UPDATING CIVIC LITERACY

This posting and ones to follow are a restatement of what has been addressed previously in this blog.  Some of the sentences to come have been provided before but the concern is that other information has been discovered and an update seems appropriate.  The blog has not changed the overall message, civics education is seriously deficient, but some of the evidence needs updating.

          As with what has been reported before, this writer uses the same questions.  He asks:  to what level of knowledge do Americans – beginning with secondary students – command in terms of their government and politics?  How and to what degree do they engage in politics, demonstrate political skills, civility, and law-abiding behavior?  These questions are treated in a meaningful but summary way. This account will begin with the first question, regarding political knowledge or how the relevant literature today identify this knowledge, civic literacy. 

Civic Literacy

          Those who are concerned with the quality of civics education have an advantage.  Most academic fields, when the same evaluative questions are asked, must rely on mostly testing results.  While testing can also shed information about civics, those parties need only look around and judge the quality of citizenship he/she sees among fellow citizens.  So, this account will cite testing results, but also observations by various scholars who study this aspect of human behavior.

          One can cite an array of studies, for example, concerning political knowledge[1] – and the other above listed concerns – but, with a limited number, this account will report what the state of the citizenry is.  It is not so good.  More recent research extends what previous research has discovered but is a bit more nuanced.  Below is a sampling of this more recent research.

Mary Hylton defines this term, civic literacy, as follows:  “a basic understanding of the structure and functioning of government as well as the political process through which decisions are shaped.” [2]  She also includes how people know and understand the underlying values reflected in the US Constitution, including liberty, freedom, and justice.[3] 

The Pew Research Center has reported recent survey information on the state of knowledge and the information reflects how the 2018 midterm elections seem to have affected civic literacy.[4]  The electorate seemed to be informed about relevant current political issues – e.g., the role the Electoral College plays in determining who becomes president – but demonstrated significantly less knowledge over currently unfocused facts concerning the structure of government.

Here is a sampling of what they report:

The public does less well on other questions about the structure of American government.  Overall, 56% know that the number of terms a president can serve is determined by the 22^nd Amendment; 54% can correctly identify the vice president as the person who casts the tie-breaking vote in deadlocked Senate.

          Fewer than half (41%) are aware that 60 votes are needed to end a filibuster in the U. S. Senate, the lowest level of public knowledge on any of the seven questions included in the survey.

Republicans and Democrats perform about equally well on the civic and political knowledge questions included in the survey.  For example, nearly identical shares of Republicans and Republican leaners (87%) and Democrats and Democratic leaners (86%) know that the First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech.  There [are] no significant divides between Republicans and Democrats on most questions and 4 percentage points is the most that separates the two groups on any single item (80% of Republicans can correctly identify the Electoral College, compared with 76% of Democrats).[5]

Perhaps these numbers reflect the virulence that certain political questions seem to have in current popular consciousness.  The election of Trump to the presidency, one could argue, has upped public concerns – as illustrated by the vast demonstrations the nation has witnessed since the 2016 election. 

A look at the recent past might provide a better view of political knowledge although one can detect by this 2018 Pew report that whatever knowledge is shared by the American public seems to be targeted on what seems most relevant to the Trump era politics and not an overall knowledge of the American government.

Reportage, as recently as 2016, this writer believes portrays a more accurate view of American civic literacy.  That is, the level of civic literacy is so low that it had been widely reported in the press.  For example, a Boston Globe article cites an Annenberg Public Policy Center study which reports:

·        only 36% of American adults could name the three branches of the central government;

·        almost 75% didn’t know it takes two-thirds in each house of Congress to override a presidential veto;

·        only 38% could correctly identify which political party controls either house of Congress; and

·        25% believe that Congress can override a 5-4 Supreme Court decision.[6] 

These are considered reflecting basic governmental information; the type news reports assume readers or listeners know.

What of young Americans; does the next upcoming generation give one hope for a better-informed electorate?  The results of a 2010 exam, given by the National Center for Educational Statistics group, report only 24% of high school seniors scoring at a proficient or advanced level (64% scored at or above basic level).[7]  This finding, with a bit of improvement, was mostly mirrored in the testing of college students.[8]  The ISI study summary states:

Unfortunately, the results of ISI's past civic literacy research does not inspire confidence that our institutions of higher learning are living up to their educative and civic responsibilities, responsibilities that almost all American colleges recognize as critical to their overall public missions.[9]

One issue often not included in reporting these deficiencies is the fact the currently the study of civics itself has been jettisoned from the nation’s curriculum.  At this time, American schools have dropped or otherwise not included civics in their offerings.  American history is still generally offered, but civics as a separate course is offered only in one of three schools nationally.[10]

Civic literacy, as a concept, relates to what the questions above refer to as political knowledge and political skills.  According to a site, Urban Agenda, civic literacy means:  “… the knowledge of how to actively participate and initiate change in your community and the greater society. It is the foundation by which a democratic society functions … a means to create avenues for peaceful change.”[11]  If one states it that way, it sounds important – and it is.

          Knowledge and skills are two important aspects of citizenship, but before they become utilized, one needs to be motivated to use them.  One such motivator is social empathy – more closely looked at in a future posting.  Yes, acquiring and using political knowledge and skills can be motivated by other concerns, some might be very self-centered.  But in terms of improving civic literacy, one needs to first care about the societal conditions around him or her.

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[1] “Executive Summary of the Results of the Latest Administration of Assessment Test on Civic Knowledge.” National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 2006, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/itmrls AND  James G. Gimpel, J. Celeste Lay, and Jason E. Schuknecht, Cultivating Democracy: Civic Environments and Political Socialization in America (Washington, DC:  Brookings Institution Press, 2003) AND “Report on Survey Conducted by NASS on Americans’ Knowledge of Political System,” National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), 1999, http://www.nass.org/  (since originally accessed, the report has been taken down) AND “Executive Summary of the Results of the Latest Administration of Assessment Test on Civic Knowledge,” NAEP AND Andrea Neal, “Disengaged:  We Have Failed at Civic Education,”  Indianapolis Star, November 2, 2017, accessed November 6, 2017, https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2017/11/02/andrea-neal-weve-failed-civic-education/826756001/ AND Pew Research, “How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life,” Center Political Polarization in the American Public, June 12, 2014, accessed on February 21, 2017,  http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/.

[2] Mary E. Hylton, “Civic Engagement and Civic Literacy among Social Work Students: Where Do We Stand?,” Journal of Policy Practice, vol. 14, 3-4, 2015, 292-307, (doi:10.1080/15588742.2015.1004396), 296.

[3] Mary E. Hylton, “Civic engagement and civic literacy among social work students: Where do we stand?”

[4] “Political Engagement, Knowledge and the Midterms,” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2018, accessed April 8, 2019, https://www.people-press.org/2018/04/26/10-political-engagement-knowledge-and-the-midterms/ .

[5] Ibid.

[6] “Americans’ Knowledge of the Branches of Government Is Declining,” Annenberg Public Policy Center, September 13, 2016, accessed May 14, 2018, https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-knowledge-of-the-branches-of-government-is-declining/ .

[7] National Center for Education Statistics, The Nation’s Report Card:  Civics 2010 (Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2011), (NCES 2011-466), accessed May 14, 2018, http://nces. ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2010/2011466.pdf .

[8] Association of American Colleges and Universities, A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future (2012), accessed May 14, 2018, https://www.aacu.org/crucible AND Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Enlightened Citizenship: How Civic Knowledge Trumps a College Degree in Promoting Active Civic Engagement, 2011, accessed May 15, 2018, https://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2011/summary_summary.html [a summary account], AND Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, “Americans Know Surprisingly Little about Their Government, Survey Finds,” 2014, accessed May 15, 2018, https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-know-surprisingly-little-about-their-government-survey-finds/.

[9] Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Enlightened Citizenship: How Civic Knowledge Trumps a College Degree in Promoting Active Civic Engagement, November 1, 2011, accessed April 9, 2019, https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/enlightened-citizenship-how-civic-knowledge-trumps-a-college-degree-in-promoting-active-civic-engagement .

[10] Campbell Streator and Maria Yuan, “Young Americans Are Politically Engaged.  They Need to Be Civically Educated.”  Real Clear Policy, February 27, 2019, accessed April 8, 2019, https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2019/02/27/young_americans_are_politically_engaged_they_need_to_be_civically_educated_111079.html .

[11] Urban Agenda, accessed May 7, 2018, http://www.urbanagenda.wayne.edu/whatiscl.htm .

CAN NATURAL RIGHTS APPEASE HUMAN NATURE?

Reviewing the literature of natural rights advocates, one finds recurring themes; e.g., capitalism has provided a miraculous economic boom.  That boom, in turn, has advanced the well-being of all who live in a capitalist nation.  Or stated another way, capitalism has found a way for people – either at the individual level or at the group/organizational level – to cooperate and coordinate themselves and others to do those things necessary to first establish and then maintain a modern life.  This is no small accomplishment. 

Also, in those accounts there are recurring descriptions of human nature as conniving, self-centered, and readily relying on violence, brutalization, and other such means to acquire immediate desires.  A prime message is that because human nature is what it is, a way to direct such tendencies needed to be discovered so that the advancements one associates with modern life could have been attained.  And that basically refers to developing free markets.

One such work is offered by Jonah Goldberg in his work describing the formulation of The Miracle – aka, capitalist economies.[1]  He not only provides a description of how human nature exhibited itself before the advent of capitalism, but also issues a warning that capitalism is facing challenges that might lead to its demise. 

What constitutes the danger?  Basically, the still present anti-social nature humans possess finds ways to express itself under various guises; ones that are amenable to a modern perspective but are simply ways for misguided or corrupt individuals to re-establish a more brutish social landscape.  How?  By either direct methods or through programs that undo free market arrangements.

These programs undermine, to various degrees, the ability of the individual to exercise his/her freedom with either straight forward coercion or through government action to meet the wants of some “deserving” faction or interest group.  Whatever the rationale, the bottom line is that such efforts go contrary to the basic interactive – invisible hand – operations upon which free markets function. 

Along with the economic aspects of this development, there are the political ones as well.  Since, the Western nations, through a variety of programs, have betrayed basic attributes of a natural rights political construct, the political liberties/freedoms of people are in high jeopardy and one can expect that an end to “The Miracle” is a real outcome as the abuses to freedoms continue to pile up. 

There are a lot of signs and developments that point to this demise – too many to list here, but one is the rise of the bureaucratic state.  Goldberg pinpoints the beginning of this trend in the US to the Woodrow Wilson progressive administration, but it was later institutionalized during the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt.

But before describing this danger further, this writer likes to point out what to him is an obvious miss use of a term.  Goldberg calls his view of a desired sense of rights as natural rights – what this blog describes as the extreme sense of individual rights.  But Goldberg uses the term after describing the anti-social nature a natural person is apt to exhibit once any coercive force that keeps human nature under control is compromised. 

It reminds one of the scenes, in Gone with the Wind, when the southern soldiers are withdrawn from Atlanta and Rhett Butler knowingly says, in effect, all hell is about to let loose.  Goldberg admits early in his work – the one cited here – that any capitalist society needs to socialize its members to hold and believe in moral precepts that deem extreme selfishness as sinful.  

Yet, natural rights cares little about such things; what is needed is some extra-theoretical basis, such as religion or some belief in a narrative, that provides a reason to place human nature at bay.  So, is the term, natural rights, the best word or sense of what should be sought?  Of course, this blog has offered another perspective concerning rights; i.e., federal rights.

Goldberg does hold that without respecting natural rights, corrupt factors start taking hold.  The forces of nature are constantly eroding what un-natural capitalist norms get people to do.  At its heart, those norms can do that by establishing win-win interactions.  Yet, because segments who really don’t buy in, but instead seek immediate win-lose advantages – such as exploiting tribalistic or aristocratic or bureaucratic arrangements to their advantages – they unleash corruption that begin to undermine individual freedom.

For example, the US bureaucracy, according to Goldberg, has – as the often-cited popular moniker indicates – truly become the fourth branch of government.  It is not elected, but it does, through regulations and judication of regulations, enact laws to which citizens are subject.  They also tax – using the term, fees – without Congressional authorization.  This, on the face of it, is unconstitutional.

Elements of the bureaucracy exist, according to their legislative mandates, to provide for perceived needs of segments of the population.  While the rationales of the various departments or agencies have ultraistic aims, they are made up of staffs that are “naturally” seeking their own selfish interests – apparently healthy salaries and protected job security are not enough to solicit from those workforces the intended outcomes.  One senses that the only answer to this problem is that government cannot provide such services without undermining individual freedom.

Goldberg offers the Veterans Administration as his example.  He relates such an example as just a modern version of an aristocratic-style entity that uses, what has been generally deemed to be a legitimate group, to further their self-serving aims.  The aristocracies of the Middle Ages used religion, modern bureaucracy, in the case of the VA, uses a common sense of debt to those who have served the nation in the armed forces to provide a government service outside the discipline of a market arrangement. 

Such misguided efforts are primed to become corrupting organizations that erode the individualist basis for eliciting desired behaviors upon which modern society is based.  Of course, this posting can only skim the elements of the argument.  Federation theory is at odds with this argument.  And that opposition has many levels.  For one, markets fail to meet all wanted or needed outcomes. 

Federation theory ascribes to markets the role of being the primary means to provide those goods and services by which a federated populace can be established and maintained.  But markets are not always successful, and keeping a federated populace is primary to any economic arrangement.  When markets fail and volunteerism is not enough, then government is called upon to meet those requirements.  One such requirement is viable health care and a thankful nation is wise to provide it to those who served it.

This writer will not pass judgement on the VA – he simply does not know enough about that government program.  But he does believe that generally government services are good, and they hire committed people who do good work.  To bolster that claim of competency, the reader is directed to read Michael Lewis’ work, The Fifth Risk.[2]  This writer will address Lewis’ findings in future postings.

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[1] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).

[2] Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2018).

INTRODUCING THE “GRASS ROOT” APPROACH

The next topic this blog will entertain is an approach to political confrontation, the approach of “grass root” politics.  The blog could just as easily use the terms civic or political engagement, but however it is called, this blog views such engagement in a positive light.  As for a main source of authoritative information, future postings will rely on a book by Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t.[1] 

While such behaviors – those associated with political engagement – on the part of typical citizens does not equate to the acts of a political activist, it does mirror to some meaningful level what Tocqueville describes (and was just cited in the previous posting of this blog).  That is a citizenry involved in “a confused clamour [which was, in the 1830s,] … heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand[ing] the immediate satisfaction of their social wants.”[2] 

What a federated citizen does, by definition, is keep up with what is going in terms of government, understand his/her interests in that activity, understand how those activities affect his/her community, region (the state), and the nation, and determine, if necessary, how he/she will engage with those affected.  This should be part of a citizen’s life and accommodated into what else is happening in that life – work, parenting, church going, etc.

What Crutchfield does is convey qualitative research findings – emanating from her team of researchers – on what has been effective in terms of grass roots activities.  She also indicates what has not been effective.  This blog will convey some of those findings that are deemed as possibly useful to civics teachers that have decided their instructional plans should encourage that type activity. 

In doing so, Crutchfield highlights some successful national engagement movements – such as the anti-smoking effort – and some that to this date have not been successful – for example, efforts to regulate fire-arms.  She gives a good picture of what works and what doesn’t.

As what one would expect, the details can become of bit complex and even counterintuitive.  But before getting into some of these factors and narratives which make up these efforts, some overall information is useful.  And that information, provided in the Forward of Crutchfield’s book, is, in the opinion of this writer, highly agreeable with what this blog’s main goal is.

The goal is to convince civics teachers to adopt federation theory in guiding their curricular choices.  So, whatever advances the adoption of federation theory – parent support, curricular officials’ decisions, school administrators’ policies, etc. – is welcomed and that includes any findings that indicate federation theory is practical.  Crutchfield provides that evidence.

          Here, in part, is what that Forward has to say: 

[Crutchfield] shows us how networks and coalitions are critical to success.  No single organization is big enough or wealthy enough to tackle huge social and environmental problems alone.  Strategic partnerships and alliances across sectors are necessary for change.  This requires patience, skill, and ego adjustment … Sometimes – or, rather, oftentimes – it takes incredible optimism to fight these battles.[3]

Bill Novelli, the writer of these words, goes on to share some more overall information.

          He emphasizes that many of the change efforts that captures the attention of the mass media – the efforts the general populous knows about – really have to do with transformative change.  The efforts must change emotional positions on the part of people.  People, for example, had to change their collective and individual feelings about smoking. 

One factor, this writer believes, led to changes in smoking policy was the effectively communicated message that secondhand smoke affected innocent by-standers’ health.  This triggered in many an emotional response.  It related to the sense, “I am being unjustly harmed.”  But more is needed to be triggered in peoples’ feelings than what one single warning shot offers to have the vast response that eventually was evoked in that confrontation.

Another factor, as in the case of smoking, attacking specific types of people, e.g., cigarette executives, is effective.  There are still anti-smoking ads that depicts those executives as puppet characters mocking the health of cigarette victims and their concerns over the detrimental effects of smoking.  In one ad, the executives equate smokers with test rats.  That obviously is meant to arouse emotions and, given their repetitive broadcast, probably are found to be effective.

Further, Crutchfield brings up a factor that is probably not even thought of by many who support what is usually considered left-of-center movements.  That factor is the recruitment of large corporations that might find the effort or movement worth supporting.  Why would they?  Because what is being sought might initiate a new market or a new product line.  If not, it might augment what is otherwise a struggling market or product. 

As with the other above factors, some investigating can first identify such links and, in addition, can be nurtured and exploited.  Large corporations can bring significant resources – money, influence, expertise – that can prove to be the difference in a given political confrontation.

And finally – in terms of this introduction – rethinking leadership and follow-ship might assist a grass root effort.  Many participants, who are considered followers, through a reconceptualization of roles, can be viewed as leaders.

… [E]mphasis on leadership cannot be overstated.  Leaders make the difference in social movements, as in most human endeavors.  But [Crutchfield’s] finding – and our lesson – is that good leaders exist throughout a movement.  You don’t have to be the woman or man at the top to be a leader.  You can lead from the front, the middle, or the back of the parade.[4]

Novelli shares Colin Powell’s point:  many workers or participants in an organization follow those who do not have leadership positions or authority.  And commonly, these leaders provide needed direction and count on their gravitas to solicit the willing compliance of other participants.  There are “leader-less” organizations and “leader-led” organizations, but what is ideal is a “leaderful” organization. 

And by abiding by these factors, an organization can have the energy to not only increase the probability for success but remind all citizens that these efforts will always be a human concern.  Why?  Because the forces of entropy (those corrupt forces) are/will always be with a people – that’s one aspect of life that is natural to the human condition.[5]

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[1] Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t (Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2018).

[2] Alexi de Tocqueville, “Political Structure of Democracy,” in Alexis de Tocqueville:  On Democracy, Revolution, and Society, eds. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (Chicago, IL:  Chicago University Press, 1980/1835), 78-101, 78-79.

[3] Bill Novelli, “Forward,”  In Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t (Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2018), ix (Kindle edition).

[4] Leslie R. Crutchfield, How Change Happens:  Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t, xi (Kindle edition).

[5] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).

TALKING: GOOD OR BAD?

This blog has various writers it recurrently cites; but it has a special place of honor for Alexi de Tocqueville – along with Daniel J. Elazar.  Some time ago, it included in an earlier posting, an extended quote from Tocqueville.  The quote is from his famous “travel log” of a visit to America in the 1830s.  Here is part of that citation:

It is not impossible to form an imaginary picture of the surpassing liberty which the Americans enjoy; some idea may likewise be formed of the extreme equality which subsists amongst them.  But the political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood.  No sooner do you set foot upon the American soil than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused clamour is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the immediate satisfaction of their social wants … Meetings are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation of the line of conduct pursued by the Government, whilst in other assemblies the citizens salute the authorities of the day as the fathers of their country … This feeling pervades the most trifling habits of life; even the women frequently attend public meetings, and listen to political harangues as a recreation after their household labours.  Debating clubs are to a certain extent a substitute for theatrical entertainments.  An American cannot converse, but he can discuss; and when he attempts to talk he falls into a dissertation.  He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to warm in the course of the discussion, he will infallibly say “Gentlemen,” to the person with whom he is conversing.[1]

This writer described this description of a people as the best example of a people being federated among themselves, he has ever read.

          One can characterize these citizens as readily disposed to talking to each other.  This dialoguing helped the writer come up with an instructional approach, again, described previously in an earlier posting, “Some Generic Elements of Debate.”[2]  The point here is that the use of federation theory to guide civics instruction calls on students to talk and talk a lot – just like Americans did in the 1830s.

          It seems that a natural rights guru thinks differently.  Robert Greene, in his best-selling book, The 48 Laws of Power, has the following advice:

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control.  Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.  Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less.  The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.[3]

Greene offers three main examples supporting his advice, one non-example, a c. 450 BC, Roman warrior, Coriolanus, and two positive examples, King Louis XIV of France, and Andy Warhol, the twentieth-century artist.

          Coriolanus, who had spent the bulk of his career engaging in battles away from Rome, finally decided to venture into Roman politics and submitted himself to an election for consul (the highest position of the Roman Republic).  He didn’t win and almost talked himself into being executed by what he had to say in a couple of speeches – verbal attacks on the common folk.  Without these outbursts, historians, according to Greene, believe he would have won easily.

          King Louis often said nothing but “I shall see” to his ministers and, by doing so, kept them wondering and anxious as to what he was going to do.  Their imbalance weakened them and strengthened Louis.  How?  The advisors, to fill in the silence, blabbed on and revealed more about themselves to their detriment.  Oh yes, Louis is also famous for one other thing he said, “L’etat, c’est moi” (“I am the state”).

          And finally, Andy Warhol followed the example of another artist, Marcel Duchamp, “who realized early on that the less he said about his work, the more people talked about it.  And the more they talked, the more valuable his work became.”[4]  Consequently, Warhol was noted more for his glare into a camera lens than any wisdom uttered from his mouth.

          Of course, Greene is writing for the benefit of businessmen who want to become more powerful and, therefore, richer.  Tocqueville wanted to describe what was becoming a vibrant republic that was guided among its citizens by a view of governance and politics; that being federalism.  The claim here is:  civics teachers are truer to their responsibilities if they use Tocqueville, instead of Greene, to guide their efforts in the classroom.

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[1] Alexi de Tocqueville, “Political Structure of Democracy,” in Alexis de Tocqueville:  On Democracy, Revolution, and Society, eds. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (Chicago, IL:  Chicago University Press, 1980/1835), 78-101, 78-79.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Some Generic Elements of Debate,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, October 3, 2017, accessed March 28, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2017/10/some-generic-elements-of-debates.html .

[3] Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power.  (New York, NY:  Penguin Books, 1998), 31.

[4] Ibid., 35.

EXCITEMENT OR DRUDGERY?

What constitutes bad behavior?  Can one point to some sort of behavior and say, yes, people should not behave that way?  How about violence?  Is violence immoral, per se?  The biologist, Robert Sapolski,[1] cites violence as an example of a behavior one thinks as immoral, but upon reflection, recognizes that people pay to see it – prize fighting, cage fighting, American style football, etc. – and judge it to be not only good, but a source of honor.

          Yes, there is, along with good violence, bad violence.  Generally, the bad type includes those instances when violent acts, outside competitive arenas, hurt other people.  Even there, there are exceptions – violence conducted in self-defense – but such violent acts should be avoided. There are various social theories or models that claim humans are prone to violence.  Even Sigmund Freud, in his model, states violence or aggression to be a basic human drive.  Sapolski is interested in the biology involved with this behavior, suggesting there is a natural angle to violence.

          He supports that claim; that there is a natural basis for human violence, aggression, and competition.  Of course, any cursory review of history would find recurring instances of violence.  The wars, the violent crimes, the domestic abuse, and the school yard bullying seem to plague generation after generation.  There is no hope that a future will find the way to avoid such events.

          Another writer, Jonah Goldberg,[2] makes the argument that this bent toward violence and aggression is the natural disposition people have for each other, particularly if the perpetrator sees the victim as being a “them,” a member of another group.  That other group can be another family, another neighborhood, another state, another country, another race, another class, another religion, on and on.  He attributes the establishment of institutional peace as “The Miracle;” the miracle emanating from the development of capitalism – it allowed for win-win interactions between and among humans.

          One person has an apple and wants money; another person has money and wants an apple.  Capitalism allows an exchange – win-win – instead of either party – usually the bigger party – slapping the other to attain either the money or the apple wanted – win-lose.  That institutional means – which usually takes on a much more complex form – was extensively developed in the 1700s.  Yes, there was trade before, but during that century trade, production, and distribution took on its modern form and that form is known as capitalism.

But there is another side to that coin.  People hurt one another, but they also care for one another and that care need not be based on a person being part of the “us.”  And writers from the same 1700s, such as Francis Hutchinson and Thomas Reid, saw this inclination as also being natural.  Original versions of natural rights or natural liberty were based on an ability or freedom to pursue this “natural” disposition. 

Helping others was/is recognized as causing good feelings.  Hence, and from another eighteenth century writer, John Locke, one can determine people will seek that pleasure, since all behavior is motivated by the seeking of pleasure.  One can postulate, that more “friendly” disposition leads to the civility or, at least, civic behavior that allows markets to exist and flourish.

This writer is a former faculty member at a state university.  That tenure had the opportunity of hearing the then provost of the university, a natural scientist by training, say that the social sciences should count more on natural science literature.  He reported on just reading some social science study that made some claim that was standard fare in the biological field.  His point:  any cursory review of that biological literature would have already made the point being “discovered” in the study.

Well, this writer has taken the bait and his biological guru – given his interests – is Sapolski.  And what does that biologist have to convey given the above topic?  Here is a sampling:

[Y]ou can’t begin to understand things like aggression, competition, cooperation, and empathy without biology … But just as important, second, you’re just as much up the creek if you rely only on biology … [T]hird point … it actually makes no sense to distinguish between aspects of a behavior that are “biological” and those that would be described as, say, “psychological” or “cultural.”  Utterly interwind … [H]uman behavior … is indeed a mess, a subject involving brain chemistry, hormones, sensory cues, prenatal environment, early experience, genes, both biological and cultural evolution, and ecological pressures, among other things.[3]

Yes, a mess indeed, but one that needs to be studied.  For some, this is not a drudgery, but an exciting adventure.  Civics’ teacher-preparation programs should ask of those who are about to enter the profession of teaching secondary students such concerns:  Does this stuff excite you?

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[1] Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave:  The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (New York, NY:  Penguin Press, 2017).

[2] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).

[3] Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave:  The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, 4-5 (Kindle edition).  Emphasis in the original.