VIABILITY OF THE LIBERATED FEDERALISM, VII

 

With this posting, this blog continues to make its viability statement regarding the mental construct, liberated federalism.  The construct is proposed by this blogger to guide the efforts of civics educators in selecting the content they present to secondary students in American classrooms.  To date, the blog has described how the construct measures up to Eugene Meehan’s criteria[1] – the criteria’s first six concerns – and this posting will address the seventh, predictability, and eight, control.

            The criterion, predictability, asks:  Does a construct predict conditions associated with the phenomena in question?  There are two key predictive statements that can be made regarding the use of the liberated federalism model.  One, effective political behavior is conducted by associations, not individuals.[2]  Two, that dysfunctional social behavior will be lessened by shifting from an individual to communal political culture orientation.[3] 

          As this blog has related in its historical account of past and present political views (an account that starts with its posting, “Parochial’s Comprehensiveness,” April 1, 2022), the American society has moved from a more communally oriented perspective of the parochial/traditional federalism view to the individualistic, natural rights perspective, and consequently has experienced a drift to a more crime-ridden and uncivil society.[4]

          The model presented here is a compromise between the older versions of responsible citizenship and the liberated individualism the nation has adopted as its prominent political view.  Yes, this synthesis also includes ideas from critical theory – mainly its concerns for the underprivileged – but in the main, liberated federalism incorporates the communal concerns federalism promotes and the de-parochialism natural rights favors.

          And this posting has room for the last of Meehan’s criteria, that being control.  That criterion asks:  Does a construct imply ways to control the phenomena in question?  That is, does it have purpose?  The presented model identifies the relevant variables affecting both the communal harmony and the moral decision-making as pursuant to the analysis Philip Selznick[5] provides and is congruent with the ideas advanced by Amitai Etzioni,[6] Daniel Elazar,[7] Donald S. Lutz,[8] Robert D. Putnam,[9] and Michael J. Sandel.[10]

          In general, these writers provide ideas about how a communally strong, federally organized, functional society operates and maintains itself.  Insofar as their ideas are contained in the presented model and are true to their purpose, the model presented implies ways of controlling the phenomena in question:  through effective and moral political behavior.  This is placed in priority since, as often claimed in this blog, in the long run societal survival depends upon these qualities.

          The next posting will add two criteria to Meehan’s list.  They are the criteria, abstract level, and motivation.  These last two more directly address the concerns of teachers.

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[1] For readers wishing to read the previous postings relating these viability claims that the blog is making, they can read the last six postings found in the online site http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  As for Meehan’s criteria, see Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).  To date, the blog has reviewed comprehensiveness, power, precision, consistency/reliability, isomorphism, and compatibility.

[2] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[3] Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1997).  The predictions this model would make are qualitative because the model does not provide quantitative values to variables it identifies.

[4] As for individualistic view being dominant, see Jean M. Twenge, Generations:  The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents – and What They Mean for America’s Future (New York, NY:  Atria Books, 2023).

[5] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[6] Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community:  Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda (New York, NY:  Crown Publisher, 1993)

[7] Daniel J. Elazar, “How federal is the Constitution? Thoroughly.”  In a booklet of readings, Readings for classes taught by Professor Elazar (1994, 1-30) prepared for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute. Conducted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

[8] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

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

[10] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent:  America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).