THE ENTITIES

This blog is currently reviewing the elements of a liberated federalist model.  This model is designed to guide civics curriculum in its choice of content material.  The second component of the model is the entities comprising a federalist union.  Entities can be persons, groups, sub-associations that comprise an association.

They can be both within and without government, be it a local government, state government, regional organization of states, the national government, or arrangements including the United States and other nations.  This posting’s aim is to describe the array of attributes that characterize entities.

To begin, entities in an association have constitutional integrity; i.e., they have moral worth which endows them with dignity and integrity as “autonomous” actors in the political arena.  They are autonomous in the sense that they can make decisions, act upon those decisions, and be held accountable for the consequences of those decisions.  They, therefore, have rights. 

Basically, at the individual level, entities are citizens, residents, and legal immigrants (illegal immigrants deserve special consideration). Entities, in terms of this model, are participants in some enterprise in which an arrangement with other entities has been formulated.  Arrangements are formulated for some purpose or purposes.  The entity is in a relationship with all other entities within the arrangement under the auspices of some agreement.

The agreement defines that relationship and can take the form of a verbal statement, a contract, or a compact or covenant.  For example, in the arrangement of a school, a teacher has a relationship with each member of the staff and the student body.  That relationship is defined by a contract.  In terms of a federalist union, what is here called an association, there is an agreement that uses a compact or covenant as the medium by which the agreement is formed.

Each entity has certain attributes within the context of such an arrangement.  There are three distinguishing attributes:  status, conscience, and practical attributes.  Together, these attributes allow other entities to define how any interactions will be conducted with the entity in question.

Status refers to the degree to which the entity can be considered an elite (e.g., a leader) or a non-elite (e.g., a follower).  Leaders of the arrangement have high status; followers have, to varying degrees, lower status; non-active participants usually have still lower status than followers.  In a more complex arrangement, there can be varied bases for status other than leadership.  For example, admiration at the societal level can be a basis for status. 

The second attribute is conscience.  The conscience refers to the individual’s or collective’s ideal domain which includes notions of what is right and wrong behavior.  If there exists an issue over right or wrong between or among members of an arrangement, the concern is what moralists call a moral issue.  If it is between or among members and those outside the arrangement and possibly unknown by either or both camps, it is an issue of ethics.  Of most relevance, in terms of morality, are issues that affect the association’s the reasons and purposes for the arrangement.

The third distinguishing attribute is practical attributes.  Practical attributes deal with many relevant characteristics which the entity brings to the efforts of the arrangement.  To expand, the categories of practical attributes include the following:  useful resources, character, interests, and role(s).

·        Useful resources – Resources includes political attributes (both practical and theoretical) such as power and authority, financial resources, physical resources, common sense, personal physical attributes such as health, attractiveness, location, time availability, skills such as listening skills, communication skills, physical dexterity, athleticism, research skills, and lobbying skills, and personality traits such as humor, friendliness, tolerance, an accepting disposition and, in some instances, assertiveness and decisiveness.

·        Character – Personality trait which includes reflective behavior and the courage to act out of conviction.

·        Interests – Related to conscience, includes relevant values which can be commitments, needs, and desires – short and, especially, long term.

·        Role(s) – These include first, leadership roles, second, follow-ship roles, and third, other strategic roles.

For any of these attributes, students can analyze the functionality of the attribute in an arrangement.  For example, in terms of roles, students can inquire as to the appropriate types of roles that an arrangement should have and what kinds of entities should fill them.  In determining which roles an arrangement should have and the persons who should fill those roles will primarily rely on the purpose(s) of the arrangement in making those decisions.

Within an arrangement there can be any number of entities.  Theory can be developed and a study can be conducted to determine the optimal number of entities given the purposes of an arrangement (beyond the scope of this posting).  But whatever the number, there needs to exist a relationship among the entities.  Federalist unions require that the entities, despite their varying statuses, enjoy equality among them; equality as defined by “regulated condition.”[1]

Donald S. Lutz points out a very important factor.  In the developing history of our nation, when parties joined an arrangement by agreeing to the provisions of a compact or covenant, the understanding, under American federalism, was that each party was equal to the other parties in that each equally gave his/her consent to the agreement and the resulting union.  This notion expanded so that, as part of the extended republic, all states were given equal standing when joining the federal union of the United States.[2]

Not all states enjoyed the same status of importance, but all were equal under the auspices of the association.  In like manner, the entities depicted within the model enjoy the same equality.  In both cases, federation theory explains this equality in terms of consent and one should keep in mind that the nation’s constitution was formed by the consent of its people and the consent of its states.

The relationship among the entities also has communal links tying them together.  The links can include the elements of the agreement, emotional ties, shared resources, shared interests, and mutual respect.  All or any of these links would make the entities closer and more committed to accomplishing the purposes of the arrangement.  This relationship relates to what Philip Selznick calls reciprocal advantage.[3]

This concern understands that a communal sense among the entities of an arrangement increases the chances of success; it is sensitive to the whimsical nature of fortune and fate, and it avoids the disruption that a lack of dignity and integrity can cause any collective effort.  Some of this can be obvious at times, but obscured at other times.  Its presence needs to be looked at seriously since a lot of what goes into accomplishing success depends on it.

The last aspect of the model associated with the entities is the relationship between them and the arrangement.  The entity has the obligation and duty to extend to the arrangement loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge.  Of course, the nature of the arrangement will dictate the exact nature of these obligations and duties, but loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge have the very practical consequence of making success and long-term satisfaction of interests appreciably more likely.

While any arrangement in which its member entities do not meet these obligations and duties to a minimal degree, it would find it very difficult to meet the purposes of its existence,[4] but the arrangement, in return, has certain responsibilities to the individual entities.  This return obligation has a couple of aspects.

First, the association has the obligation to guarantee the equal standing to which the entity is entitled.  This responsibility should be addressed by the arrangement’s policies and in its treatment of the entity as it pursues its goals and/or reacts to the challenges it faces.  In this aspect, one can take Kant’s sanctification of the individual to heart.

Second, in cases when an entity is lacking relevant resources and skills, the arrangement, in relation to its resources and purposes, should make special allowances by, if necessary, distributing some helpful subsidies or other policies that provide special accommodations.  The aim would be to “level the playing field” among the entities.  Of course, welfare in general falls under this area of concern.  More on this in a future posting.

The next posting will describe and explain the element of the liberated federalist model identified as the association.

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[1] Regulated condition believes that market processes or other competitive processes should determine basic distributive decisions, but that markets and other competitive processes can and do fail.  Therefore, these processes should be regulated so that all entities are afforded basic opportunities and minimum participatory status.  Mainly, the belief goes on to see skills as the result of arbitrary forces and that anyone can find him/herself in a significantly deprived state.

[2] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, (Baton Rouge, LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[3] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community.

[4] Ibid. 

A FEDERATED COMMUNAL ENVIRONMENT

In the previous posting, there was an overview of a model.  That model depicts an ideal view of how a polity engages in political confrontations.  The purpose of describing this model is not to guide political science research, but to guide civics educators in the choice of content material for classroom use.  The model attempts to illustrate and implement a construct that represents a federalist view of governance and politics.  A more detailed explanation of the elements of the model follows starting with this posting which looks at the community.

  The community should ideally be characterized as a “functioning community” where a certain tolerance and inclusion exist.  On the one hand, to be able to enjoy a general level of legitimacy, there should exist among the members of the community a pervasive congruence in opinions, values, and goals.  Yes, there can be disagreements, they are even necessary, but there should at least be an agreement on and an emotional commitment for the ground rules and other mores under which those debates occur.

On the other hand, minorities should be respected and encouraged to participate in collective actions.  Of course, this includes legitimacy for the processes by which the minority can strive to be the majority.  In short, a community is established in which the feeling of “the people as a whole” prevails.

As such, there is an aversion to a raw majority rule being sufficient to reflect the will of the people.  More of a consensus, at least among those affected, should be sought and secured before collective action is initiated.  Here, it should be remembered that the model reflects an ideal.  Federation theory does not demand a consensus, only that establishing one should be the goal.

In real life, it is also not practical or desirable to allow a small minority to have veto power over collective action.  But those in the majority should design proposed policy with an eye toward accommodating as many entities as possible while maintaining the principles that motivate their political activities.  This process is what a lot of politics is made of.

The second condition is that there should be a “cultural commitment to federalist values in the community.”  It has already been pointed out that there are areas in the US that have inherited a federalist, moral perspective from the tradition established in the New England colonies.  In short, those areas tend to see politics as a moral expression and opportunity to advance the betterment of the commonweal and being a politician is a calling to serve the community and its interest.[1] 

Overall, federalist values do support and encourage an active citizenry not only from the perspective that one’s self interests are involved, but also from the view that there exists a set of duties and obligations that includes involvement in the political processes beyond those that directly affect the citizen.[2]  It should be noted:  the extent of these duties and obligations will become clear as the other elements of the model are reviewed.

The third condition is a “set of functioning and interacting institutions.”  This condition transcends governmental or formal political settings and extends to the social sector of a community.  This might include labor unions, trade associations, religious organizations, and the like. 

Robert Putnam writes of the viable political role that social associations in Italy played in the northern provinces of that nation in making a more civic minded communal environment.  This condition, in turn, played a vital role in allowing the regional governmental structures of those provinces to be significantly more successful than those of the southern ones.  Such social arrangements allow and promote the levels of trust and friendliness necessary to encourage social capital.[3] 

The fourth condition of a viable community is “community with a moral primacy.”  The inclusion of this condition refers to the reality that societies are made up of kinships, relationships, and historical patterns that define the nature of these communal elements.  Inherent in these conditions are moral attributes that transcend the public and private context that socially envelops the individual.  Laws which are enacted under the tenets of this moral condition are meant to perfect these realities; i.e., laws give it tangible life.

This morality is the basis by which a society is being able to claim that it is “civilized.”[4]  This moral primacy of a community, at times, enforces its position on the fates of individuals.  Conscription during war is such a case.  Most often, there is an ongoing tension, especially in environments where the natural rights perspective holds predominant sway, between the claims of rights by the individual and the community’s claim to moral primacy.

While the traditional federalist perspective gave theoretical respect to the claims of the individual, the history of the early republic is full of cases when the majority engaged in tyranny.  There was not a more compelling case than the mistreatment of African-Americans, but there were also ample examples of the mistreatment of Jews, Catholics, women, and other minorities being the victims of such tyranny.[5]

The federation theory model differs in that the balancing of individual rights and the concerns of the majority are given higher priority than was the case when traditional federalism was dominant.  It favors judicial review, although the history of court decisions has often missed an appropriate balance between the rights of the individual and the claimed authority of the majority.  If the reader is interested, see the example of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) which was rectified by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

The fulcrum for balancing these claims under federation theory would shift from the strong individual position, which is currently the case under the natural rights perspective, to a more communal center, but more protective of individual rights as compared to when traditional federalism was dominant.  Decisions would place the common good above all concerns, but with the understanding that an unreasonable restriction of individual rights would negatively affect the common good.  And, actually, the common good has little “tolerance” for such abuses. 

Under federation theory, the individual is not left to his or her own devices to engender the sophisticated levels of cognition necessary to formulate a moral system of thought.  Recent hesitancy in providing reasonable guidance, for example, through civics instruction, to assist individuals in dealing with moral questions has instead promoted an individualistic culture where an individual is apt to be bewildered by the moral questions of a given time. 

The liberated federalist perspective expects that the individual engage in the communal moral questions by an active participation in such issues, but not in an isolated fashion.  These types of more socially structured experiences provide the opportunities to develop morally.

Without appropriate opportunities and supports, the quest for moral well-being may be confused, frustrated, and aborted; the telos [what is sought] may be experienced as dim and incoherent rather than clear and compelling.  Therefore, the injunction to follow nature must be sustained by a worked-out theory of what the natural end-state is and why it is worthy of our striving.[6]

Due to the centrality within federation theory of developing a moral person, rights become paramount.  Morality, under this construct, is a quality only possible within a free person, one who chooses, through rational decision-making, to do moral things.[7]  A reasoned approach to such questions demands a respect for the individual and to diverse ethnic and racial groups.[8] 

These federally inspired arrangements allow heterogeneous populations to work out functional arrangements by allowing each group to maintain its cultural biases for the most part.  The arrangements, though, insist that, in terms of their purposes, their members acquiesce, through respect and appropriate behavior, to those values that legitimize the union and define the union’s basic procedures.[9] 

For example, immigrants who come to this nation from non-modern, traditional societies will most likely bring with them values that are antithetical to modern values, particularly those central in either an industrial or post-industrial economy:

One fact seems unmistakable; indeed it seems to come as close to being a law as anything to be observed in social science.  As individuals move up the scale of individual modernity, whether judged by objective status characteristics or by psychological attributes, they regularly become more informed, active, participant citizens.[10]

The author of these words, Alex Inkeles, goes on to point out that while an individual’s behavior in an industrial-bureaucratic system might be somewhat affected by a participatory environment (in the political realm), it does not necessarily have implications in other social realms.  The point is that under a federalist arrangement that heavily encourages individual participation in political processes, such a bias will not necessarily affect other dealings or arrangements such as ethnic affiliations and other ethnic based proclivities.

That concludes the review of the model’s element, the community.  The next posting will delve into the element, the entity.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism:  A View from the States, (New York, NY:  Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966).

[2] Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1998).

[3] Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work:  Civic Tradition in Modern Italy, (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1993).

[4] Phillip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community, (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[5] Robert H. Wiebe, Self-Rule:  A Cultural History of American Democracy, (Chicago, IL:  The University of Chicago Press, 1995). 

[6] Phillip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community, 151.

[7] Ibid.

[8] James MacGregor Burns, J. W. Peltason, Thomas E. Cronin, and David B. Magleby, Government by the People, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1993).

[9] Daniel J. Elazar, Constitutionalizing Globalization:  The Postmodern Revival of Confederal Arrangements, (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1998) AND Robert Gutierrez, “A Case for Centered Pluralism,” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 5, no. 1 (2003):  71-82.

[10] Alex Inkeles, Exploring Individual Modernity. (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 1983), 21-22.

FEDERATION THEORY AND POLITICAL CONFRONTATIONS

With the moral perspective of federation theory outlined in the previous posting, this blog will next present that construct’s view of government and politics.  In terms of the subject matter, – the content of civics – federation theory guides educators to choose material that facilitates accomplishing the following goals:

•      Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.  This is because the US Constitution establishes all citizens as partners with a common interest in the survival and health of this national union. 

•      Teach that the role of government is to be the guardian of this grand partnership.  While this role is exercised through a variety of venues, its effects are felt both at the individual and associational levels of society.  Further, the role is expressed through social and political intercourse that utilizes a language which supports a moral standard promoting social capital and civic humanism.[1]   

•      Establish and justify a political morality that accounts for the realities of the current political world, but does not lose sight of the responsibilities citizens have in advancing the common interest.

•      Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty (constitutional integrity) and equity in which each citizen is a member within a compact arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.

•      Point out political strategies that respect the function of expertise at the national level, but, at the same time, express a reasonable preference for local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation (more on this below).

This approach, as indicated in a previous posting, is a synthesis or compromise, in part, between federalism and the natural rights construct.  So, for example, the above goals reflect a duality; that is, an inherent tension between the forces that focus political studies on either local communal levels or on the national level.  The aim in using federation theory is to revitalize the ideals of the founding fathers, but in such a way so as to be realistically applicable to the national and global realities of the present day. 

While that includes recognizing the international forces impinging on political and economic realities – and in some cases, social realities, – the construct is not willing to give up on the power of local participation.  This localism is usually referred to as “grass roots” politics and can be considered a basic federalist tenet.  This does not downplay the challenge this duality poses, but recognizes the tension the challenge represents. 

The argument is, in considering this and other issues, not to reestablish the traditional federalist view of governance and politics, but for federalism to accommodate the factual conditions that characterize the world as it is with the presence of transnational corporations, global markets (including labor markets), global communication capabilities, and the resulting global conflicts.  And one can add the assumptions concerning individualism among Western democracies, as a viable force in current political activities. 

All of these conditions cannot be ignored by a political theory that claims viability.  This, therefore, demands a synthesis between the concerns of federalism with its calls for duty and obligation and the natural rights’ view of liberty as expressed through its notion of “individual sovereignty.”  It is that synthesis that provides a context for what follows as this posting reviews an ideal model by which to analyze, for instructional purposes, a political confrontation.

What follows in no way describes a model suitable for initiating professional federalist studies in political science.  Nor is it a model depicting how political processes are.  Instead, the model is meant to provide a starting point, a source of ideas and questions that would be suitable for designing curricular content regarding the study of government and politics at the secondary level of American schools.  It does this by presenting an ideal. 

The model is made up of three main components:  the community, participating entities, and the association.  A summary review of the model at this point can make subsequent explanation easier to understand.  One should think of the model as a system that attempts to be organic, sensitive to human qualities and emotions, and subject to human interactions and not necessarily quantified factors as is done in reductive, positivist studies.  A review of the elements can be depicted as follows:

The community is an ideally open arrangement which is accessible to outside entities, arrangements, or associations.  It is the social environment within which an arrangement/association exists.  An ideal community is characterized as functioning with a cultural commitment to federalist values, a set of functioning and interacting institutions, and a general disposition to upholding a moral primacy.

Participating entities comprise of those persons, arrangements, or associations that make up the collective under study.  These entities can be the entities of an arrangement (any collective) or an association (a collective that operates under federalist values).  In an association, the entities are characterized by bonds of partnership among themselves, by responsibilities to the association which include extending it loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge, by expectations from the association of equal standing and, if needed, allowances so that the entity can viably participate in the processes of the association, by legal and respected status of constitutional integrity not as allotments, but as being inherent (a condition of birth or existence), and by characteristics including status, conscience, and practical attributes. 

The association, a federal arrangement, is characterized by several attributes:  a founding agreement in the form of a compact or covenant, by two political qualities:  a qualified majority rule and minority rights, and by three transcending provisions:  a fraternal ethos or sense of partnership, elements of communal democracy, and a deliberative process by which decisions are made.

The final elements of the model refer to the specific conditions under study; i.e., the conditions that comprise the specific political confrontation being highlighted in an instructional lesson.  It is here that conflicts – debates and/or competitions – between entities would be addressed.  By focusing on a political event, it sheds light, through the resulting study, on how it affects the structural, procedural, functional, and contextual factors of the association, the entities, and the community in question.

In general, the model attempts to highlight a procedural event, much as the systems model of David Easton[2] does.  A difference, though, is instead of analyzing how a political system processes supports and demands, the liberated federalist model focuses on how the components interact as the political confrontation plays out.

Political confrontations are events or a set of related events that offend a federalist value(s).  The model illustrates what should occur ideally – as a normative standard by which real life situations can be analyzed and evaluated; i.e., pitting the espoused ideals of federalism against the actual behaviors and other actions that characterizes the confrontation under study. 

Stated differently, the model depicts what should happen in an ideally federalist arrangement – how the elements of an association would respond to the confrontation.  This is a set of idealized standards exemplified by acts or actions that should take or should have taken place – hence the normative standard is established. 

Those standards are then applicable to evaluate what actually happens or has happened in a studied confrontation.  The model can be applied to local, state, regional, national, or international arrangements, both within and without government.  It can also be applied to formal or informal settings from families, to social groups, to corporation board rooms.

For example, a particular lesson could investigate a case in which an association is confronted by a political challenge, such as the displacement of American workers due to global labor market conditions.  The study would apply an analysis of the situation based on the ideals presented by the model and the known conditions of the case. 

The ideals suggest both the selection of such a case and a set of analytical questions an instructor might ask students and, in turn, students can ask of the confrontation.  Ideally, an arrangement (perhaps an association) – the federal government, labor union, or a corporation – would produce some action that could be defended or attacked as a moral or immoral, effective or ineffective response to those conditions that are deemed challenging federalist values; i.e., they are in some way deficient in upholding the well-being of the community.

As indicated above, the various portions of this model will be further developed in subsequent postings.  Hopefully, the above gives the reader a sense of what is to be described and explained more fully.  This model is offered as a way to look at reality – through idealistic lenses – and identify how current governance and politics falls short of federalist ideals.

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[1] In terms of social capital, see Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone:  America's Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, January, pp. 65-78.  As a reminder, Putnam indicates that social capital is when there is an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.  Civic humanism is the value of the individual willing to hold the common interest above personal interest.

[2] Easton, D. (1953).  The political system.  New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf.  This model has been reviewed in a previous posting.

A FEDERALIST MORAL VIEW

With these identified sources from the Western tradition (identified in the previous posting), the stage is sufficiently set to present an organized moral view that could serve as a foundation for the other elements of a federalist construct.  In this effort, morality is solely a social concern.  This context is derived from the tradition established by Aristotle in which he centered his relevant concerns over behaviors advancing the interests of the polity, the common interest.

The proposed liberated federalist trump value, as derived from that Western tradition, is societal welfare.  This value is measured by behaviors that help secure a society's survival and/or the advancement of social capital and civic humanism (defined below and described in previous postings).  So, a first step in the development of the proposed construct is taken:  a trump value, societal welfare, is identified.

It is a position that will be developed further below and in upcoming postings, but be assured that it will hold in high status the values of liberty and equality as instrumental values – in that they are instrumental in securing societal welfare.  This trump value also has a two-dimensional structure.  Societal welfare can be measured by policies, acts, and behaviors that tend toward primarily societal survival and societal health through the advancement of social capital and civic humanism.

Survival is just what it implies – extending the life of a society that might be threatened by either internal or external threats or a combination of such forces.  The assumption is that societal survival is advanced by a value commitment to certain societal qualities.  These qualities are social capital and civic humanism.

 As has been reported in this blog, Robert Putnam indicates that social capital is when there is an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[1]  Civic humanism is a disposition at the individual level in which a person is committed to, ideally, place his/her interests as subordinate to the common interest or, at least, does not define his/her interests in opposition to the common interest.

          With a trump value identified, more substantive elements of a proposed construct can be presented.  In terms of values, this blog conceptualizes a hierarchy of values system which can be divided into three layers:  a trump value, instrumental values, and operational values.  Each layer is logically derived from the layer above it, e.g., instrumental values are derived from the trump value.

In terms of their application, these values are definite values, but should not, except for the trump value, be applied in absolute terms as one finds in Kant's categorical imperative approach.  The list presented will be applicable to American society, but one can claim that it has a universal quality.  This list includes:

•      constitutional integrity – a basic value that promotes respect for the constitutionally defined individual rights of the US Bill of Rights or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; aka liberty

•      equality – defined as equal opportunity in a realistic fashion with a commitment for minimal welfare standards as promoted by John Rawls (explained in a previous posting as regulated condition)

•      communal democracy – a value for the establishment and maintenance of an ideal summarized by the phrase, “people as a whole”

•      democratic pluralism and diversity – a value that, while it needs further developing, stands for a respect for diverse cultural expression but realizes that national viability demands transcending cultural commitments; aka centered pluralism[2]

•      covenanted/compact arrangement – a value that supports social conglomerations based on mutually agreed upon values, constitutional structures, social and political processes, and is formalized in a perpetual agreement

•      critical and transparent deliberations – valuing open political processes

•      collective approaches to problem-solving – proactive commitment toward representing all interests within a social/political entity

•      trust – reasonable expectations of veracity and reliability of others

•      loyalty – reasonable commitment toward the collective

•      expertise – critical but reasonable respect for intellectually trained participants and their contributions

•      countervailing powers – the sense that any social arrangement should disperse power to avoid a concentration of it and to be able to check on the ability of any one actor or set of actors to abuse its use

•      spirited and joyful commitment to the collective – aka patriotism or upgraded loyalty

•      justice – commitment to giving everyone his/her due based on a realistic view of dispersed or accumulated advantages

The overall sense of these values is to promote social capital and civic humanism; the reader would be helped if this overall sense is kept in mind as the federalist model of politics is described in subsequent postings.

It avoids civics instruction that stacks the deck with the recurring themes of an ideology, be it leftist or rightest.  Instead it presents a more holistic view of society and its problems, as defined by federalist values, and, therefore, open for student investigation.  The proposed hierarchy of values does not only hold a trump value, but also presents a logically arranged set of values; arranged according to this moral view’s sense of importance.

As stated above, there are three levels of values:  trump value, key instrumental values, and operational values.  Here is a listing of these values:

•      Trump Value:  Societal welfare (as experienced through societal survival and societal health)

•      Key Instrumental Values:  constitutional integrity (liberty), equality, communal democracy, democratic pluralism and diversity, compact arrangements, critical and transparent deliberation, collective problem-solving, countervailing power, earned trust, loyalty, patriotism, expertise, justice

•      Operational Values (partial listing):  political engagement, due process, legitimate authority, privacy, universality of human rights, tolerance, non-violence, teamwork, consideration of others, economic sufficiency, security, localism

Later in this blog, a set of postings will address classroom application of this construct and, more specifically, this moral view.  At this point, though, a general overview is offered.  The view can be used with an array of instructional strategies from what are considered traditional approaches – lecture and other information dispensing techniques – to more progressive approaches – inquiry, role playing, simulations, and the like. 

But since the view reflects a federalist commitment – sharing and incorporating input of participating actors in collective efforts – a more collective and horizontal decision-making mode of instruction would be more congruent with the substance of the code. 

One such approach is outlined in a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, Handbook on Teaching Social Issues:  NCSS Bulletin 93.[3]  This handbook describes a variety of inquiry instructional models.  Generally, inquiry calls on students to solve problems – factual or ethical problems – by engaging in such activities as gathering information, testing hypotheses, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.  This blog will promote an instructional approach that relies on this set of activities, but under a dialectic mode of inquiry. 

This source, the Handbook on Teaching Social Issues, was cited in an earlier posting and critiqued in that it demonstrates how an issues-centered curriculum can be handled in natural rights based lessons.  Here it is presented for its instructional value and applied to implement federalist based lessons.  The strategy is considered “open ended” in that the students arrive at their own conclusions which they then are expected to defend by using rational argument. 

The approach can be readily applied to students tackling social issues as defined by the above moral view.  In terms of relating the technique to the proposed moral view, the view provides a guide by determining or, at least, suggesting which issues should be considered for classroom instruction and what questions should be asked.

And what are these issues?  In the above cited handbook, the issues identified are amenable to a leftist ideology, the writer considers them to be derived from critical theory – “critical light.”  That is, material that approaches the value of equality as defined by the criterion of equal condition (the economy should distribute its benefits equally among the population).  This reflects critical values.

If instead, instruction adopts a federalist view, not only would relevant issues include equality, albeit defined differently,[4] but it would also include those related to liberty, economic sufficiency, security, etc.  Therefore, a more varied array of concerns is available to the educator.  Since the view holds societal welfare as the trump value, not just equality or liberty and related issues become legitimate topics for classroom instruction.

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[1] Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone:  America's Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, January (1995), 65-78.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “A Case for Centered Pluralism,” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 5, no. 1 (2003):  71-82.

[3] Ronald W. Evans and David W. Saxe (eds.), Handbook on Teaching Social Issues:  NCSS Bulletin 93 (Washington, DC:  National Council of the Social Studies, 1996).

[4] Equality in this federated moral view is defined as a regulated condition; i.e., while distribution of assets is based primarily on a competitive system, it is mindful to assure basic life-sustaining resources and a livable mode of life for a citizenry comparable to the society’s ability to provide those resources.  These ends are achieved through a regimen of regulations, such as minimum wage and an insured retirement program.

A SYNTHESIS

With traditional federalism degraded in the collective view of Americans, although it is still strong within certain areas of the country, the natural rights view emerged as the prevalent perspective of governance and politics in the years following World War II.  One consequence of this construct’s upgrade is that it has become the subtext of the nation’s civics curriculum.  This blog finds this condition – the emergence of the natural rights construct – as deficient and, at minimum, an enabler of much of the nation’s civic problems.

          In its stead, this blog argues that, in terms of civics curriculum, natural rights should be replaced, in an organized way, by a revised version of federalism.  That version is given the name, liberated federalism, and subsequent postings will describe and explain what its tenets are.  The overview just presented over the last several postings of traditional federalism did much of the legwork, in terms of introducing the reader to the major ideas of federalism. 

Perhaps a good way to view the shift to a liberated federalism is to see it as a synthesis among the various mental constructs that are prevalent today.  In their curricular book, Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins describe their feelings concerning critical pedagogues with their near radical views on the problem of inequality and the excessive individualism that characterizes much of the curriculum in effect in our schools today.  They write:

Reflective educators realize that schools can nurture in students a celebration of the individual along with a concern for others.  Students can apprehend that competition [a natural rights concern] and cooperation [a critical theory concern] can be melded effectively.  It is evident that major change within society will come not from replacing one system of beliefs with another but rather in the generation of a new system that melds both evolutionary and revolutionary ideas and ideals.[1] (emphasis added)

Such melding, which can also incorporate the ideas and ideals of federation theory, should start with paying attention to what a proposed mental construct holds to be moral.  Moral commitments serve as a foundation of any political theory.  Even the most callous or self-serving political doctrine, at its basis, justifies the power distribution model it espouses through a set of moral positions.  These can range from the most secular and practical to the most spiritual and otherworldly.  But any system of governance needs to ground what it does in a view of morality.[2] 

While traditional federalism is of another time, a newer version can meet the challenge of providing an appropriate approach to civics education.  Its foundation is on a view of morality neither relying on a trump value of liberty, as in natural rights, nor of equality, as in critical theory.  Initially, in formulating an updated federalism, one needs to seriously address what such an approach would hold as its moral basis for governance and politics.

          One can ask:  what is the legitimate role of public schools in values education?  Replace the words “public schools” in the question with “government” and the concern becomes obvious.  The writer holds a related memory:  each of his parochial school days started with religious instruction.  Why don’t public schools have something similar by addressing moral or ethical issues, particularly in social studies classes?  Some are opposed to a government agency – schools – promoting political values; others with a collusion with an organized religion.

There is a prohibition of religious instruction in public schools.  This prohibition is not to say that such sectarian moral codes cannot be mentioned in public schools.  For example, any study of world history would refer to religious influence in determining many historical events and trends.  Sectarian beliefs of morality can also be provided to students as alternative views when considering moral questions if it is not the presented as the only or favored option.

The prohibition is against promoting religious beliefs or establishing a connection to a religion or religions.[3]  So, one can further ask: could such instruction be done within the constraints of the First Amendment and its clause prohibiting the “establishment” of religion and still be based on a moral, federalist view?  What would such an effort include? 

·        One, it cannot offend the constitutional restrictions of the First Amendment demanding a curriculum that is not sectarian, but secular.

·        Two, that it be committed to a substantive moral view which does not dissemble into a relativistic set of beliefs that avoids giving clear objective standards for good and evil.

·        Three, that it cannot promote a political ideology which would offend established beliefs of large segments of the population – those people whose tax money pays for our public schools.

·        Four, a moral view guiding such an effort does need to be flexible enough so that under its purview, the wide array of moral issues facing the nation at any given time can be addressed.

Stating the challenge, a bit differently:  such proposed instruction needs to be substantive enough so that students are clearly informed as to its sense of good and evil, but not so restrictive that half the population would be opposed to it.  It also needs to allow students to disagree with its beliefs; so that they can debate derived issues.

Another concern is that a secular based, moral instruction needs to utilize a consequential approach to moral reasoning.  That is, something is not moral or immoral in and of itself, but due to the consequences of that something happening, e.g., cheating is immoral because it shortchanges the legitimate interests of someone and, in turn, undermines trust, which in turn leads to other consequences, etc. 

But there is a point in this reasoning at which even a consequential approach hits upon a basic, trump value.  As such, that trump value, a value that is held to be the most important value and is deferred to in any contention among values, would be used to guide which issues students should investigate.  It would also guide in the choice of questions that are used in those investigations. 

It has been pointed out in this blog that the natural rights construct holds liberty as its trump value and critical theory holds equality as its trump value.  Any consequential approach logically needs a trump value eventually.  So, the first step in developing a moral view for liberated federalism is to settle on a trump value.  To arrive at one, a review of the Western philosophic tradition was deemed to be useful.  That review offered the following results:

Aristotelian ethics promote a morality anchored with the concerns of the polity – a collective sensitivity;

Utilitarianism, that while it supports a self-centered sense of human happiness, does establish a consequential moral system;

David Hume, who points out that while what is believed to factually exist (the is) cannot indicate or determine what – for normative reasons – is correct (the ought), one is reminded that certain factual conditions do correlate to certain desired outcomes and that values can be warranted only by sentiments;

Immanuel Kant, who argues that any resulting view must not sacrifice the integrity of each person and that there are categorical imperatives that ultimately determine what is good or evil;[4]

Pragmatism, that highlights a future orientation of pragmatic thinking, the inexorable connection between means and ends, and the tie between what is moral and the interests of associations; and

John Rawls, who argues, through the utilization of a mental exercise, that any person would seek true equal opportunity if he/she does not know a priori his/her position in a formulated polity or society and that advantages are arbitrarily distributed through natural causes (genetic factors and natural environments) or communal conditions (social factors). 

These are the primary ideas from the Western tradition – which deserve more space to flesh out – that were considered in developing the moral view offered in the next posting.  A quote by Aristotle gives one a good overall effect of these sources in the development of a federalist, moral view and a suitable message to end this posting:

In all arts and sciences[,] the end in view is some good.  In the most sovereign of all the arts and sciences – and this is the art and science of politics – the end in view is the greatest good and the good which is most pursued.  The good in the sphere of politics is justice; and justice consists in what tends to promote the common interest.[5]

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[1] Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues (Boston, MA:  Pearson), 143.

[2] One might find it difficult to see any sense of morality in a criminal regime that rules solely through force.  But the claim that “might makes right” is a moral claim.  It is a claim not shared by those who see life through modern eyes, but it is, unfortunately, one that has a rich history.  Ultimately, those who ascribe to it would argue, all political arrangements are based on this belief.  Even selfishness is a moral position (in its broadest sense), if only shared by a single person.

[3] For those interested, they should look up the Lemon Test, which is what the courts use to determine whether schools are offending the establishment clause.

[4] Through his use of categorical imperatives, Kant’s moral system is not a consequential approach to moral reasoning.

[5] Aristotle, “Aristotle: The politics,” in The Great Political Theories, ed. Michael Curtis (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1961), 87.