The last posting of this blog left the reader
with a self-imposed aim, i.e., this blog will now set out to analyze the current
political stage and describe and explain the grand arena in which those who
support natural rights values and beliefs counter those who uphold federalist values
and beliefs. To start, this posting will
begin describing the method that that analysis will pursue.
This
inquiry is an investigation to support an argument proposing that Americans
should readopt a federalist guiding construct for the study of governance and
politics – through civics and American government classes at the secondary
level. The ultimate goal is to
substitute the current prevailing construct, natural rights, with a construct
that views this nation’s polity as an overarching partnership within its citizenry.
Therefore,
what is being set forth for this blog is a practical prescription. In order to initiate this general inquiry,
this blog chooses to present an analytical study based on G. W. F. Hegel’s
model of inquiry.[1]That is, the
present effort will be a breaking down of the respective opposing constructs
and a critical review of their components in order to determine if a federalist
perspective can and should provide a legitimate and viable theoretical construct
for classroom use.
Hegel’s
model of analysis is chosen since it directly addresses dialectic struggle.
First,
Hegel, following Kant, contrasted the reason, the source of dialectic thinking,
with the understanding, the predialectical mode of thought. The understanding, as Hegel saw it, is the
type of thinking that prevails in common sense, in the natural sciences, and in
mathematics and those types of philosophy that are argued in quasi-scientific
or quasi-mathematical ways. Fixed categories
are uncritically adhered to, demonstrations are produced (only to be
demolished), analyses are made, and distinctions are drawn. Analyzing and distinguishing are necessary
foundations of philosophical activity but only to prepare the way for the more
sinuous and subtle method of the dialectic.
Once an analysis has been made, the elements of it are seen to conflict
and collide as well as to cohere. First,
the understanding isolates, then comes Reason’s negative moment of criticism or
conflict, and after that its speculative moment of synthesis.[2]
Or stated in more everyday language,
analysis will map out the ins and outs of historical events in how they bring
opposing forces into conflict and into resolution.
Each of three constructs –
federalism, natural rights, and critical theory – will be compared as to its
legitimacy and viability. The basic
logic of the analysis will be a dialectic analysis of first, federalism vs. natural
rights, and second, natural rights vs. critical theory, with liberated
federalism as a potential synthesis.
The
first analysis is historical – it took place in the years leading up to the
post World War II period and its elements have been identified in the posting
preceding this one. The second analysis
is what is currently taking place in which the dominant construct, natural
rights, is being challenged by critical theory – albeit in very limited
localities – mostly campuses of higher educational facilities.
The most common form [of dialectic reasoning] is to move from thesis, to
antithesis, to synthesis. This can be
interpreted as starting with a position (thesis) about a problem and to argue
its soundness, to then argue the opposite position as cogently as possible, and
finally to arrive at a synthesis or position that contains the best dimensions
of both thesis and antithesis.[3]
This
analysis will first present, in general terms, the dialectic development of the
competing constructs: federalism and
natural rights. The initial form of federalism,
which was prevalent at the beginning of the nation, but zeroing in on the
pre-World War II conditions, will be called parochial/traditional federalism or
parochial federalism. Within the context
of the dialectic, parochial federalism will be the thesis. As a dominant view of the national political
culture, it held sway from the colonial period until the 1940s.
The antithesis will be called Nixonian natural rights –
although the term natural rights will be used to identify this construct. At that point, though, the Nixonian version evolved
into Reagan’s neoliberalism which heightened that construct’s beliefs in
personal “sovereign” liberties. It is
the opinion of this blogger that that line of thinking and feelings further
evolved into Trumpism which has, among Trump’s followers, become radicalized.
Given the former president’s hold on
the current Republican party, one cannot dismiss this more intense sense of natural
rights thinking as exemplified by that faction’s response to COVID policies and
the attack on the capitol building in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. Current day politics will eventually
determine the “stickiness” of this line of thinking and feeling.
While the natural rights view, as
described in this blog, has to varying degrees challenged the dominance of
federalism through most of the nation’s history, it, in the opinion of this
blogger, began to seriously threaten that dominance during the Progressive Era
of the early 20th century.
During that time, it wasn’t Progressivism itself that posed the
challenge so much as the industrialism and its accompanying laissez-faire
economic approach that undermined the more communal, collaborative views that Americans
held to that point.
And the chief related reality was
simply how national – through large corporations – the economy became. Instead of viability relying on strong local
engagement by citizens over what their communities were able to accomplish, the
focus became national in orientation as businesses grew and workers and farmers
reacted to varying forms of exploitation.
They took on national dimensions through national organized efforts – labor
unions and the farmers’ alliance.
After this initial dialectic is
introduced, this account will then present a more formal presentation of
parochial federalism as a construct for the teaching of American government and
civics (subsequently, jointly referred to as civics). Guiding this analysis will be the subsidiary
questions introduced earlier in this blog.
They are:
1. How has the construct that guided the teaching
of American government and civics evolved?
2. What have been the salient consequences of that
development?
3. To what social arrangement, according to its tenets,
should the development of a construct lead?
4. How can that desirable social arrangement come
about?
And these questions will be utilized as
they relate to what Joseph Schwab identified as the commonplaces of curriculum
development, i.e., subject matter, teachers, learners, and milieu[4]
(defined later in this account).
Along
with the commonplaces, the analysis will also incorporate Aristotle’s
categories of causation as they relate to motivating political behavior or
political socialization. Categories of
causation place a premium not on cause-and-effect relationships between or
among distinct variables, but instead emphasize the processes found at the
school site and within the lives of students.
These
include various concerns: state of
affairs, interactions, situational insight, and capacity to act morally (these
will also be defined later in this account).
While Schwab designed these foci of interest to guide practical inquiry,
they will be adapted in this account to aid the proposed dialectic analysis.
The inquiry of the various constructs
will proceed to the modes of expression currently in the present-day debate
over educational policy. It should be
kept in mind that the promoted direction of this blog is not to reinstate
parochial federalism but to introduce a newer version of federalism, liberated
federalism.[5]
There
is more to convey in terms of methods, but here is a good place to stop for
this posting. The reader, with this
posting, is given a good sense of where this blog is going. Hopefully, the reader joins this blogger in
tracing this analysis and by doing so, at least will be armed with arguments
and insights that assist him or her in interacting with civics educators.
[1] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of
Right (Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia
Britanica-Great Books of the Western World, 1952) AND Harry B. Acton, “Hegel,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards
(New York, NY: The Macmillan Company and
The Free Press, 1967).
[2] Acton, “Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich,” 447.
[3] William H. Schubert, Curriculum: Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New
York, NY: MacMillan Publishing Company,
1986), 126.
[4] Ibid.
[5] In simple terms, liberated federalism differs from
parochial federalism in that it sheds the exclusionary character of parochial
federalism and instead actively includes all Americans regardless of race,
ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, age, or natural challenges such as
disabilities.
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