of 324 million, 22.2% was made up of immigrants who came to the US from 1965 to 2015.[3]  If one adds the black percentage, one can judge that roughly 70% of the population is European based and white.  Schlesinger doubts a minority majority is in the cards any time soon.

          He laments the fact that white “Europeans” have had such a dominant role in determining the American culture, but that is just the case.  And therefore, while imperialist motivation might have influenced the behaviors of some – one has a hard time thinking of Irish and Italian immigrants making the trip over to pursue imperialist aims – the culture that the nation presently has is the product of these demographic facts and not of any imperialist plan by some dastardly minority.

          And what should be the response to these facts?  Should one ignore them as the history of the nation is described and explained to young school children?  Yes, one should strive to include the presence, influence, and other contributions from that 30% – even justifiably glorifying it – in those lessons.  But that is not the aim of multiculturalists; they strive to cast the majority culture and its people as ethnocentric and they, the multiculturalists, find little value in Western culture. 

The curriculum should, according to multiculturalists, advance a message:  that one should divorce oneself from that sinful cultural heritage and degrade its criminal past.  But is this really possible?  In Schlesinger’s words,

The “unmasking,” “demythologizing,” “[de-]canonizing,” “dehegemonizing,” blitz against Western culture depends on methods of critical analysis unique to the West – which surely testifies to the internally redemptive potentialities of the Western tradition. … [So, for example,] Afrocentric ideologues are intellectual children of the West they repudiate.[4]

It is not by accident that the most viable anti-discrimination and anti-imperialistic movements have emanated from Western or Western founded states.

          And part of the reason for that correlation is the liberalizing developments that Western philosophy and political evolvements have accrued.  And it is with that notion that the next posting will continue this review of Schlesinger’s argument.

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[1] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America:  Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1992).

[2] These percentages do not add up to 100% because certain groups are not included and there is overlapping among these groupings.

[3] “Chapter 2:  Immigration’s Impact on Past and Future U.S. Population Change,” Pew Research, Hispanic Trends, September 28, 2015, accessed July 27, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/09/28/chapter-2-immigrations-impact-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/ .

[4] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America, 124.

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[1] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America:  Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1992).

[2] These percentages do not add up to 100% because certain groups are not included and there is overlapping among these groupings.

[3] “Chapter 2:  Immigration’s Impact on Past and Future U.S. Population Change,” Pew Research, Hispanic Trends, September 28, 2015, accessed July 27, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/09/28/chapter-2-immigrations-impact-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/ .

[4] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America, 124.