INTERNAL DEBATES

I have described in previous postings the call for teachers to deal with moral questions – to center student inquiries on dilemmas that pit competing values against themselves – as a complex “ask.”  In this vein, I want to further this idea.  Basing my thinking on the work of Jonathan Haidt,[1] there seems to be a dual mental operation going on:  there is an inbred (natural) disposition to be concerned with the fate of others while there is a socialized manner of seeing relevant conditions through the cultural lenses in which an individual is situated.  It is generally accepted in the field of psychology that we, as humans, have an inbred empathy “gene.”  Rationalism simply sees this “gene” as the result of simple calculations:  we don’t hurt others because we don’t want to be hurt in turn.  Regardless, empathy disposes us to be able to relate to others and eases the path toward cooperation, so essential to survival.  But that does not exclude the effects of our social environment.  In a reported research study, Haidt reports a fairly universal view that kicking a defenseless dog is immoral, but whether or not a husband has the right to beat a disobedient wife tends to be culturally defined.  To be clear, I find both behaviors despicable, but the examples show the complexities involved.

One such complexity is the dual character of the mind.  As Haidt unequivocally states, “the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.”[2]  We have popularly referred to this duality as the conflict between heart and head.  That is, it has to do with the often recurring battle between reason and emotion.  Western thought has favored reason over emotion – that the former is more important than the latter.  Let’s look into this.

Haidt doesn’t mince words; he refers to this bias as the “rationalist delusion.”  This discussion is a bit tricky.  To begin, while our cultural philosophic tradition bolsters reason, it does not override our cultural proclivity to develop allegiances based on our emotions, our passions.  We see this, for example, in terms of religion or religious claims over morality.  Once adopted and ensconced within our emotional commitment, morality can blind us to what is real.  Our emotions can and often do hinder our ability to objectively see what’s out there.  When this happens, rational calculations can be short-circuited.  Such calculations consist of weighing the relative rewards and costs (pains) that a choice presents.  So, as in the case in which one is considering two options and one will probably result in overall greater costs but offers a particular reward that is considered highly prized in the short run, the temptation to go for the short term reward might be overwhelming.  In such a case, passion rules, at least that is what we see happening more often than not.  We admire those who can overcome such temptations because it is rare.  We call it sacrifice; but only when such a choice is beneficial to others.  A business partner who bypasses a tempting offer that would be detrimental to his/her partners is such a case. 

In our tradition, Plato called for the dominance of reason in our calculations; David Hume pointed to the dominance of passion.  I believe our calculations originate with passion; even to be objective or reasonable presumes a passion to be so as is the case of our hero who chooses long term benefits over short term rewards.

To pick up with our inheritance as opposed to our development, whether there are some inherited configurations of biases and skills that dispose us to see things in certain ways or develop certain talents, be they intellectual, entrepreneurial, artistic, or athletic or whether we are born with little or no predetermined proclivities, issues concerning our responsibility to be accountable do not go away.  As such, we need to exert energy at being as responsible as possible for what we do.  This is the case regardless of how much our nature, as opposed to our nurture, is involved.

Are we blank slates at birth totally open to any influences or is there such a thing as human nature that limits or enhances certain avenues of behaviors and feelings?  This line of questioning can be and is controversial.  For example, are such proclivities influenced by sex, race, nationality, or age?  If so, how do such natural factors affect behavior or the quality of behaviors – how good we are or can become?  Our ignorance of such factors, whether they exist or not, leads to the conclusion that no prejudicial attitudes toward a person’s ability should be held.  Federalism insists on no such a priori test being administered under its values of equality and constitutional integrity.  But of course, not all of us are willing to be so disposed.

Whatever your notion is concerning this question about the extent of nature verses nurture, I would suggest humility.  We know of occasions when extremism in this type of thinking, of believing that inherited qualities determine the worth of anyone, have led to very costly consequences.  Hitler’s belief in such thinking in the extreme, of course, was enormously disastrous.  In our own history, such thinking led to slavery, along with the deplorable treatment of various national and ethnic groups.  Beyond racism, there have been sexism, discrimination of the aged, and of alternative sexual preferences among consenting adults. 

Unfortunately, we can still detect remnants of such prejudicial thinking in our national scene. The problem is that passion can easily be engendered over relevant questions and affect our ability to see or understand the truth.  Irrespective of on which side of the debate one falls, there is supportive evidence on both sides.  This demands a level of dispassion so one can see things as they are, but passionate for justice so that each can be attributed his or her due. 

We do know – despite what religious zealots might claim to the contrary – that we are the product of an evolutionary process.  We need to study the results of that process unencumbered by unreasonable passion, but not to the point that we fail to see that even such a desire reflects a passion for the truth.  Yes, our ability to seek truth will always be slanted, but our knowledge of such a potential bias is the first step toward accounting for it.  As stated above, all this is complex and, at times, counter-intuitive.  It is this arena within the mind – our reason battling our passions – that teachers need to be aware of and which presupposes appropriate training.  Such training should be geared toward instilling a passion for the truth and an objectivity in its pursuit.  To be aware of any tendency away from these distinct goals, either within themselves as educators or among their students, is an essential quality of an effective educational setting.

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[1] Haidt, J.  (2012).  The righteous mind:  Why good people are divided by politics and religion.  New York, NY:  Pantheon Books.

[2] Ibid, p. 27.

THE COMMON MEANING OF WORDS?

With the passing of Antonin Scalia, I want to comment on his approach to interpreting the Constitution.  Scalia was a “textualist,” that is, he believed that in an interpretation, a jurist should be guided with the ordinary meaning of the words contained either in a statute or constitutional provision.  I am not questioning his approach to interpreting statutes, but that of interpreting constitutional provisions.  This approach is distinctive from other approaches such as original intent, general principle, current social/political/economic needs, etc.  According to Scalia, these other approaches are subject to personal biases which are usually steered by political views.  The late jurist felt that as such, they demean the integrity of either the statute or the constitutional provision and place a jurist in the position of a lawmaker.  Also, if the general practice of jurists is to follow these other approaches, the Constitution itself will lose meaning and legitimacy due to its resulting relativity and pliability.  It will not stand for anything of substance.

Can we somehow test this approach?  Let us ask some basic questions.  Did Scalia view the function of a constitution properly?  How did Americans, in the years following the ratification of the Constitution, interpret the words of the Constitution?  Did they use the ordinary meaning of the words or did they implement a vocabulary commonly favored in their time?  Is there an issue or debate or legal matter that gives us insight as to how the initial legal community treated the Constitution and its provisions?  Further, how did members of the Constitutional Convention or any of the ratifying conventions treat the meanings of the words in the Constitution?  Alas, there was at least one such issue and one such provision.  The issue was generated by the passing of the laws collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts and specifically, the issue was freedom of the press.[1]

Let me address quickly the idea of the function of a constitution.  And let me frame this in terms that juxtapose this function with the role that regular statutes fill.  I do this because Scalia would justify his view by comparing constitutional provisions with statutes.  He pointed out that regular trial courts – criminal and civil – in their deliberations, use the regular meaning of words contained in any relevant law or regulation.  Constitutional provisions are, according to this approach, just laws, albeit more general in nature. 

Well, in comparing the two, one cannot simply dismiss the difference in generality as a minor point.  Statutes address specific problems, situations, or types of conflicts.  As such, they are relatively easily changed.  The requirements to change statutes are much less challenging than those involved with changing a constitutional provision.  The general difference is:  a rough simple majority is needed to change a law, while a super majority – roughly two-thirds majority – is needed to change our constitution.  The processes involved with changing the Constitution are much more onerous.  This is on purpose.  I heard about the rule of thumb that when considering a change to the Constitution, one should first say “no” and then consider what it is about.  Therefore, while thousands of laws, at all levels of government, are passed annually, many years go by before we amend our national constitution.  This, almost from necessity, demands more leeway in interpretation or else we would be constantly under the impossible demand to change one or another part of the Constitution.  But beyond that, a constitution is a more direct expression of our political culture and as such takes on broader themes.  Its very language will be less specific and reflect more general concerns.  In turn, its language needs to be seen in that light.  Statutes take on the language of a contract, while a constitution takes on the language of a compact.  By the way, in the early references to the Constitution, as expressed in official documents, the term used was not “constitution,” but was “compact” – see, for example, the Virginia Resolutions, 1798.

So what does the controversy over the Alien and Sedition Acts tell us?  The historical background of these laws has to do with the political conditions of the late 1790s.  At the time, globally, the powers of Britain and France were, as usual, warring or threatening to go to war.  This did not escape American interests, including those of many ordinary Americans.  There were those who wanted to be aligned with the British side and those with the French side.  Those who wanted us with Britain tended to be Federalists (as in the political party) and with the French tended to be Democratic-Republicans[2] (or Jeffersonian).  President Adams, a Federalist, wanted the US to remain neutral, but his policies did favor the British a bit and this opened him up to a slew of criticism, some of it appearing in the press (Republican press).  He felt that this could be detrimental to maintaining his policy of neutrality (it is also claimed he was a bit thin-skinned) and so the Federalists in Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts that did several things, but specifically made it illegal to print attacks against the President and his government.  Adams signed the legislation into law.  A handful of journalists who kept up the attacks were arrested, tried, and convicted.  This proved unpopular, but to begin with, were these laws, especially the Sedition Act, unconstitutional?  Well, let’s see.

Of course, the relevant provision in the Constitution is the First Amendment:  “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …” .  Fairly straightforward language, simple and elegant.  Can anyone misinterpret such language?  Okay, maybe you need to define what a journalist is; is he/she anyone with a smart phone who writes a blog (hmmm) or does the person need to be hired by a recognized news organization?  But beyond that kind of clarification, can there be any doubt as to what the words mean?   

To begin with, the consensus at the time of the writing and ratification of this language and up to the writing and passing of the Sedition Act (about 11 years later) was that all this amendment guaranteed was that a journalist or a journalistic platform, such as a newspaper, did not need to get prior permission to publish any material.  This did not prohibit the government from bringing charges of sedition after publication and this did not depend on actual, ensuing rebellious behavior.  Also, libel was loosely defined, and this was also held to be illegal.  And of further context, the actual constitutional provision was believed by the majority of the Framers to be superfluous.  Why?  Because passing laws addressing these concerns did not refer to an enumerated power to begin with – making any such law unconstitutional on its face – and so any concern about seditious or libelous publishing was a state matter.  States generally had laws about such actions and, therefore, the concern would not be something that would fall under the purview of the central government – even if the “victim” of such published material was the central government or its officials.  But even at the state level, there was not much protection for journalists; they could be and readily were legally charged with seditious and libelous criminal complaints.  

Of course, the prime protesters of the national laws were members of the Jeffersonian Party – those in opposition to the administration of John Adams.  When the controversy began and the eventual laws were mere bills in Congress, the Jeffersonian partisans were not so much against the idea that journalists could be held to such standards; that is, being subject to prohibitions against liberally defined sedition and libelous activities.  They did insist on, as was already protected, the right to publish without any requirement of pre-approval or a licensing provision.  But beyond that protection, they pushed for other provisions in the pending legislation.  They wanted the law to insist that criminal intent had to be proven in order to secure conviction; that juries had the power to decide whether or not the written material was libelous in terms of law, not just facts; and that the truthfulness of the published material could be used in the defense of the accused – that is, if the material were true, that should be considered before being deemed as libelous.  They succeeded in securing all of these provisions, but the debate that ensued as a result of the controversy led them to be dissatisfied when the legislation was finally passed and signed.

For example, this whole notion of “truthfulness” was highly suspect.  When it came to politics, whose truth is one talking about?  When one mixes opinions with factual claims and then throws in values, emotions, and all the elements of a political discourse that constitute how one sees the “truth,” one is hard pressed to either make a claim or deny a claim as being true or not.  And if there is a threat of potential incarceration or fines, does a journalist even venture into anything controversial, especially if a local population is so biased in one direction or the other and will serve on any resulting jury?  Under such a regime of journalistic policy, how functional can the press be in keeping an eye on government and its officials?  Currently, for example, how much longer would lead be in the Flint, Michigan tap water if the press had not focused on the problem?  Yet this case relating to the Sedition Act, as it worked itself out in the late 1790s and beyond, demonstrates how constitutional provisions and their interpretation transcends the mere meaning of words. 

Did the jurists ever rule the acts void?  No.  The Supreme Court did not begin ruling laws unconstitutional until 1803 when it ruled that a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was void in Marbury v. Madison.  As for the Alien and Sedition Acts, they were re-codified in federal law during World War I.  Since then, there have been rulings that have spelled out the protections of both journalists and the subjects of their reporting and editorializing.  There are still some open areas of concern; for example, exactly what rights do journalists have in keeping anonymous sources anonymous?  But I think one can easily see how, in the case of freedom of the press, relying on the plain meaning of words was not sufficient.  A robust debate and political interaction were needed to work out what exactly the Constitution means regarding a contentious issue.  In terms of the press, the debate is still active.  Rest in peace, Justice Scalia.

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[1] Levy, L. W.  (1992).  The Republicans and the transformation of libertarian thought.  In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I:  The colonial era through reconstruction (pp. 253-261).  Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company.

[2] Usually referred to as Republicans.

PROPERTY AS SELF (continued)

[This posting picks up where the last one ended.  It was posted on March 11 and if you have not read it, I suggest you do.  In that posting, I laid out a basic historical shift that was taking place in both Britain and the US.  As result of that change, the growing commercial and industrial class was growing and beginning to make claims on the political system.  They latched on to the ideas of John Locke who glorified the productive efforts of this class.  In doing so, their argument undermined, here in the US, the republican/federalist perspective that by all accounts was dominant in the early years of the eighteenth century but that lost influence due to the economic successes of the commercial and industrial sector.  The postings, this one and the last entry, reflect the arguments of Isaac Kramnick.[1]  Let me continue …]

I contend that the over century-old bias toward communal perspectives that characterized federalist thinking of pre-Revolutionary Americans was not going to go away so simply.  And here I believe, lurking in the backdrop of our social thinking, we have a definite split between our espoused theory and our theory-in-use.  Our espoused theory would continue to be one supportive of civic humanism, but more and more of our behavior would take on the actions of self-interest to the exclusion of acting to advance the common good.  To a historical point in time, not until after World War II, we continued to feel guilt associated with such behaviors that disregarded the common good.  Today, there is little to no such remorse and shame seems to have become a remnant of the past.

Let me describe these radicals, the disciples of Locke, a bit more.  I mentioned the new radicals (and their radicalism) that sprang up during those years in the late 1700s and took on the fight to wrest away the inherited privileges of the nobility in Britain (or as they might have been referred to as the “no ability” – a Thomas Paine term).  These radicals wanted “in;” that is, they wanted their seats at the tables of power, both economically and politically.  The one galvanizing issue that brought this struggle in focus was the fight for equal representation in Parliament.  The phraseology used in their debates mirrored Locke’s language as it appeared in his The Second Treatise on Civil Government.  Let’s pick up Kramnick’s description:

Even more important than this textual linkage between Locke and the reformers, however, is the far deeper theoretical bond the reformers constructed between themselves and such Lockean themes as contract, state of nature, and natural rights and government as a trust in all of their writing on taxation and representation.[2]

What seemed to be welling up among the radicals was an indignant attitude in which they felt they were being deprived of what was theirs.  And that reform needed to be comprehensive, including overturning institutionalized practices – hence the title radicals for these advocates.

In the US, as I indicated in my last posting, the mix was a bit different.  I mentioned the yeoman farmers.  Those farmers functioned in the style conducive to capitalist processes; they established commercial connections; they believed

[a]lthough agriculture was a morally superior pursuit, its superiority did not lie in any more virtuous, precapitalist ideal.  Commerce had less value only insofar as it drained away resources:  “To foster every, or any other employment of capital at the expense of agriculture – by diminishing the savings of the farmer and forcing him to maintain the manufacturer – or by tempting the capitalist from agriculture into manufacture, is plainly contrary to our most undoubted policy.”[3]

The yeoman’s moral concern was the perceived dependency of the commercial and industrialist classes on the farmer.  This was an analogous argument of the country faction abusing the town faction in Britain. This sense of promoting self-interest found sympathetic ears here in America among these yeoman farmers and the business interests in the city.  So, in the late eighteenth-century in the US, there was a link to British reform reflecting socioeconomic changes.  This link was not available to republican motivated advocates.

But there is still one last overlap between the republican-federalist advocates and natural rights advocates.  And this, I think, is important to keep in mind because on the one hand it provides the language of many of the arguments that have been expressed in our political debates since the late eighteenth century and on the other hand has highlighted the moral perspectives of those earlier advocates of the natural rights perspective.

Locke couches his argument in nearly religious language as do those who favor the civic humanist view.  But the language changes from one of equality of consent to an inequality of favoritism.  He points out that God has created us with the abilities to be industrious and rational, but that those gifts are not evenly distributed.  Some people are just more industrious – more energetic – and therefore they will end up with more property.  He writes in an accusatorial tone about those who are not so blessed, which is a bit illogical. They should not acquire or, as is the case during those years, inherit property.  He describes them as “the fancy or the covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious.” 

Property is central here – he argues that property is an extension of a person.  Property reflects the person infusing him/herself into nature.  And who were these quarrelsome and contentious lowlifes?  Why, some country squires and all of the poor.[4]  In general, Kramnick tells us that Locke expressed little sympathy or empathy for the poor; one questions how knowledgeable he was of their challenges.

Let me end with this summary of Locke’s argument.   A corrupt system is one in which unproductive people, privileged parasites, hold positions of power.  The radicals took up Locke’s ideas and language to exert political activity to advance their interests.  These interests were based mostly on their business activities, that of yeoman farmers, tradesmen, and industrialists.  They directed their vehemence toward patronage and other privileges of the favored, entrenched powerholders.  And so, Kramnick contends that the republican/federalist concerns for the common good were replaced in the minds of Americans with economic productivity and a morality of hard work.  Who was the moral person?  To answer, one needed only to apply the criteria of hard work and productivity.  I guess the criterion of success was also applied.  We even see these themes in children’s literature beginning to appear during that time.  One more quote from Kramnick’s article:

Hence, not just Adam Smith but a chorus of writers in the last decades of the eighteenth century sang the praises of specialization and the division of labor.  The very heart of civic humanism was repudiated and its values reversed by the radical middle-class crusade to professionalize and specialize, to replace what it saw as corrupt political man with virtuous and productive economic man.[5]

That’s Kramnick’s argument; I, for the most part, disagree.

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[1] Kramnick, I.  (1992).  John Locke and liberal constitutionalism.  In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I:  The colonial era through reconstruction (pp. 97-114).  Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company.

[2] Ibid, p. 105.

[3] Ibid., p. 107.

[4] According to Kramnick, Locke suggested “working schools” for the children of the poor where they would be taken from their parents and put to spinning and knitting to cure their idleness.  The profits gained from these learning experiences would pay for the costs of maintaining those “schools.”

[5] Op cit., Kramnick, 112-113.

PROPERTY AS SELF

[Note:  Since the content of this posting is lengthy, I have decided to post it over two posting spaces, today’s and that of March 15, 2016.]

I have made the claim that our nation’s political culture has evolved in many of its elements, but particularly in terms of its dominant perspective.  The first pervading view was present during the earliest days of the colonial period and, I would argue, held on to that position until the end of World War II.  That view I have called traditional federalism and my sense of that view is based on the writings of such constitutional scholars as Daniel Elazar and Donald Lutz.  While I believe this prominence was true, I am not blind to the influence of other traditions.  One such tradition is that of the natural rights perspective.  I have argued that that tradition can first be detected during the years between the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the US Constitution and its ratification process. 

As with any mental construct, elements of it were around ever since organized governance took hold.  Since it is a set of ideas that emphasizes the rights of the individual, I’m sure that anyone who lived under any level of oppression, from time to time, would feel that there was something wrong with how he or she was situated.  The Great Courses program (produced by The Teaching Company) has a good survey course on the history of how liberty has been defined through the centuries.  That history begins with the Athenians and the Battle of Marathon.[1]  But in the modern sense, those ideas that make up what we today consider the natural rights version of freedom, rights, and liberty can be traced to the theoretical work of the British philosopher, John Locke.  Published in 1690, his Second Treatise on Civil Government is the work most credited with launching this theoretical radicalism.  As I indicated in the last posting, those who picked up on Lockean ideas were anointed as radicals and I’m certain that those classes of people who were threatened by these ideas considered the upstarts as radicals. 

Mostly, the focus of Locke’s disdain was aimed to those traditional groups who had been favored by the old feudal order and were, by the late 1600s, trying to hang on to their privileges.  The upcoming eighteenth century would prove disastrous to these people.  Across the channel, the French Revolution would strike a very poignant exclamation point on this turn during the later years of the 1700s.  In Britain, there had already been a king decapitated, a republican overthrow of the monarchy, a reestablishment of a monarchy but under a regime of political reforms (in 1688 King James II was ousted in favor of William and Mary during what came to be known as the Glorious Revolution).  With this turmoil, the class that supported the old regime was feeling the heat and its privileges came under stronger attack.  John Locke wrote in the midst of these tumultuous times.  Let us consider what he contributed.

This review is undertaken with a particular aim.  I want to look at the question of how influential Locke was on the development of our constitution.  As I indicated in my last posting, the level of influence by Locke is a debatable topic among constitutional scholars.  One such scholar, Isaac Kramnick, argues that early in the 1600s, American thought was heavily influenced by the republican tradition and its ideals.  These ideals included active citizenship and were deeply rooted in the values of the classical world and the Renaissance or what I would consider those ideals which were related to federalist values.  But the relevant point here is that Kramnick claims that that influence had run its course by the later years of the century when our Revolution and the writing of the Constitution took place.  In its place, he further claims, the ideas of Locke took more and more prominence in the thinking of our founding generation.  I somewhat disagree; yes, there was some shifting toward more commercially and self-interest biases which are among the core values of the natural right perspective, but the conscience of Americans and much of their behavior would be very much couched with a republican, federalist cast.  Here is how even Kramnick describes this earlier thinking:

[The more traditional view is in] part Aristotle, part Cicero, and part Machiavelli [republican arguments], civic humanism conceives of man as a political being whose realization of self occurs only through participation in public life, through active citizenship in a republic.  The virtuous man is concerned primarily with the public good, res publica, or commonweal, not with private or selfish ends.[2]

A distinction needs to be made here; I am not saying that espousing federalist/republican values means a person will act accordingly.  We can all attest to behaving in ways that we, on reflection, judge less than ideal.  While espoused theory has a strong influence on behavior, I have written in this blog about the gap we all have experienced between our espoused theories and our theories-in-use.[3]  I have referred to this gap as “sinning.”  What I seriously would say is that acting in opposition to one’s espoused theory would cause a level of shame or guilt.  So while a person might pursue plans to advance one’s self-interest at the expense of the common good, a federalist would feel shame or guilt; a modern advocate of natural rights would probably not feel any shame or guilt. 

But in those days of our early republic, even those who were attracted to the natural rights ideas of Locke were, at least to some meaningful degree, concerned with the common good.  Why?  Because Locke’s ideas of the late 1600s are not what the natural rights view is today.  Unlike how I have described the natural rights construct – as a moral position in which the trump value is liberty and its position bolsters the self-definition of values and behavior – the initial version of it was more substantive when it came to moral values. 

But now let’s see what Kramnick has to offer concerning the newer Locke thinking and its moral suasion:  he reports that the advocates of Lockean ideas shared with federalists the belief that the corrupt man was the origin of a corrupt system, a corrupt government.  But this is where, but for one exception, the similarities ended.  While civic humanism (the federalist version) castigated corruption in terms of self-interest and indifference to the public good, the natural rights view centered its focus on the immoral characteristics of laziness, parasitic behaviors, and dependency.  Goodness for Locke’s disciples consisted of productive behaviors, hard work, and generally advancing the general good by advancing one’s self-interest (of course, within the confines of the law and general moral precepts such as honesty).  But to understand the origins of the natural rights perspective, we need to appreciate what was happening economically.

This shift took place during very important economic changes in the eighteenth century.  There was a growing tension or conflict of interest going on.  This can be detected with our national debate concerning the Hamiltonian economic plans which preoccupied the nation during the Washington administration.  Our version of this conflict was somewhat similar to what was happening in Britain where the interests of the “country” faction – those interests of the challenged nobility – were doing battle with the interests of the “town” faction – the business class.  Here in the US, the fight was a bit different.  Here, there was not the well-established “country” class of nobility.  Instead, we had the tension between the business interests of merchants and then of industrialists against those of the farmer.  But this reflected another significant difference; both sides of the debate here were not idle and neither could be described as defending inherited privilege.  The question here was more of how “big” the economic entities were to be; would large commercial interests gobble up a more defensive rural class – the yeoman farmer of Jefferson’s concern?  Both sides of this politics were not idle; both sides lived out Locke’s call for productive behavior.  So in either case, and this accounts for the change in basic thinking between the onset of the Revolution and the writing of the Constitution, there was a definite shifting away from the thinking of the Patriots, the Whigs, the Commonwealthmen,[4] to that of a natural rights posture among many Americans.  But like any cultural movements, especially before the advent of mass media and other electronic communications, the shift was slow.

-         I N T E R M I S S I O N  -

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[1] Fears, J. R. (lecturer)  (2001).  A history of freedom, transcript.  Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company.

[2] Kramnick, I.  (1992).  John Locke and liberal constitutionalism.  In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I:  The colonial era through reconstruction (pp. 97-114).  Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company.  Quotation on p. 98.

[3] See Argyris, C. and Schon, D. A. (1985). Evaluating theories in action. In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and R. Chin (Eds.), The planning of change, Fourth edition, (pp. 108-117). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.  This is what I have written about Argyris and Schon’s article:  For a long time, I have been somewhat aware of this distinction between what is espoused and what is done, but it wasn't until graduate school that this duality became clear.  In an interesting article by Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schon, the authors present a model for organizational planning and action.  In the model, they distinguish between “espoused theory” and “theory-in-use.”  Espoused theory corresponds, more or less, with what I have named domain of the ideal – those values and goals we hold as preferable not at the moment of action but prior to actual implementation of those values and goals.  Theory-in-use is the dominant beliefs we hold when it comes time to act.  For example, let us say an organization decides to perform an activity that will be held with some disfavor by the pupil, client, or customer population the organization serves.  Those promoting the activity believe that in the long run this action will be best for their charges despite the short term annoyance or even hatred it will engender.  The staff commits to it and each person knows that there will be a negative response.  They might even begin their efforts in a way that is congruent with the plan, but as the predicted negative response increases, they cave and revert to the previous courses of action.

[4] Terms prevalent during the Revolution days to describe those who argued for federalist ideals and how the British power holders were corrupt in relation to those ideals.  See Wood, G. S. (1998). The creation of the American republic 1776-1787. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

THE ORGANIC ANALOGY

Among historians there is an argument going on which involves how much influence did John Locke have on the writers of our constitution and on those who ratified the basic law.  This is of particular concern to this blog due to the fact that a good deal of my overall presentation is based on the claim that our political culture evolved more from a traditional federalism rather than the ideas of Locke and his theory of natural rights.  For those who are new to this blog, what I have shared has been the argument that our political culture held predominantly a view of government and politics that emphasizes a collective bias which holds that we, as citizens, are in a partnership in this polity.  Some historians call this general set of ideas and ideals civic humanism.

Civic humanism is central to the collective nature of traditional federalism.  I have defined federalism not so much as a fancy term for states’ rights or the argument that our politics should basically revolve around state issues.  That definition extols state government as that government, at least as compared to the central government in Washington, as being closer to the people, more knowledgeable of their problems and concerns.  It is also the level of government, through the structures of city and county jurisdictions, in which the average person with limited political assets can have a meaningful say and even have influence.  While my use of the term incorporates a lot of this bias, it is more concerned with the notion that federalism is about viewing the body politic as just that:  an organic association in which its component entities are highly interrelated and codependent.  By entities I mean you and I and all of our fellow citizens either individually or in groups.  This whole structure is defined and justified by a “sacred,” albeit secular, agreement; one in which the parties, so agreeing, are consenting to the provisions of either a covenant or a compact.  The word federalism is derived from the Latin word for covenant, foedius.[1]  But not all historians agree with this level of commitment on the part of the founders.  The question revolves around how much influence John Locke had at the time of Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Why Locke?  This will be more fully addressed in my next posting, but here I want to just point out that Locke was the first to theorize – i.e., set down a coherent argument – on the ideas and notions that became the liberal or natural rights view.  What this view has become is not what it was initially.  Back in the late 1600s when he wrote, the impetus was to begin representing the political and cultural aims of the merchant and budding industrial interests class which was becoming more influential due to its growing successes.  Holding its interests at bay were the entrenched landed (country) interests of the nobility.  A country which particularly was experiencing in its politics the tensions among these groups was England.  There, the upstart entrepreneurs were fighting many of the established privileges the nobility enjoyed including the inherited positions in Parliament.  It was in Britain that we have a more immediate effect of Locke’s writings.  He also had an influence on this side of the Atlantic, but it would be more subdued and slower to gain traction.  I will save for the next postings some of the language this clash expressed as the upstarts undermined the legitimacy of this advantaged class.

In this posting, I want to merely set the stage.  I want to remind you why I believe that the founders fell more heavily on the side of republicanism, the governmental system supported by federalists, than on the side of individualism, the side bolstered by the writings of Locke.  While the Constitutional Convention was a definite step away from a purer federalism, it was still well ensconced in its penumbra of ideas.  Let me share the historian’s, Forrest McDonald, account of this argument:

It is a grave mistake, however, to assume from this [the influence of natural rights thinking] that the Framers (or even the court-party nationalists [those who questioned the civic minded motivations of people] or even Hamilton) cynically abandoned the whole notion of virtue in the republic and opted to substitute crass self-interest in its stead.  Several historians have made that assumption, and at least one has gone so far as to pronounce the judgment that the very tradition of civic humanism, of men finding their highest fulfillment in service to the public, thereby was brought to an end.  To commit that mistake is to fail to understand … crucial aspects of the concept that men are driven by their passion.  [This includes] a variety of passions, and many of these – love of fame, of glory, of country, for example – are noble.[2]

One source of possible confusion is that there was a movement at the time of the Convention that can be associated with both federalism and natural rights.  Among those historians that support the stronger influence by Locke and those who took up the natural rights argument is this recognition that with our constitutional development was the origins of a constitutionalism being a way to stem the power of lawmaking bodies, be it Parliament, Congress, or any state legislature. 

This central idea was what galvanized what we consider our version, as opposed to that of the British, of radicalism.  This radicalism refers to the passion some approached this new found sense of entitlement of liberty and individual integrity.  In the political mix of the time were those who took up this radical advocacy.  This had some effect in Britain, but it was in the US that it took on legal status.  We incorporated the concern and adopted; it has become a basic constitutional attribute today.  This initiative became legally established with the ratification of the Bill of Rights – the first ten amendments to our constitution – and the exertion of the Supreme Court especially under the leadership of John Marshall.  Even then, it took the courts until the twentieth century to apply this power of the Constitution in any institutional way.  To put this newer concern in context, a more important aim of the founders was to define structurally what it meant to have the people rule through representation and majority rule.[3]  But as for limiting lawmaking bodies, keeping them from abusing rights and liberties, this concern obviously promotes the individual, the notion that we are born with those powers that government has no authority to disregard or trample.  One can easily see how adopting legal protections from abusive laws which undermine individual prerogatives stems from Lockean ideas.  But, one can also see, with just a little more effort, how it also promotes basic ideals of federalism and republicanism.

Let me explain.  Central to the notion of federalism, one of its basic values, is equality.  This sense of equality has an inclusive quality to it; we are all equal in this common, organic whole of a society.  Laws that favor one group over others, as laws often do, pose, at least potentially, very real threats to the egalitarian character of a polity.  And this is of importance today with the obscene skewing of income and wealth our nation is currently experiencing.  I would argue that above the founders’ concerns for any emerging class of business people was the more fundamental appreciation they had for the organic nature of a polity and the parallel concerns for health of that polity to that of an organic being like themselves.  This concern, it was understood, was negatively affected by abusive laws.  Let us take in John Adams’ central views on constitutions as reported by the historian, Bernard Bailyn:

So John Adams wrote that a political constitution is like “the constitution of the human body”; “certain contextures of the nerves, fibres, and muscles, or certain qualities of the blood and juices” some of which “may properly be called stamina vitae, or essentials and fundamentals of the constitution; parts without which life itself cannot be preserved a moment.”[4]

I know, I know, he was not at the Constitutional Convention, but his writings had a good deal of influence on those who met in Philadelphia in 1787.  He was one of them in spirit and a leader of the Revolution and of the nation (our second president).  There are other quotes I could add, but that is not my intent here.  What I do want to stress is that while the delegates at the Convention had to deal with very practical concerns of the day, they foresaw a national government structured, acting, and functioning within the parameters of federalist values and what we have come to call civic humanism.  So, what then is the place we should attribute to Locke and natural rights principles?  That is the topic of my next posting.

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[1] So the constitutional scholar, Daniel J. Elazar, informs us.

[2] McDonald, F.  (1992).  The power of ideas in the convention.  In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I:  The colonial era through reconstruction (pp. 160-169).  Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company.  Quotation on pp. 162-163.

[3] Reflecting this, for example, was the evolution of how we choose our presidents – we still have the Electoral College. 

[4] Bailyn, B.  (1992).  The birth of republican constitutionalism.  In K. L. Hall (Ed.) Major problems in American constitutional history, Volume I:  The colonial era through reconstruction (pp. 91-97).  Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company.  Quotation on p. 91.

THE HEROIC SELF

This posting marks the end of a series of postings in which I have attempted to describe the four prominent philosophical traditions in education.  They are perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and reconstructionism.  I pointed out that the first two are considered conservative philosophies and the last two are leftist, with reconstructionism being, among some of its promoters, extreme, at least in the eyes of most Americans.  In this posting, I want to finish these accounts with two “somewhat” educational schools of thought:  eclecticism and existentialism.

In a previous posting, I indicated that my preferred mental construct to guide the content choices in civics education makes me an eclectic.  It mostly relies, for its substantive content, on a view of government and politics derived from a theory of governance known as federalism.  As I have often explained in this blog, I am not relying on a structural notion of governance that has a central government with a string of state governments making up a complex configuration as we have in the US.  Yes, that does demonstrate a federalist arrangement, but one can have a federalist structure within a state.  The key attribute of a federalist government is that it originated and is maintained under the auspices of an agreement in which the founders have sworn allegiance either to a covenant or a compact.  This is derived originally, at least in the US, from the traditional Judaic notion of a covenant via early Puritanical settlers who inhabited the eastern shore of Massachusetts.  All this I have thoroughly described and explained in this blog.  The point here is that while this has a perennial side in that it relies on a long standing political theory for its content, the means of instruction that best reflects this material is mostly progressive.  So that makes me an eclectic in that I borrow from more than one philosophy.  So be it, but I would point out that probably a great many educators are eclectics to some degree.

The danger of such a choice in one’s professional plans is, of course, the potential lack of consistency or hidden contrary beliefs.  I write hidden in that if they were not – or important enough that even if recognized could not be ignored – the mind would strive to address the resulting cognitive dissonance that such a “cohabitation” would cause.   Humans do not sustain logical or emotional inconsistencies well; when confronted with them – i.e., we are cognizant of them – we either change our minds about one or the other of our notions or we ignore the inconsistency.  As I just indicated, though, ignoring can be very hard to do, especially when one of the underlying, contradictory assumptions or beliefs comes painfully into focus due to some life condition.

Of course, since eclecticism is a tailor made sort of belief system, the exact makeup of anyone’s eclectic philosophy is mostly unique to the individual who holds the exact set of beliefs.  As such, it is difficult to say much that generally describes or explains the varying sets of beliefs.  But that is not the case for the last of my reviewed school of thought, existentialism. 

This other set of beliefs and assumptions is a respected philosophical tradition with its own history within the broader Western tradition.  Within that tradition, existentialism is a definite set of beliefs, concepts, assumptions, and the rest of what makes up a philosophy, but central to its tenets is its enshrining of individuality.  This leads to a wide variance among existentialists over an array of philosophical issues and questions.  In that sense, one can detect a very eclectic character in those thinkers who consider themselves existentialists.

So on this, they do agree:  the vast canon of what makes up Western philosophies does not attribute enough centrality to the individual.  This notion is probably most clearly expressed in Jean Paul Sartre’s claim that existence precedes essence.  Let me provide the quote:

What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence?  It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself.  If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing.  Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.[1]

Note:  when Sartre wrote, as in this quote, “he” also meant “she.”  Under such a general view, one can see that education is central to the beliefs of this philosophy.  But it is an education conceived by its promoters as being as far from essentialist ideas as one could possibly be.

As an educational approach, existentialism takes on a curious turn; it denies any notion of supporting general views of objective truth as in other philosophies (e. g., Aristotle’s claim that humans are political beings).  Instead, it places the responsibility of determining what is true or false (metaphysical questions), what is the appropriate manner of attaining the truth (epistemological questions), what is good or evil (ethical questions), or what is beautiful or ugly (aesthetic questions) squarely on the individual.  The focus of an existential education is to provide the student with opportunities to develop for him/herself the sense of that responsibility; to determine, as an obligation, what the answers to these types of questions are.  As such, there is no blueprint, no universal model for what it means to be human or what the nature of humanity is.  The classroom guided by this level of individualism is a place where students are exposed to various paths, options if you will, so that they can experiment and reflect on whom they want to be, what person they choose to become.  This entails equal amounts of attention to not just the cognitive development of the student, but to his/her emotions as well.  By the very nature of what is emphasized, existentialist schools would give significantly more attention to the humanities over the sciences, math, and other curricular fields of study.  This bias is instructionally implemented with generous opportunities to pursue artistic and creative activities, especially ones in which students are afforded time for self-expression in a variety of genres. 

While public schools might dabble in certain limited experimentations with “existential” lessons, the bulk of such educational efforts is limited to specially designed private schools.  An all-out commitment to existential education demands a specially trained teaching staff.  I am not aware of such training programs in any of the major state universities.

Let me end with a quote that captures the flavor of this philosophy as it pertains to education:

Childhood is not adulthood; childhood is playing and no child ever gets enough play.  The Summerhill theory is that when a child has played enough he will start to work and face difficulties, and I claim that this theory has been vindicated in our pupils’ ability to do good work even when it involves a lot of unpleasant work.[2]

This somewhat inconsistent quote is from A. S. Neill, the founder of a British boarding school, Summerhill, which is run on existentialist principles.  Despite the fact that the school has incorporated many federalist principles – a shared decision-making structural arrangement – it is at heart based on an existential view of individualism.  While the school is fairly straightforward with its foundational belief that “freedom is not license,” its almost devotional adherence to respecting the whims of individual choice makes any appreciation of a communal sense of responsibility hard to attain – at least in the eyes of a federalist like myself.  For after all, if the child never gets enough play, how will he/she ever have played enough?[3]

With that, I end my review of educational philosophies.  It has been my intent to share with you these descriptions so that you might be better “armed” to engage with the faculties and administrations of any local school you care to visit and become involved.  Public schools belong to all of us, not just parents and grandparents.  They are there to serve us all.

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[1] From Existentialism in a Humanism.  See http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/406216-what-is-meant-here-by-saying-that-existence-precedes-essence .

[2] Neill, A. S.  See http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/articlesummerhill.html .

[3] I will admit, I am not an expert on the Summerhill school.

THE IDEOLOGICAL LEFTISTS

As I have been pointing out in the last several postings, there are four basic philosophies of education.  To date, I have reviewed two conservative philosophies, perennialism and essentialism, and one liberal one, progressivism.  With this posting, I review the last of the four, reconstructionism.  I have already dedicated quite a few entries to reviewing this philosophy.  In that effort, I cast its ideas as an antithesis to the prevailing mental construct that more or less governs the content choices of our civics educators, the natural rights construct.  In that account of reconstructionism, I emphasized certain aspects.  One, the movement among leftist educators to promote reconstructionist ideas takes on, to varying degrees, the arguments advanced by Karl Marx.  Before one castigates this fact as anti-American, I would point out that if one sees Social Security as a positive government program, he or she also, to some degree, accepts Marxian ideas.  As for the educators in question, there exists a wide variance as to the degree any one of them considers him/herself a Marxist – ranging from a committed to a lukewarm Marxist.  Two, since there are varying degrees of allegiance to the ideas of the “father” of communism, there is room for the influence of several schools of thought that have been incorporated by various reconstructionist educators including Freudianism, existentialism, structural-functionalism, ideas of self-actualization advanced by Abraham Maslow, humanist ideas and ideals of Carl Rogers, and others.  In effect, the influences emanating from these other sources soften the Marxian character of these reconstructionist ideas.  Three, all reconstructionist educators are committed to political action or praxis.  Addressing social needs, mostly those relating to economic deprivation and discriminatory practices, calls on educators to engage in targeted instruction; that is, instruction that leads to students taking on active roles in reform efforts.  And four, there is the general belief that social needs take priority over individual needs.

With this fourth attribute, we see education changing its emphasis from preparing students for the challenges of the adult world for mostly private reasons to addressing those questions related to creating an improved society.  In the process, an implicit goal is to promote worldwide democracy.  These educators shift their attention from private concerns such as imparting employable knowledge and skills to an education that aims to reconstitute social relations that support a truer, in their view, equality (closer to the standard of equality known as equal results[1]).  The origins of this pedagogic approach emanated from progressive education and began with the writings of John Dewey, but the title of founder goes to Theodore Brameld.

Brameld, seemly affected by the brutality of World War II and the effect the war had on the human psyche, set about to address the dangers left to humankind by the technological advances brought about by war.  The twin dangers of annihilation through nuclear weapons and the level of cruelty and brutality experienced during the war led him and others to see education as a way of advancing the use of technology and human compassion to create a more humanistic society. 

Two other educators who advanced reconstructionism were George Counts and Paulo Freire.  George Counts saw education as the opportunity to encourage and prepare students to engage in the establishment of a social order committed to social justice.  Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and government official who, using his own experiences of living in poverty, set out a general educational approach. 

This blog reviewed Freire’s ideas as presented in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  In that review, I pointed out how he called on a cooperative relationship between teacher and student where each played the roles of being teacher and student.  He argued that the oppressed needed to divorce themselves from any desire to be an oppressor – those who occupy the position of what is considered advantaged in an oppressive system – to seek true liberation in which they understand the inherent dignity and integrity of each individual.  Emphasizing dialogue between oppressed and oppressor, he argued for developing awareness to combat domination.  He particularly saw as counterproductive the view of education as “teaching as banking” in which a teacher strives toward “depositing” information in the students’ heads – reminiscent of essentialism.  Instead, Freire envisioned teaching and learning as a reciprocal endeavor between those assigned as teacher and those as students.  Relying on the impetus of students to use their experiences to denote what is to be studied, they engage in inventing a new social reality – praxis.  Specific topics that these learning interactions entertain would be reflective of the oppressed lives the students experience, such as hunger, discrimination, lack of opportunity, violence, domestic abuse, drugs, divorce, corruption, cronyism, and the like.  There is also associated with this approach a trend toward focusing on both local, community conditions, and worldwide forces that affect local conditions.

Collectively, this approach is also known as critical theory or critical pedagogy.  Its relation to federation theory is that federalist thought shares a concern for inequality with reconstructionist ideas.  The basis of this concern is different in its application.  While critical theory promotes equal results – a belief in a more equal distribution of income and wealth – federalists believe in equal opportunity and regulated income and wealth distribution.  Federalist theory holds that equal conditions have definite problems with providing the incentives necessary to advance economic initiatives.  But federalists do lend a supportive disposition toward the concern that not all of the entities making up a society, as currently structured, are afforded equal standing in the social realities of that society.

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[1] Equal results basically refer to an economic arrangement in which variance in income and other compensations is roughly the same for all participants in the economy.