A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Friday, January 12, 2018

HIDDEN CONSIDERATIONS

Are people rational; do they use reason especially when it comes to governance and politics?  The founders of this nation believed they are capable of it and this ability is universal.  This blog has made the argument that the mental construct, traditional federalism, served as the dominant perspective of governance and politics at the beginnings of this nation.  This belief in the capability of people to be rational and logical in their public affairs, was part of this construct. 
According to Daniel Elazar, federalism is, in part, derived from assumptions that include beliefs from the Enlightenment.[1]  George Lakoff[2] points out that central to those assumptions is the belief that people are capable of being rational[3] and that that capability is universal.  Of course, if that is the case, certain consequences will result.
That includes:  people can govern themselves; they do not have to bow to higher authorities like kings; they are equal in their use of reason; they can be governed by the same laws on an equal basis; they inherent rights and freedoms; and ultimately, democracy and individual rights are possible because they are dependent on reasoned governance.
And how can one conceptualize reasoned thinking?  Lakoff offers the following list of attributes:  it is consciously done; universally applies to all people; disembodied in that it is free from perceptions or actions; follows classical logic; is applied unemotionally; reflects neutral-values (i.e., a person can rise above one’s values); is derived from one’s interests; and views reality as logical.  Problem is, according to Lakoff, people do not reflect these thought patterns or that they are even aware that they are lacking these thought patterns. 
But any objectified view can readily see that biases, prejudices, and emotions more accurately describe a typical person’s thought patterns.  Beyond that, people can’t help it – that’s how people are “wired.” In addition, these modes of thinking are contrary to how reason and emotions were thought off back in the 18th-Century – that is, as opposites.  Contrary to that characterization, it is currently believed (known) that emotions are part of reasoned thought. 
As evidence of this last point:  people who have damaged portions of the brain, responsible for emotions, cannot think rationally.  Why?  Without emotions, one cannot judge over what concerns are worthy enough to expend the effort to think rationally.  This blog has cited the work of Daniel Kahneman and his explanation on reflective thinking – he calls System 2 thinking[4] – of which reasoning is an example.  He points out that that type of thinking takes effort.
Consequently, the mind needs to be motivated to activate itself to engage in that sort of thinking.  Hence, one can see the central role that emotions play in activating reasoned thought.  Any interest a person might have – be it a conscious interest or an economic interest – begins with an emotion.  Emotions provide the feelings for what is valued. 
Think about it; if one doesn’t have emotions, all things are equally unimportant.  Hence, there is nothing out there about which one is motivated to exert the energy to think rationally.  As Lakoff writes, “[t]hey cannot feel what decisions will make them – or anyone else – happy or unhappy, satisfied or anxious.”[5]
Another observation by cognitive psychologists is that most of “reasoned” thought is unconscious!  Here, Lakoff informs his readers that reason isn’t what the Enlightenment envisioned.  It is not reflective, it is mostly reflexive.  It also accounts for 98% of a person’s thoughts.  That’s right, people, for the most part, don’t consciously know what they are thinking. 
And that shortfall has consequences.  For one, it determines what one finds moral and what one finds immoral.  That is, most moral calculations, in everyday interactions or reactions to what’s happening, are reflexive and are based on subconscious moral determinations. 
Rhetoric, on the part of anyone who is trying to sell something, like politicians, and is couched in an understanding of this subconscious state of thinking is apt to be more successful than rhetoric based on “reasoned” arguments.  That is why messaging and its utilized language is so important in understanding what works in political discourse.
This subconscious and reflexive thinking is the natural way the brain operates.  But it is argued here, and this why societies spend so much on education (or should), a person can be taught to be more proactive in his/her thinking.  It takes effort, as just indicated, but it is possible. 
What one cannot assume is that people, to further their own interests, will readily engage in reasoning.  This blog will revisit Lakoff’s ideas in the future and further look at this aspect of political thinking.  It further argues for a newer version of federalist thought – one that takes a more realistic view of an Enlightenment principle.[6]




[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “How Federal Is the Constitution?  Thoroughly” Readings for Classes Taught by Professor Elazar (presentation materials, prepared for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 1994).
 [2] George Lakoff, The Political Mind:  Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain (New York, NY:  Viking, 2008).
[3] To be clear, reasonable does not necessarily include a person using reason or logic.  To be rational does.  But the language is further confusing in that to ascribe to rationalism is not to use reason.  Huh?  What the Enlightenment argued was that people are able to use reason and logic and, therefore, they are capable of being rational.
[4] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast, and Slow, (New York, NY:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).

[5] George Lakoff, The Political Mind:  Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain, 8.
[6] For the benefit of any first-time reader of this blog, the blog is dedicated to advance a newer version of federalism – a version the writer calls liberated federalism.

No comments:

Post a Comment