FEDERATION THEORY AND POLITICAL CONFRONTATIONS

With the moral perspective of federation theory outlined in the previous posting, this blog will next present that construct’s view of government and politics.  In terms of the subject matter, – the content of civics – federation theory guides educators to choose material that facilitates accomplishing the following goals:

•      Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.  This is because the US Constitution establishes all citizens as partners with a common interest in the survival and health of this national union. 

•      Teach that the role of government is to be the guardian of this grand partnership.  While this role is exercised through a variety of venues, its effects are felt both at the individual and associational levels of society.  Further, the role is expressed through social and political intercourse that utilizes a language which supports a moral standard promoting social capital and civic humanism.[1]   

•      Establish and justify a political morality that accounts for the realities of the current political world, but does not lose sight of the responsibilities citizens have in advancing the common interest.

•      Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty (constitutional integrity) and equity in which each citizen is a member within a compact arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.

•      Point out political strategies that respect the function of expertise at the national level, but, at the same time, express a reasonable preference for local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation (more on this below).

This approach, as indicated in a previous posting, is a synthesis or compromise, in part, between federalism and the natural rights construct.  So, for example, the above goals reflect a duality; that is, an inherent tension between the forces that focus political studies on either local communal levels or on the national level.  The aim in using federation theory is to revitalize the ideals of the founding fathers, but in such a way so as to be realistically applicable to the national and global realities of the present day. 

While that includes recognizing the international forces impinging on political and economic realities – and in some cases, social realities, – the construct is not willing to give up on the power of local participation.  This localism is usually referred to as “grass roots” politics and can be considered a basic federalist tenet.  This does not downplay the challenge this duality poses, but recognizes the tension the challenge represents. 

The argument is, in considering this and other issues, not to reestablish the traditional federalist view of governance and politics, but for federalism to accommodate the factual conditions that characterize the world as it is with the presence of transnational corporations, global markets (including labor markets), global communication capabilities, and the resulting global conflicts.  And one can add the assumptions concerning individualism among Western democracies, as a viable force in current political activities. 

All of these conditions cannot be ignored by a political theory that claims viability.  This, therefore, demands a synthesis between the concerns of federalism with its calls for duty and obligation and the natural rights’ view of liberty as expressed through its notion of “individual sovereignty.”  It is that synthesis that provides a context for what follows as this posting reviews an ideal model by which to analyze, for instructional purposes, a political confrontation.

What follows in no way describes a model suitable for initiating professional federalist studies in political science.  Nor is it a model depicting how political processes are.  Instead, the model is meant to provide a starting point, a source of ideas and questions that would be suitable for designing curricular content regarding the study of government and politics at the secondary level of American schools.  It does this by presenting an ideal. 

The model is made up of three main components:  the community, participating entities, and the association.  A summary review of the model at this point can make subsequent explanation easier to understand.  One should think of the model as a system that attempts to be organic, sensitive to human qualities and emotions, and subject to human interactions and not necessarily quantified factors as is done in reductive, positivist studies.  A review of the elements can be depicted as follows:

The community is an ideally open arrangement which is accessible to outside entities, arrangements, or associations.  It is the social environment within which an arrangement/association exists.  An ideal community is characterized as functioning with a cultural commitment to federalist values, a set of functioning and interacting institutions, and a general disposition to upholding a moral primacy.

Participating entities comprise of those persons, arrangements, or associations that make up the collective under study.  These entities can be the entities of an arrangement (any collective) or an association (a collective that operates under federalist values).  In an association, the entities are characterized by bonds of partnership among themselves, by responsibilities to the association which include extending it loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge, by expectations from the association of equal standing and, if needed, allowances so that the entity can viably participate in the processes of the association, by legal and respected status of constitutional integrity not as allotments, but as being inherent (a condition of birth or existence), and by characteristics including status, conscience, and practical attributes. 

The association, a federal arrangement, is characterized by several attributes:  a founding agreement in the form of a compact or covenant, by two political qualities:  a qualified majority rule and minority rights, and by three transcending provisions:  a fraternal ethos or sense of partnership, elements of communal democracy, and a deliberative process by which decisions are made.

The final elements of the model refer to the specific conditions under study; i.e., the conditions that comprise the specific political confrontation being highlighted in an instructional lesson.  It is here that conflicts – debates and/or competitions – between entities would be addressed.  By focusing on a political event, it sheds light, through the resulting study, on how it affects the structural, procedural, functional, and contextual factors of the association, the entities, and the community in question.

In general, the model attempts to highlight a procedural event, much as the systems model of David Easton[2] does.  A difference, though, is instead of analyzing how a political system processes supports and demands, the liberated federalist model focuses on how the components interact as the political confrontation plays out.

Political confrontations are events or a set of related events that offend a federalist value(s).  The model illustrates what should occur ideally – as a normative standard by which real life situations can be analyzed and evaluated; i.e., pitting the espoused ideals of federalism against the actual behaviors and other actions that characterizes the confrontation under study. 

Stated differently, the model depicts what should happen in an ideally federalist arrangement – how the elements of an association would respond to the confrontation.  This is a set of idealized standards exemplified by acts or actions that should take or should have taken place – hence the normative standard is established. 

Those standards are then applicable to evaluate what actually happens or has happened in a studied confrontation.  The model can be applied to local, state, regional, national, or international arrangements, both within and without government.  It can also be applied to formal or informal settings from families, to social groups, to corporation board rooms.

For example, a particular lesson could investigate a case in which an association is confronted by a political challenge, such as the displacement of American workers due to global labor market conditions.  The study would apply an analysis of the situation based on the ideals presented by the model and the known conditions of the case. 

The ideals suggest both the selection of such a case and a set of analytical questions an instructor might ask students and, in turn, students can ask of the confrontation.  Ideally, an arrangement (perhaps an association) – the federal government, labor union, or a corporation – would produce some action that could be defended or attacked as a moral or immoral, effective or ineffective response to those conditions that are deemed challenging federalist values; i.e., they are in some way deficient in upholding the well-being of the community.

As indicated above, the various portions of this model will be further developed in subsequent postings.  Hopefully, the above gives the reader a sense of what is to be described and explained more fully.  This model is offered as a way to look at reality – through idealistic lenses – and identify how current governance and politics falls short of federalist ideals.

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[1] In terms of social capital, see Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone:  America's Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, January, pp. 65-78.  As a reminder, Putnam indicates that social capital is when there is an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.  Civic humanism is the value of the individual willing to hold the common interest above personal interest.

[2] Easton, D. (1953).  The political system.  New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf.  This model has been reviewed in a previous posting.

A FEDERALIST MORAL VIEW

With these identified sources from the Western tradition (identified in the previous posting), the stage is sufficiently set to present an organized moral view that could serve as a foundation for the other elements of a federalist construct.  In this effort, morality is solely a social concern.  This context is derived from the tradition established by Aristotle in which he centered his relevant concerns over behaviors advancing the interests of the polity, the common interest.

The proposed liberated federalist trump value, as derived from that Western tradition, is societal welfare.  This value is measured by behaviors that help secure a society's survival and/or the advancement of social capital and civic humanism (defined below and described in previous postings).  So, a first step in the development of the proposed construct is taken:  a trump value, societal welfare, is identified.

It is a position that will be developed further below and in upcoming postings, but be assured that it will hold in high status the values of liberty and equality as instrumental values – in that they are instrumental in securing societal welfare.  This trump value also has a two-dimensional structure.  Societal welfare can be measured by policies, acts, and behaviors that tend toward primarily societal survival and societal health through the advancement of social capital and civic humanism.

Survival is just what it implies – extending the life of a society that might be threatened by either internal or external threats or a combination of such forces.  The assumption is that societal survival is advanced by a value commitment to certain societal qualities.  These qualities are social capital and civic humanism.

 As has been reported in this blog, Robert Putnam indicates that social capital is when there is an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[1]  Civic humanism is a disposition at the individual level in which a person is committed to, ideally, place his/her interests as subordinate to the common interest or, at least, does not define his/her interests in opposition to the common interest.

          With a trump value identified, more substantive elements of a proposed construct can be presented.  In terms of values, this blog conceptualizes a hierarchy of values system which can be divided into three layers:  a trump value, instrumental values, and operational values.  Each layer is logically derived from the layer above it, e.g., instrumental values are derived from the trump value.

In terms of their application, these values are definite values, but should not, except for the trump value, be applied in absolute terms as one finds in Kant's categorical imperative approach.  The list presented will be applicable to American society, but one can claim that it has a universal quality.  This list includes:

•      constitutional integrity – a basic value that promotes respect for the constitutionally defined individual rights of the US Bill of Rights or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; aka liberty

•      equality – defined as equal opportunity in a realistic fashion with a commitment for minimal welfare standards as promoted by John Rawls (explained in a previous posting as regulated condition)

•      communal democracy – a value for the establishment and maintenance of an ideal summarized by the phrase, “people as a whole”

•      democratic pluralism and diversity – a value that, while it needs further developing, stands for a respect for diverse cultural expression but realizes that national viability demands transcending cultural commitments; aka centered pluralism[2]

•      covenanted/compact arrangement – a value that supports social conglomerations based on mutually agreed upon values, constitutional structures, social and political processes, and is formalized in a perpetual agreement

•      critical and transparent deliberations – valuing open political processes

•      collective approaches to problem-solving – proactive commitment toward representing all interests within a social/political entity

•      trust – reasonable expectations of veracity and reliability of others

•      loyalty – reasonable commitment toward the collective

•      expertise – critical but reasonable respect for intellectually trained participants and their contributions

•      countervailing powers – the sense that any social arrangement should disperse power to avoid a concentration of it and to be able to check on the ability of any one actor or set of actors to abuse its use

•      spirited and joyful commitment to the collective – aka patriotism or upgraded loyalty

•      justice – commitment to giving everyone his/her due based on a realistic view of dispersed or accumulated advantages

The overall sense of these values is to promote social capital and civic humanism; the reader would be helped if this overall sense is kept in mind as the federalist model of politics is described in subsequent postings.

It avoids civics instruction that stacks the deck with the recurring themes of an ideology, be it leftist or rightest.  Instead it presents a more holistic view of society and its problems, as defined by federalist values, and, therefore, open for student investigation.  The proposed hierarchy of values does not only hold a trump value, but also presents a logically arranged set of values; arranged according to this moral view’s sense of importance.

As stated above, there are three levels of values:  trump value, key instrumental values, and operational values.  Here is a listing of these values:

•      Trump Value:  Societal welfare (as experienced through societal survival and societal health)

•      Key Instrumental Values:  constitutional integrity (liberty), equality, communal democracy, democratic pluralism and diversity, compact arrangements, critical and transparent deliberation, collective problem-solving, countervailing power, earned trust, loyalty, patriotism, expertise, justice

•      Operational Values (partial listing):  political engagement, due process, legitimate authority, privacy, universality of human rights, tolerance, non-violence, teamwork, consideration of others, economic sufficiency, security, localism

Later in this blog, a set of postings will address classroom application of this construct and, more specifically, this moral view.  At this point, though, a general overview is offered.  The view can be used with an array of instructional strategies from what are considered traditional approaches – lecture and other information dispensing techniques – to more progressive approaches – inquiry, role playing, simulations, and the like. 

But since the view reflects a federalist commitment – sharing and incorporating input of participating actors in collective efforts – a more collective and horizontal decision-making mode of instruction would be more congruent with the substance of the code. 

One such approach is outlined in a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, Handbook on Teaching Social Issues:  NCSS Bulletin 93.[3]  This handbook describes a variety of inquiry instructional models.  Generally, inquiry calls on students to solve problems – factual or ethical problems – by engaging in such activities as gathering information, testing hypotheses, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.  This blog will promote an instructional approach that relies on this set of activities, but under a dialectic mode of inquiry. 

This source, the Handbook on Teaching Social Issues, was cited in an earlier posting and critiqued in that it demonstrates how an issues-centered curriculum can be handled in natural rights based lessons.  Here it is presented for its instructional value and applied to implement federalist based lessons.  The strategy is considered “open ended” in that the students arrive at their own conclusions which they then are expected to defend by using rational argument. 

The approach can be readily applied to students tackling social issues as defined by the above moral view.  In terms of relating the technique to the proposed moral view, the view provides a guide by determining or, at least, suggesting which issues should be considered for classroom instruction and what questions should be asked.

And what are these issues?  In the above cited handbook, the issues identified are amenable to a leftist ideology, the writer considers them to be derived from critical theory – “critical light.”  That is, material that approaches the value of equality as defined by the criterion of equal condition (the economy should distribute its benefits equally among the population).  This reflects critical values.

If instead, instruction adopts a federalist view, not only would relevant issues include equality, albeit defined differently,[4] but it would also include those related to liberty, economic sufficiency, security, etc.  Therefore, a more varied array of concerns is available to the educator.  Since the view holds societal welfare as the trump value, not just equality or liberty and related issues become legitimate topics for classroom instruction.

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[1] Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone:  America's Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, January (1995), 65-78.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “A Case for Centered Pluralism,” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 5, no. 1 (2003):  71-82.

[3] Ronald W. Evans and David W. Saxe (eds.), Handbook on Teaching Social Issues:  NCSS Bulletin 93 (Washington, DC:  National Council of the Social Studies, 1996).

[4] Equality in this federated moral view is defined as a regulated condition; i.e., while distribution of assets is based primarily on a competitive system, it is mindful to assure basic life-sustaining resources and a livable mode of life for a citizenry comparable to the society’s ability to provide those resources.  These ends are achieved through a regimen of regulations, such as minimum wage and an insured retirement program.

A SYNTHESIS

With traditional federalism degraded in the collective view of Americans, although it is still strong within certain areas of the country, the natural rights view emerged as the prevalent perspective of governance and politics in the years following World War II.  One consequence of this construct’s upgrade is that it has become the subtext of the nation’s civics curriculum.  This blog finds this condition – the emergence of the natural rights construct – as deficient and, at minimum, an enabler of much of the nation’s civic problems.

          In its stead, this blog argues that, in terms of civics curriculum, natural rights should be replaced, in an organized way, by a revised version of federalism.  That version is given the name, liberated federalism, and subsequent postings will describe and explain what its tenets are.  The overview just presented over the last several postings of traditional federalism did much of the legwork, in terms of introducing the reader to the major ideas of federalism. 

Perhaps a good way to view the shift to a liberated federalism is to see it as a synthesis among the various mental constructs that are prevalent today.  In their curricular book, Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins describe their feelings concerning critical pedagogues with their near radical views on the problem of inequality and the excessive individualism that characterizes much of the curriculum in effect in our schools today.  They write:

Reflective educators realize that schools can nurture in students a celebration of the individual along with a concern for others.  Students can apprehend that competition [a natural rights concern] and cooperation [a critical theory concern] can be melded effectively.  It is evident that major change within society will come not from replacing one system of beliefs with another but rather in the generation of a new system that melds both evolutionary and revolutionary ideas and ideals.[1] (emphasis added)

Such melding, which can also incorporate the ideas and ideals of federation theory, should start with paying attention to what a proposed mental construct holds to be moral.  Moral commitments serve as a foundation of any political theory.  Even the most callous or self-serving political doctrine, at its basis, justifies the power distribution model it espouses through a set of moral positions.  These can range from the most secular and practical to the most spiritual and otherworldly.  But any system of governance needs to ground what it does in a view of morality.[2] 

While traditional federalism is of another time, a newer version can meet the challenge of providing an appropriate approach to civics education.  Its foundation is on a view of morality neither relying on a trump value of liberty, as in natural rights, nor of equality, as in critical theory.  Initially, in formulating an updated federalism, one needs to seriously address what such an approach would hold as its moral basis for governance and politics.

          One can ask:  what is the legitimate role of public schools in values education?  Replace the words “public schools” in the question with “government” and the concern becomes obvious.  The writer holds a related memory:  each of his parochial school days started with religious instruction.  Why don’t public schools have something similar by addressing moral or ethical issues, particularly in social studies classes?  Some are opposed to a government agency – schools – promoting political values; others with a collusion with an organized religion.

There is a prohibition of religious instruction in public schools.  This prohibition is not to say that such sectarian moral codes cannot be mentioned in public schools.  For example, any study of world history would refer to religious influence in determining many historical events and trends.  Sectarian beliefs of morality can also be provided to students as alternative views when considering moral questions if it is not the presented as the only or favored option.

The prohibition is against promoting religious beliefs or establishing a connection to a religion or religions.[3]  So, one can further ask: could such instruction be done within the constraints of the First Amendment and its clause prohibiting the “establishment” of religion and still be based on a moral, federalist view?  What would such an effort include? 

·        One, it cannot offend the constitutional restrictions of the First Amendment demanding a curriculum that is not sectarian, but secular.

·        Two, that it be committed to a substantive moral view which does not dissemble into a relativistic set of beliefs that avoids giving clear objective standards for good and evil.

·        Three, that it cannot promote a political ideology which would offend established beliefs of large segments of the population – those people whose tax money pays for our public schools.

·        Four, a moral view guiding such an effort does need to be flexible enough so that under its purview, the wide array of moral issues facing the nation at any given time can be addressed.

Stating the challenge, a bit differently:  such proposed instruction needs to be substantive enough so that students are clearly informed as to its sense of good and evil, but not so restrictive that half the population would be opposed to it.  It also needs to allow students to disagree with its beliefs; so that they can debate derived issues.

Another concern is that a secular based, moral instruction needs to utilize a consequential approach to moral reasoning.  That is, something is not moral or immoral in and of itself, but due to the consequences of that something happening, e.g., cheating is immoral because it shortchanges the legitimate interests of someone and, in turn, undermines trust, which in turn leads to other consequences, etc. 

But there is a point in this reasoning at which even a consequential approach hits upon a basic, trump value.  As such, that trump value, a value that is held to be the most important value and is deferred to in any contention among values, would be used to guide which issues students should investigate.  It would also guide in the choice of questions that are used in those investigations. 

It has been pointed out in this blog that the natural rights construct holds liberty as its trump value and critical theory holds equality as its trump value.  Any consequential approach logically needs a trump value eventually.  So, the first step in developing a moral view for liberated federalism is to settle on a trump value.  To arrive at one, a review of the Western philosophic tradition was deemed to be useful.  That review offered the following results:

Aristotelian ethics promote a morality anchored with the concerns of the polity – a collective sensitivity;

Utilitarianism, that while it supports a self-centered sense of human happiness, does establish a consequential moral system;

David Hume, who points out that while what is believed to factually exist (the is) cannot indicate or determine what – for normative reasons – is correct (the ought), one is reminded that certain factual conditions do correlate to certain desired outcomes and that values can be warranted only by sentiments;

Immanuel Kant, who argues that any resulting view must not sacrifice the integrity of each person and that there are categorical imperatives that ultimately determine what is good or evil;[4]

Pragmatism, that highlights a future orientation of pragmatic thinking, the inexorable connection between means and ends, and the tie between what is moral and the interests of associations; and

John Rawls, who argues, through the utilization of a mental exercise, that any person would seek true equal opportunity if he/she does not know a priori his/her position in a formulated polity or society and that advantages are arbitrarily distributed through natural causes (genetic factors and natural environments) or communal conditions (social factors). 

These are the primary ideas from the Western tradition – which deserve more space to flesh out – that were considered in developing the moral view offered in the next posting.  A quote by Aristotle gives one a good overall effect of these sources in the development of a federalist, moral view and a suitable message to end this posting:

In all arts and sciences[,] the end in view is some good.  In the most sovereign of all the arts and sciences – and this is the art and science of politics – the end in view is the greatest good and the good which is most pursued.  The good in the sphere of politics is justice; and justice consists in what tends to promote the common interest.[5]

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[1] Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins, Curriculum:  Foundations, Principles, and Issues (Boston, MA:  Pearson), 143.

[2] One might find it difficult to see any sense of morality in a criminal regime that rules solely through force.  But the claim that “might makes right” is a moral claim.  It is a claim not shared by those who see life through modern eyes, but it is, unfortunately, one that has a rich history.  Ultimately, those who ascribe to it would argue, all political arrangements are based on this belief.  Even selfishness is a moral position (in its broadest sense), if only shared by a single person.

[3] For those interested, they should look up the Lemon Test, which is what the courts use to determine whether schools are offending the establishment clause.

[4] Through his use of categorical imperatives, Kant’s moral system is not a consequential approach to moral reasoning.

[5] Aristotle, “Aristotle: The politics,” in The Great Political Theories, ed. Michael Curtis (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1961), 87.

EVALUATION OF TRADITIONAL FEDERALISM

This blog has been reviewing the mental construct, traditional federalism. It has presented this theory in positive language.  It has pointed out it served as the dominant theory of governance and politics at the origins of this nation’s republic.  It was dominant from the time of the earliest colonial settlements and through their developments into the original thirteen states.  Further, it was dominant up until the years following the second world war. 

This construct has favored collaborative and communal biases as it promoted social capital and civic humanism.  While this blog favors such biases, it does not promote traditional federalism.  So, what’s wrong with it?  To answer this question, this blog offers the following critique. 

Probably its most fundamental shortcoming is that while it espouses a moral stand that advances the common good, it never, to any level of sophistication, defined what that was either practically or theoretically.  The results were serious and were duplicitous to its own stated values.

Its most egregious offense emanated from its commitment and dependence on local jurisdictions to ensure that public policies were in accordance to those values.  Probably the history of those jurisdictions failing to protect equality serves as a telling demonstration of this shortcoming.

Overall, localism is noted for parochial attitudes and prejudices.  Traditional federalism never laid down the markers to define limits on those dispositions which led to the non-federalist policies of discrimination, bigotry, hate, and, of course, slavery.  Not enough was done to emphasize the qualitative aspects of federalism and too much was directed to its structural elements – mostly, those relating to states’ rights.

In the development of the US, this principle of equality, while initially was to be advanced and protected by the local jurisdictions, were not.  Instead, local jurisdictions were exclusive, segregated arrangements or communities in a mostly or nearly frontier environments – they were expressing the norms of their times.  Of course, nothing illustrated this shortcoming more than the issues that led to the Civil War.

Eventually, albeit slowly, due to the internal logic of republican federalism, the nation became more and more inclusive of diverse people within its communities.[1]  While the march toward greater degrees of inclusion were relentless, they, at times, were anything but smooth. 

Worth noting on this issue:  the fight toward true federalism does not need to take a back seat to any movement in terms of sacrifice and courage by those who engaged in this effort.  From fighting against slavery, for civil rights, or for equal opportunity, many sacrificed much, including for some, their lives.

Another problem with traditional federalism is related to the first one.  It simply did not respect individual rights sufficiently well; it turns out that localism is not just antagonistic of other races, nationalities, or ethnicities, it is also intolerant of what is considered offenses to religious beliefs. 

In effect, traditional federalism did not protect individuals from others imposing their religious beliefs on how a person might choose to live his/her life.  In all truth, the fight against this discrimination was led by those who adopted natural rights views as many local jurisdictions with strong singular religious beliefs judged others as deserving prejudicial treatment.  This was judged by natural rights advocates to be intrusive to individual choice, a central tenet of their preferred view.

Beyond legal sanctions, it was not unusual to confront strongly enforced social restraints on who could be hired for a job, for example, or with whom one could socialize due to behaviors or other attributes associated to a person.  These effective sanctions upheld locally defined mores and values that often originated with religious biases.  The film, The Bridges of Madison County,[2] dramatize these realities as late as the 1950s.

The context of these less than federalist social policies, often backed by law, was the lack of historical evidence of how a federalist republic should conduct its affairs.  While the beliefs were present on American shores from the 1600s, there was a lack of experience in trying to apply its vague precepts.  After all, past experiences of republican governance, before that of the US, were few and far between. 

The ideas that one can now describe as a logical system of ideas were ones the nation sort of evolved into and, in too many cases, reluctantly embraced in their collective thinking.  But this was done without sufficiently fixing the clarity of its meaning.  Yes, the founders had read a great deal about republicanism, but the bulk of such material was theoretical or historical accounts of ancient Greece and Rome.[3]

Often, these earlier Americans were just too busy getting a country started to be able to work out with any rigor the fineries of such an all-inclusive political theory.[4]  There were challenges and they ranged from inconsistency in supporting its basic values to the social tensions caused by human desires for a more self-defined life styles. 

Under such conditions, economic interests – as with slavery – trumped moral suggestions from an ill-defined political theory.  In other cases, it was religious intolerance that promoted unjust treatment of diverging lifestyles.  For the purposes of guiding educational choice of content for a civics curriculum, therefore, a revised version of federalism is needed.  This blog is committed to present that version.

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[1] Michael Lind, The Next American Nation:  The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution, (New York, NY:  The Free Press 1995).

[2] Clint Eastwood (director), The Bridges of Madison County (the film), (Warner Brothers, 1995).

[3] Daniel N. Robinson, American Ideals:  Founding a “Republic of Virtue” [a transcript booklet], (Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2004).

[4] Actually, a more extended evaluation of the years under which traditional federalism held a dominant position, there were many admirable qualities, quite federalist in nature, during the pre-World War II years.  The problem is that the shortcomings were so egregious.

THE INITIAL VIEW AND ITS EVOLUTION

It was federalist thinking, as defined in this blog, that gave the nation a strong initial commitment to communal values.  Included in this construct was a view of government and politics that emphasizes a collective bias which holds that citizens are in a partnership.  Here it is called traditional federalism and this construct provided a strong commitment to a set of ideas and ideals historians call civic humanism.

          Civic humanism is central to the collective nature of federalism.  Federalism is not so much a fancy term for states’ rights or an argument that politics should basically revolve around state issues.  While the use of the term here incorporates a lot of this local focus, it is more concerned with the notion that it is about viewing the body politic as just that:  an organic association in which its component entities are highly interrelated and codependent. 

As explained in an earlier posting, a federalist union is formed by the use of a covenant or compact.  A covenant – the word federalism is derived from the Latin word, foedus, for covenant[1]  – or compact is considered a sacred, written agreement among a people or its representatives who want to form an association to accomplish stated purposes.

This process needs to have the parties, as part of the agreement, accept a set of conditions to accomplish those purposes.  As has been stressed in this blog, to further assure that the parties hold true to the agreement, the signatories swear compliance to its provisions.

          It was also stated previously; certain scholars indicate that natural rights ideas and ideals became dominant during the time of the writing of the 1787 national constitution.  This writer disagrees.  Here is why.  While the Constitutional Convention was a definite step away from a purer federalism, its procedures and outcomes were still well ensconced within its penumbra of ideas. 

Here is Forrest McDonald’s account of this argument:

It is a grave mistake, however, to assume from this [the influence of natural rights thinking] that the Framers … 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.[2]

While one can logically see the adoption of a bill of rights being an indication that Lockean ideas were becoming dominant, one can also see how it also promotes basic ideals of federalism and republicanism.  Central to the notion of federalism, one of its basic values, is equality.  This sense of equality has an inclusive quality to it; all are equal in this common, organic whole of a society. 

Laws that favor one group over others, as laws often do, pose, at least potentially, a threat to the egalitarian character of a polity.  One can argue that the founders had concerns of any emerging class of business people and that that reflected a more fundamental danger or threat toward the organic nature of a polity.  One should remember, that concern was not limited to the Commonwealthmen, but was the concern that spurred an initial attraction to Lockean ideas. 

The founders were taken with a central analogy:  seeing the health of a polity as akin to the health of an organic being.  Bernard Bailyn reports on the views of John Adams:

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.”[3]

This health, it was understood, was negatively affected by abusive laws. 

There are other quotes that could be added, but that is not the intent here.  The intent is to stress that the delegates at the 1787 Convention foresaw a national government functioning within the parameters of federalist values and what historians have come to call “civic humanism.” 

The founders and that generation’s espoused beliefs continued to be supportive of civic humanism, but as a nation its people began to acquire behavioral patterns that further and further, albeit slowly, moved them from this commitment.  More citizens’ behaviors would take on those actions that were aimed at advancing self-interest to the exclusion of those advancing the common good. 

This proceeded to a point which this writer judges to be those years following World War II.  In an informal way, the reader can test this assertion.  He/she could view films shown on Turner Classic Movies and analyze the subtext of feature films and see whether he/she can detect a shift from pre-1945 films and those produced after, say, 1955. 

For example, two films that illustrate this shift, in the opinion of the writer, is the 1930s’ film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town[4] with Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur and the 1948 film, Billy Wilder’s Foreign Affair (also starring Jean Arthur).[5]  The reader is invited to view those films.  The first film glorifies a communal lifestyle and the second questions those very values as demonstrated by the actions of Americans abroad after the war.

Part of the argument here is that a history, summarized below, of continuous challenges to the dominance of traditional federalism eventually were too much.  Traditional federalism finally was replaced by the natural rights construct.  One might ask:  why did it take so long for this to happen or perhaps did it happen before the post war years?  Of course, this is a matter of degree and fixating the turn to a particular year or to small number of years is guess work. 

The writer believes from various sources, including feature films, that it took until the early fifties to finalize this transformation, but even then, the natural rights view was to be further solidified in subsequent years.  Another factor to this development is that the ascendency was not in a straight line, but through ups and downs. 

Through that history one can point to developments that further encouraged the adoption of natural rights thinking.  In previous postings, the blog outlined the effects of the Puritanical era – a period of fire and brimstone theology, – the softening effect of the transcendental philosophic era, the writing and ratification of the 1787 Constitution, and the writing and ratification of the Bill of Rights.  Subsequent phases that advanced natural rights perspective and helped debase federalist views were:

•      The settlement of the West encouraged a rugged individualism that was characterized as being more self-reliant, cruder, more informal, more democratic in an individualistic way, imaginative, and prone to initiating innovations.

•      The Civil War recast of the constitutional structure in which state power was seriously restrained, but the states maintained many of their sovereign powers.  This was due to a general reluctance to legislate those prerogatives away or to adjudicate, in the courts, a diminution of those powers.  Further restraint of state power, but a strengthening of federalist based equality, was the writing and ratification of the post-Civil War amendments to the Constitution and Civil Rights acts.

•      In the late 1800s, an industrialization shift changed the economy in various ways including the rise of large corporations that took hold at the expense of small businesses that lost the ability to viably compete.  While corporations themselves were organized as collectives, they still counted on a strong sense of individual property rights.  Also, the corporation led to a detachment between ownership and the human intercourse of daily operations through the establishment of stock ownership.  In addition, large corporations led the nation to a national economy – to be followed by a global economy – which undermined local viability to determine public policy at those levels.

•      Then, and in response to industrialization, the Progressive Movement and the New Deal followed in which the individual was lost in the maze of large government, but, through the resulting anonymity, found new means of expression which further advanced individualism.  In addition, these measures led the way to a more predominant central government, again at the expense of local government.

•      And most recently, the age of technology, especially television, has taken hold.   As a result, a simplistic sense of reality and materialism has replaced the written forms of communication giving the nation truncated language, one lacking in metaphors, and an expectation of being continuously entertained.[6]

With that summary, this review of what constituted traditional federalism is complete.  A summary account of traditional federalism is as follows:  it is a construct based on moral agreements aimed at promoting the common good; it applies this moral view when considering realistic politics whether under the conditions of an arena with its conflicts or of a public square and its alliances to achieve collaboration; and its aim is to enhance two qualities, social capital and civic humanism.

Yet, this blog does not promote traditional federalism.  So, what’s wrong with traditional federalism?  To answer this question, this blog offers a critique and will share it in the next posting. 

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State, 33, (Spring, 1991):  231-254.

[2] Forrest McDonald, “The Power of Ideas in the Convention,” in Major Problems in American Constitutional History, Volume I:  The Colonial Era through Reconstruction (Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company, 1992), 160-169, 162-163. 

[3] Bernard Bailyn, “The Birth of Republican Constitutionalism,” in Major Problems in American Constitutional History, Volume I:  The Colonial Era through Reconstruction (Lexington, MA:  D. C. Heath and Company, 1992), 91-97, 91.

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[4] Frank Capra (director), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (a film), (Columbia Pictures 1936).

[5] Billy Wilder (director), Foreign Affair (a film), (Paramount Pictures, 1948).

[6] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death:  Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, (New York:  Penguin Books, 1986).