EXTREME CONSISTENCY

In the last posting of this blog, this writer made the argument that in relation to what citizens should know concerning government and politics, there is a serious lack of knowledge.  He also made a connection between that lack and a common characteristic among the citizenry; that is, many Americans exhibit inconsistent beliefs and attitudes regarding this area of concern.

In turn, that lack of consistency leads to impressionable reactions to political challenges and irrational behavior.  Too many citizens adopt a mental posture that avoids thinking about politics.  When forced to do so, they rely on intuitive notions that are based on impressions of the political world.  Seldom does such a citizen engage in reflective political thinking and when he/she does, as a reaction to a personally threatening situation,[1] reactions will tend to be counterproductive.  

But there is another side to this concern.  What if a citizen is engaged, but purely liberal or conservative to the point that he/she doesn’t entertain opposing positions?  Is this characterization one that can be levied against the nation’s citizenry?  What level of consistency do active participants exhibit?  To answer these questions, a look at a Pew Research Center study is helpful. 

Its overall conclusion is that the active US electorate has become extremely polarized.[2]  Here, the problem is not a lack of consistency, but the opposite.  The study offers a long list of supportive statistics which point out a political class – made up of a minority of citizens – which is more intolerant of opposing positions and extends its dislike to other social realms of life. 

There are those who will determine with whom they will socialize, whom they want their relatives to marry, as well as decide where they live based on their political beliefs.  The one stat that is most telling, in the opinion of this writer, is the following:  “[t]oday, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.”[3] 

A preferred situation, one that promotes social capital, occurs when citizens are knowledgeable and engaged, but open to discussion, apt to have their minds changed if the facts warrant it, and accepting of and seeking out those with whom they disagree; oh yes, and while not compromising basic values, are willing and able to engage in compromise.  This type of political engagement lends itself to citizens federating themselves, one to another. 

The polarization that the Pew Research Center reports is far from this ideal.  Instead, it is the type of consistency that divides citizens between those with whom one agrees, the smart ones, and with those whom one disagrees, the not so smart ones or, worse, the ones who are morally bankrupt.  At least that seems to be how politically engaged Americans today think of their fellow citizens.

Overall, therefore, what seems to characterize the electorate are citizens who are unengaged in politics, but if they are engaged, they belong to one or another extreme camp.  That is, the citizenry is divided between those who don’t care about politics and government – who consequently don’t know about their political world and are apt to form inconsistent beliefs and views[4] – or those who unproductively care too vehemently. 

In either case, the citizenry can be described as discarding the more responsible qualities of good citizenship.  Those qualities, which exemplify social capital, are upheld when those engaged see the arena between adversaries as a disagreement between partners – fellow citizens; – and who understand that, at least in the long run, their interests coincide.  That is, they see this arena less as an arena and more as a square – a town square.

As end points of a continuum, the arena is where every issue becomes one of competition; where there is a win-lose orientation; and where every worthwhile stake is a personally held asset.  The square, on the other hand, is where collaboration is sought, where participants are seeking win-win outcomes; and where worthwhile stakes include commonly held assets.  The social capital ideal favors the square end of the continuum.

Summarily, the effects of low levels of political knowledge can lead people to adopt simplistic phrases from the media or from a flamboyant but shallow candidate or to support ill-considered policy positions.  Unfortunately, this affects the quality of our elections in attaining a better future for the republic and/or the individual citizen.

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[1] Such a situation could be a cut in a government benefit or a local introduction of a private interest posing an unwanted change in the person’s immediate vicinity.  For example, this could be a developer proposing construction of an apartment complex in the person’s neighborhood.  In this latter case, the situation is political in that the developer would need to secure an approval from a public entity such as a zoning board.

[2] “Political Polarization in the American Public,” Pew Research Center, June 12, 2014, accessed on February 17, 2017, http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/ .

[3] Ibid. n. p.

[4] Herbert McCloskey, “Political Participation,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2008, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Political_Participation.aspx . 

ADDRESSING THE KNOWLEDGE GAP

In trying to make the case that a civics curriculum should promote social capital,[1] this writer identified three aims for that curriculum.  The three aims are imparting essential structural, procedural, and functional knowledge of the nation’s governmental/political system, training students in effective political skills, and encouraging students to participate in the nation’s democratic/republican governance.  As a way to ease these other aims, such a curriculum should also add two more specific aims; that is, students should be encouraged to be civil and law abiding citizens.

          These aims are identified due to the nature of civics and due to current problem areas affecting the nation’s polity, at least as compared to other nations.  This blog has reported these problems.  For example, the US has an ongoing lack of civil behavior among significant numbers of its citizenry, the highest level of incarceration among advanced countries, and the highest rate of crime victimization.  These problems will be more fully described in future postings.

          Using the concept, social capital, Robert D. Putnam paints a disheartening picture when describing how well the nation’s citizenry is fulfilling the aims and functions of civics.  He found, relative to American historical standards, less concern for communal involvement and higher levels of uncivil and criminal behavior.[2]

This posting wants to begin providing an update on the shortcomings of civics education in terms of the above aims.  It will provide evidence that, in effect, the citizenry of the US exhibits insufficient levels of political knowledge, political skill, dispositions toward political involvement, civil behaviors, and law abiding behaviors.

Specifically, this posting begins looking at levels of political knowledge among American students.  In terms of knowledge, one can ask:  do schools teach lifelong lessons as to the structure, processes, and functions of the governmental/political system?   From an array of studies, it will report what the state of political knowledge is.

From an account by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing, American students do demonstrate a level of civic knowledge such as: 

·        75% of fourth graders indicated that only citizens can vote in the United States;

·        And 47% correctly identified the role of the Supreme Court;

·        80% of eighth graders understood what a notice for jury duty was;

·        and 49% knew that the Bill of Rights protects religious freedom;

·        72% of twelfth graders could correctly analyze historical materials relating to the function of education;

·        and 50% indicated they were aware of the President's role in foreign policy.[3] 

It is safe to say that such knowledge was acquired in school and not in other areas where young people frequent.  While different localities do have an influence on political knowledge and attitudes, schools do seem to be the primary place where this acquisition of knowledge occurs.[4] 

These statistics, though, are not conclusive evidence that schools are doing an adequate job in imparting governmental knowledge.  Can one conclude that these percentages, the ones just cited, are high enough?  Or, as also indicated in the NAEP Executive Summary, a mere 5% of twelfth graders could explain the constitutional principle of checks on presidential powers[5] – a finding that is relatively important given the rhetoric of presidential campaigns.

What, in a meaningful sense, characterizes a populace that is well educated in civic affairs, one that will be able to discern social realities not just for the benefit of its own well-being, but for the general good?  A study that looked at voters from 1984 to 2004, the American National Election Studies, found a consistent trend.  That is, the American voter can be, in each of the reviewed years, divided into three groupings.

The groupings are the “ideologues,” 33.7%, who definitely see themselves as liberal or conservative; “alternatives,” 41%, who are either morally liberal and economically conservative or the other way around; and “agnostics,” 25.3%, who lack any consistency between their moral and economic beliefs.  This research found these results in each of the 20 years – a telling finding.[6]  For one thing, it tells one that among voters there is a high degree of inconsistency – roughly, one in four voters can be seen as being inconsistent in their political beliefs.

An online study service, provided by Quizlet, inadvertently offers more evidence of this inconsistency.  It asks the question about how consistent Americans are in their beliefs.  The correct answer is:  “People often express opinions at odds with the ideological label they attach to themselves.”[7]  This answer reflects the inconsistency of Americans and Quizlet uses this descriptive generalization as a defining characteristic of American citizens.

There are other sources of information that indicate resulting consequences of an inconsistent electorate.  If one listens, for example, to American political rhetoric, one cannot help noticing the level of illogical thinking betrayed by that rhetoric.  And all of it is expressed without any cost to the politicians who engage in it; it doesn’t hurt them at the ballot box.  The following characterizes much of what politicians say: 

·        attack the character of one’s opponent instead of his/her positions;

·        misrepresent or exaggerate an opponent’s position and use small numbers of occurrences to vilify an opponent’s position;

·        overstate one premise of his/her position as the determining factor of the case;

·        insist that if something happened one time, it will of necessity happen again;

·        conduct debates over complex issues as either/or questions;

·        lay the burden of proof on those who are questioning a policy position;

·        insist that a condition follows another condition when there is no logical connection between the conditions. 

Each of these is a rhetorical “trick” and, in the literature of logic argumentation, each is given a name.  For example, the either/or argument is known as a false dichotomy.  The fact that these “tricks” are common says a great deal about those who consume them, more than what it says about those who use them.

Recently, the last dozen or so years, there have been published studies looking at what school age people know about government and politics.  Naturally, many of the students who were the subjects of these studies are of voting age today.  These studies are useful in trying to determine why so many voters are inconsistent because inconsistency is usually associated with a lack of knowledge.  Also, lacking political knowledge can be associated with a lack of social capital.  Being knowledgeable is logically tied to being motivated to know.  Lack of it, in terms of governance and politics, reflects a lack of “an active, public-spirited citizenry.”

One such study was conducted by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS).  They extensively surveyed young people about their political knowledge and concluded there was a serious deficiency of such knowledge.  After revealing these low levels, it summarized its findings by reporting that only 25% of the subjects could identify all three of the following: the vice president’s name, their governor’s name, and the term length of a member of the US House of Representatives.[8] 

They concluded that unfortunately, young people “lack any real understanding of citizenship…information and understanding about the democratic process…and information about candidates and political parties.”[9]  If this is an accurate depiction of the average American, it is no wonder many Americans are inconsistent; they lack the necessary knowledge to see how political realities connect, leaving them to respond to most questions on an intuitive basis with little or no reflection.

To be clear, this is not an argument that a responsible voter needs to be a hundred percent liberal or conservative.  One can have mixed views and still be a responsible, clear thinking voter.  But when a voter holds mutually exclusive or logically inconsistent positions with each other or when he/she applies inconsistent priority weightings of held values, these mental deficiencies lead to impressionable voting and other detrimental political actions or inactions.  Such voters are noted for being irrational.

In the next posting, the blog will take up this description of the knowledge levels of the American populous and how it reflects the viability of the nation’s civics education efforts.  To end this posting, the writer merely wants to add: these problems with consistency, unfortunately, seem to be a consistent problem among the citizenry of the United States.

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[1] A social/political environment noted for an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.

[2] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

[3] “Executive Summary of the Results of the Latest Administration of Assessment Test on Civic Knowledge.” National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 2006, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/itmrls.

[4] Gimble, et al., Cultivating Democracy: Civic Environments and Political Socialization in America.

[5] “Executive Summary of the Results of the Latest Administration of Assessment Test on Civic Knowledge,” NAEP.

[6] Eileen Zimmerman, “Researchers:  How Polarized Are U. S. Voters?” Stanford Graduate School of Business, accessed April 16, 2014, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/researchers-how-polarized-are-us-voters .

[7] “AP gov unit 2,” Quizlet, accessed February 14, 2017, https://quizlet.com/33367294/ap-gov-unit-2-flash-cards/ .

[8] “Report on Survey Conducted by NASS on Americans’ Knowledge of Political System,” National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), 1999, http://www.nass.org/ , the report has been taken down.

[9] Ibid., n. p.