REVIEWING A CIVICS MANDATE

I have from time to time in this blog made certain distinctions between traditional federalism and liberated federalism. The former is the political mental construct that served, more than any other construct, the founders in their formulation of our nation and its political/legal system. It is a construct that was heavily influenced by the congregational tradition of early religious thought that served much of the theory by which early settlements were organized. This was especially true in the New England colonies. This thought, by the way, went a long way in steering a political culture across the northern stretch of states in the United States.¹ This is a more moral approach to politics and is distinguished from the central layer of states with an individualistic perspective and southeast states that had/has a traditional political culture orientation. The moralistic strain, to a very meaningful degree, took on a mostly Aristotelian bias in that moral citizenship is marked by participation, policy judgments based on their promotion or antagonism of the common good and, with a departure from Aristotelian thought, a strong sense for equality among societal members. In addition, traditional federalism has been marked by a strong support of small polities (which is weary of larger political units like the federal government) and parochial values. But transcending all of these perspectives was the view that the polity, in order to be federalist, is the product of a people coming together and forming the governmental structure through agreement among its members. The agreement is solemn oath and takes the form of a covenant – God witnessing the agreement – or a compact – God not called upon to witness the agreement. As the nation became diversified and its political arrangements became more expansive – with an accompanying diversified view of God or a deity – a compact became the mode of agreement as is the case with the US Constitution.

For regular readers of this blog, the above description is old hat, but for newer readers it is a good review of this blog's basic ideas. This blog is dedicated to promoting a form of federalism, liberated federalism, as a construct useful in guiding content choices in a civics curriculum for our secondary schools. This form of federalism is easy on its promotion of local and small political entities, but maintains the call for equality, participation, and the set of values that denotes moral politics. It is offered as an idealistic perspective, but hopefully mindful of the real social and political nature of people.

One might ask: why call it a construct instead of a theory or an ideology? It is not a theory when it comes to guiding curricular choices because the purpose is not to give a purported definitive explanation of politics or even American politics. It is not offered as a predictive statement or as a guide for political science research. A form of it might be devised for those purposes, but here it is offered as a direction to which students' attention should be geared – what issues students should consider as they learn about their government and their nation's politics. The operative word is “consider” and as such, what is being proposed is not an ideology. It hints at what should be considered; it does not tell students what to believe. In this sense, the construct serves the same function as that of the prevailing dominant construct – that construct being the natural rights construct or as it is known in philosophical writings, liberalism (not to be confused by what is generally called liberalism in our popular discourse).

Let me confess; I am not a political philosopher – as if that weren't obvious. I am an educator concerned with how best to encourage the development of good citizens. I believe that task to be very important, especially in a democracy. I believe many of our current civics efforts are too closely hitched to the ideals and ideas associated with market values and to a construct that promotes the individual determination of values. While I am totally against a curriculum that calls on students to adopt a set of values, I do believe that we have enough history under our belts to determine a list of values that, if people would abide by them, would bolster a healthy society – a list I have provided in the past. It makes sense that a curriculum should, at least, make students aware of these values. How? By having students present issues and situations that relate to those values and have them tackle them as challenges and figure out the essence of each, the consequences of varying courses of action, the actions they favor, and the justifications for their choices. In this manner, the construct can provide the guidance, not indoctrination, of which I write.

1Elazar, D. J. (1966). American federalism: A view from the states. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.