CIVIC VIRTUE STANDARDS

This posting is the next in a series of postings reviewing the National Council for the Social Studies’, College, Career and Civic Life (C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards).  The reader is welcomed to review those postings.  The last posting looked at the first category of standards, Civic and Political Institutions standards. 

The second category of standards is Participation and Deliberation: Applying Civic Virtues and Democratic Principles.  This category has a more targeted offering in relation to federation theory.  Using the concept, civic virtue, a directed message is being communicated and that message can be logically linked to federated issues.

Here are those standards and accompanying commentary that one can attach to federalist concerns:

·        Individually and with others, students apply civic virtues and democratic principles when working with others.

If one defines civic virtue as a moral quality and that quality places on the individual a responsibility to federate him/herself to others within the polity, then this is very much a federalist standard.  The word that most captures this sense is partnership.  Here is what Daniel Elazar has to say about this quality:

Federalism involves a commitment to partnership and to active cooperation on the part of individuals and institutions that also take pride in preserving their own respective integrities.  Successful federal systems are characterized not only by their constitutional arrangements in the narrow sense of the word but by their permeation with the spirit of federalism as manifested in sharing through negotiation, mutual forbearance and self-restraint in the pursuit of goals, and a consideration of the system as well as the substantive consequences of one’s acts.  Political institutions common to different political systems, when combined within a federal system and animated by federal principles, are effectively endowed by those principles with a distinctive character.[1]

One should think about what a good partnership is; it is when the benefit to one partner is the benefit of all partners.  This might sound a bit idealistic especially to those who adhere to the natural rights construct.  But there is nothing unreasonable or impossible to have a set of espoused values that one believes are worth pursuing. 

It is in this spirit that a federalist view, a federalist moral code, is offered and guides one’s public posture.  That one “sins” against it, as with any value commitment, does not mean one should abandon it and its effects to potentially encourage “good” behavior.  In this sense, it defines what good is and what good citizenship looks like.

For example, this sense of partnership places a reasonable bar on one’s ability to judge a position as legitimate on moral grounds.  There are those policy positions that are unquestionably immoral, but if one is too apt to judge disagreeable options in that light, comprise becomes almost impossible.  Federal systems count on compromise and if people are disposed to viewing opposing positions as immoral or otherwise distasteful, the citizenry becomes divisive and compromise beyond reach – nothing gets done.

·        Individually and with others, students evaluate social and political systems in different contexts, times, and places, that promote civic virtues and enact democratic principles.

This standard can lead to lessons that one can consider comparative study.  By comparing systems generically or over time, one can ask questions that lead to political generalizations – or hypotheses – that give better insight to what is political or governance.  In so doing, students can look at other systems – other types of republicanism – that would give them a better sense of what their system is, represents, or is seeking to accomplish.

          Other systems can have different forms of federalism – consociations, leagues, confederations, etc. – and students should have a good sense of what these options are.  In addition, there are republican systems that are centralized; i.e., follow a Jacobin/French approach.  And within federal systems there are various styles or cultural bases by which citizens adopt federalist structural elements to an area’s traditional definitions of what federalism means.

          For example, Elazar identifies three separate subcultural traditions in the US upon which its federal system was formulated.  They are the moralistic subculture (originating in the New England colonies), individualistic subculture (originating in the mid-Atlantic colonies), and traditional subculture (originating in the Southern, slave-owning colonies).[2]

In addition, there has been the more nuanced relationship-based views of federalism.  For example, how various areas of the country see pluralism vis-à-vis territory.  There are: 

-         neutrality of territory view which is based on market values – prevalent in mid-Atlantic states;

-         homogeneous commonwealth view based on a religious purity – prevalent in New England states;

-         hierarchical pluralism based on caste (human slavery and rigid caste arrangements) – prevalent in Southern states;

-         associated pluralism based on membership on service/social associations (such as churches or organizations such as the Lions Club) – prevalent in mid-Western states; and

-         radical pluralism based on a disassociation to any groups but relies on individuals seeking their own aims and views of morality – prevalent initially in California, but more recently broadly becoming dominant throughout the nation.[3]

·        Individually and with others, students use appropriate deliberative processes in multiple settings.

Those who study debating make a distinction between forensic discussions and debates and deliberative discussions and debates.  Forensics is about passing judgements over what happened in the past.  Deliberative judgements are about what should happen in the future.  Most meaningful governing issues have to do with what the government should do in terms of some perceived social/economic condition.  Civics, as opposed to history, has a future orientation.

          The federalist link here is how one identifies and defines the problematic nature of the issues a civics class considers and chooses to highlight.  Appendix II addresses this aspect of instruction.  At its core, educators, using federation theory to guide their choices in terms of content, view the contemporary political landscape and find the situations or conditions that offend federalist values.

·        Individually and with others, students analyze the impact and the appropriate roles of personal interests and perspectives on the application of civic virtues, democratic principles, constitutional rights, and human rights.[4]

A key, recurring challenge for individual citizens who feel it a responsibility to conduct his/her affairs within a federalist mode of behavior, is to pursue self-interests within the interests of the common good.  No responsible interpretation of federalist values denies the individual his/her seeking to advance legitimate self-interests.  This can be considered as part and parcel of respecting each citizen’s individual integrity.

The questions are:  how do people define his/her individual interests and how do he/she act upon those interests within the realities of a social community or polity?  Good citizenship demands that those interests not impinge on what is seen as the interests of the commonwealth.  This can be more challenging then what one would intuitively think it to be. 

At times, due a lack of information judgements to be adequately prudent and even well-intended, parties can choose to hinder the common good unintentionally.  This might become evident after ample investment has already been incurred.  This is but one sort of development that can make seeking the common good very difficult to attain.  But this type of political drama makes for interesting and revealing scenarios for student to ferret out through instructional activities.

The next posting looks at the third category:  Processes, Rules, and Laws.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism, 154 (Kindle edition).

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

[3] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism.  A further word on radical pluralism:  this view is not considered, by this writer, to be federalist at all.  Instead it is an adoption of the natural rights perspective that has a historical link in the US to the time of the writing of the US Constitution and its ratification.  That tradition has evolved, and the current form is significantly different from its form back in the late 1700s.

[4] National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), College, Career and Civic Life (C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards), 33.  Each of these standards are taken from this source.