BELIEVING WHAT ONE WANTS, PART I

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

 

This blogger, before addressing the general challenges civics teachers face regarding political values and how they play out in the classroom, wishes to remind the reader what this blog’s goal is in the current set of postings.  That goal is to provide an explanation of how a natural rights political culture affects federalist aims a teacher might hold. 

So, this posting in a summary way, reviews some of the basic moral claims that a natural rights political culture promotes.  To begin, part and parcel of a dominant political view is to identify what it holds to be moral when it comes to political calculations.  This is especially important when the issues at hand are not so easily discerned as to what people should do on a moral basis.  Those types of concerns pop up all the time and not just politicians or elected officials need to address them, but the average citizen needs to do so as well.

          And when it comes to the typical situations that Americans face, two political values tend to be paramount in such calculations.  That is the values of liberty and equality.  It seems that these two concerns come to the fore most often among the array of issues that policy makers consider.  And usually a good deal of contention characterizes those deliberations.

For example, policies over welfare or health care illustrate the point.  People who support government involvement tend to cite equality as their relevant concern; while those who oppose government action look to liberty to bolster their claims.  And one can divide these fights, to some degree, between those who hold natural rights positions – as in everyone is responsible for his/her own fate – and those who hold onto more communal responses that seem to count on federalist values – as in “we’re all in this together.”

Natural rights’ rationales advocate against communal responses especially, if by communal, one means government action – along with its coercive abilities.  After all, government can put people in jail.  They support their contentions with the belief that counts on people being responsible for their own fates and any reliance on government, among other negative consequences, undermines people meeting their responsibilities. 

Another important example in which natural rights advocates repeatedly express their concerns is over government regulations of businesses.  They generally argue that such government interference only hurts economic growth and, therefore, hurts everyone.  This is claimed despite evidence to the contrary assuming regulations are within reasonable boundaries.[1]

On an emotional-moral level, what advocates seem to stress is the near sanctity of the individual.  It is he/she whose sense of worth motivates him/her to accomplish good or even great things.  One is reminded of the novel or movie, The Fountainhead,[2] originally written by Ayn Rand.  In that story, the main character, Howard Roark, is brought to trial for dynamiting a building project that he designed as its architect.  This designing was done surreptitiously, and the project went astray from his design.  At trial, in his only statement of defense, he states he was deprived of his agreed upon basis for doing the project – that his design not be changed.

In his speech he gives probably the most cogent rationale for the natural rights view.  Here is a taste of that testimony:

The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed.  He places relations first.  He declares that man exists in order to serve others.  He preaches altruism.

          Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

No man can live for another.  He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body.  But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and versed the base of mankind’s moral principles.  Men have taught every precept that destroys the creator.  Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent.  He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves.  The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption.  It is impossible in concept.  The nearest approach to it in reality – the man who lives to serve others – is the slave.  If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit?  The conquered slave has a vestige of honor.  He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil.  But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures.  He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love.  But this is essence of altruism.[3]

But as for this view as an overall bias, the point to draw is that it holds a particular sense of liberty or, as it is called, natural liberty.  Succinctly, that form of liberty holds that people has the right to determine one’s values and beliefs and to be able to behave accordingly (short of interfering with others to do likewise).  A “true believer” of this construct holds natural liberty as his/her ultimate or trump value.  Or stated another way, for him/her, he/she could claim:  “Give me liberty or give me death.” 

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[1]See Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times (New York, NY:  Public Affairs, 2019).

[2] Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (Indianapolis, IN:  Bobbs-Merrill, 1943) AND King Vidor (director), The Fountainhead (the film), Warner Brothers, 1949.

[3] “Howard Roark’s Courtroom Speech,” Work the System, n.d., accessed September 29, 2020, https://www.workthesystem.com/getting-it/howard-roarks-courtroom-speech/ .

REGARDING JUSTICE AND CIVIL SOCIETY

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

 

This blog makes a distinction between how civics’ subject matter is presented in American classrooms and how it should be presented.  How it is presented reflects the guidance that the natural rights perspective promotes.  This blog, on the other hand, promotes the guidance that federation theory provides. 

Naturally, federation theory promotes a federalist view about how reality relating to governance and politics should be conceptualized.  If utilized, lessons would take on a different look from what is common today.  For example, educators might take on the following processes:

·       superimpose a different substantive structure on the subject matter (e.g., place more emphasis on local governance),

·       identify conducive instructional approaches (e.g., have students investigate or be told about local political activities), and

·       place in priority what federalism highlights (e.g., the promotion of civil qualities within local environments such as the school site). 

Overall, federation theory attempts to assist educators in their efforts to promote good citizenship in ways that reflect its ideals.

          But in terms of guiding the work of political scientists, there is apart from the pedagogical view of federation theory another related construct, federal theory.  And to see what distinguishes the two, one might consider the basic aims of political scientists.  To that end, Daniel Elazar identifies three reasons for why political scientists do what they do. 

The purposes or aims of those academics are to pursue the quality of justice, to discover generalizable factors that correlate with various political actions, and to promote a civil society.  Elazar points out that meeting the first two aims helps meet the third.  He relates federalism to “choice” polities by offering it a special character. [1]  That is a character reflecting the qualities of collaboration, community, and mutuality.

          To look at the distinction between the guidance of federal theory and that of the natural rights theory, the former does not look at only the ubiquitous transactional nature of politics.  It extends the interest of researchers to those factors that advance or strengthens normative factors which support a federated partnership that is characterized by the above qualities. 

And this distinction does not look at only what aspects of political reality should be studied, but also the methods used in that study.  Given the almost exclusive transactional lenses political scientists of the natural rights school use, their attention is primarily fixed on the behaviors of political actors.  It is behaviors that have the highest range of observable “choices” upon which political actors act.  Therefore, those researchers mostly “count” on behavioral studies that, it turns out, rely heavily on statistical analysis.

While this more restricted view of political science is prevalent in academia, the fact remains that the American political system is still foundationally based on a compact-al agreement or agreements if one also includes the constitutions of the various states.  And these agreements entail factors that are not always, at least directly or satisfactorily, analyzed through the measurements of behaviors.  For example, this blog’s treatment of the holistic nature of maturation points out that shortcoming.[2]

Research, that sets out to approach the aims Elazar points out, needs to address more than self-defined ambitions.  Substantively, such research needs to look beyond reductionist factors, but seeks methods that address broad, holistic conditions.  And this demands methods that take on broader landscapes than targeted cause and effect relationships.  Yes, those relationships, when proved to be powerful, are important and should be discovered, but more is involved.  Federal theory assists political scientists who wish to pursue grander questions over justice and civility.

One would expect, in a polity where these basic federalist characteristics are well ensconced, that the characteristics or attributes would be part and parcel of the nation’s cultural norms.  As a consequence, the resulting legislated laws of such a system would be ideally well-thought out so as to not jeopardize or undermine the integrity of each partner.  But more is involved. 

A federated arrangement insists that there exists an expectation that citizens take on a proactive posture in the polity’s governance.  This, in other words, would become (and was according to Tocqueville the case in the US of the 1830s) integral to its political culture.  And to the extent it is not, that would indicate how out of favor federalist thinking has become.

On the surface, a federalist mode of behavior and behavior guided by the natural rights view might very well appear the same.  In each, citizens can go about their business basically doing what they want.  But upon a closer look, federated activity seeks to advance the interests of the commonwealth since the citizenry is more apt to seek those ends – at least in the ideal and to a meaningful degree in how those citizens actually act. 

For that to be the case, those citizens need to be disposed to options that consider other than their self-defined interests.  This might very well result in government policies imposing costs on the citizenry, often in the form of higher taxes or other obligations.  And to boot, fulfillment of such support will be more efficient since voluntary compliance would usually be more “normal” and of less cost. 

But as repeatedly noted in this blog, Americans do not primarily ascribe to federation theory.  Instead they predominately hold unto the natural rights perspective.  Consequently, for example, counting on citizens to wear masks during a pandemic becomes problematic.  And that reality affects how Americans define their public morality.  Accordingly, this blog will in the next posting look into the natural rights view of good and bad, right or wrong.   

Why is this a concern?  Since the natural rights view leaves moral questions to the individual – except for its insistence in promoting and protecting the value of natural liberty – that construct maintains a neutrality to almost all other moral precepts.  As such, especially in terms of civics education and its aim to promote good citizenship, how this “sovereign” individual views moral concerns becomes an important aspect of that rubric, good citizenship.

Interested parties might ask of a natural rights guided, civics curriculum:  can one observe where those schools operate, trends in how people make moral choices?  Do the ways people make those choices affect the common welfare?  Do those civics classrooms even address moral questions and, if they do, what strategies do they employ?  Questions such as these will guide what follows in subsequent postings.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

[2] See Philip Selznick’s treatment of Hegal’s ideas concerning maturation.  Selznick, Philip, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

DEVELOPMENTAL CONCERNS

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

Elsewhere, this writer has reviewed a view of America’s past and makes the claim the nation, through most of its history, has held federalism as its dominant view of governance and politics.[1]  But it is the contention of this writer that since World War II, the nation has looked, most predominately, to the natural rights construct for that guidance. 

That occurred after the political culture was subjected to a sort of competition between the two constructs in which federalism through the years lost influence and natural rights gained influence – natural rights finally won dominance in the years after World War II and that dominance has grown in the subsequent years.

          An additional word concerning that competition should be added:  that is, that competition highlighted the vying values between representative democracy – majority rule – and the protection of individual rights.  Through the years, those who were put in charge of making the relevant policy decisions were, to varying degrees, affected by this tension.  They continuously asked:  should policy reflect what the majority, through legislative representation, wishes or should the concern over individual rights be a significant check on what legislative bodies can do?

          Prior to the twentieth century, one can say the bias was toward legislative discretion and even with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment that bias still held sway.[2]  But once the century turned, starting roughly with the case, Lochner v. New York,[3] 1905, concerning business interests and property rights, the courts began to tilt the scale of justice toward individual rights.  And then came the Warren Court (1953-1969) that blew open the concern for individual rights over majority rule in many areas of jurisprudence.

          Those areas included criminal defendant rights, civil rights (especially those concerning race and gender), cultural expressions, and others.  Of particular note, were issues relating to exclusionary legislation that aimed at depriving individuals and groups from equal access to opportunities and benefits.  And this was, to those favoring the turn, a positive aspect of the natural rights view. 

This writer also welcomes that turn since he judges the many aspects of parochial/traditional federalism, the version that was dominant before World War II, was ironically not as federalist in many important aspects as its basic beliefs would indicate.  That included its definition of who was entitled to be included. 

In the history of the nation, more various European nationalities – not always smoothly – were included in the partnership.  But what seemed to be the limits to such inclusion were the prejudicial beliefs and attitudes toward nonwhite people.  Predominately, the antagonism was aimed at groups of African, Asian, and people of indigenous groups background.  Race was, and still is to a meaningful degree, the bugaboo of American history.

          But can one have a truer version of federalism, one that does not depend on nationalities, race, or other arbitrary limitations?  That would be a federalism that counts on individuals taking on a partnership role that was established by the nation’s and the various states’ constitutions.  This writer believes one can and that version of federalism can be called liberated federalism.  It adopts the basic notion of “foedus” (the Latin term from which “federalism” is derived) or being leagued with fellow citizens through its founding compact, the US Constitution.[4] 

Or stated more commonly, agreeing to being in a sacred partnership.  And under that association, one can consider the natural rights’ judgement that government interference (with its authoritative power) tends to be immoral, seems foreign.  Yes, even a federated government, in structure and process, might be abusive, and it would not be acceptable if it abuses federalist values – one being the dignity of each individual making up the partnership.

But if the legislature does not abuse that and the other federalist values, it has a legitimate role in advancing the common good which along with federal liberty, includes efforts to establishing and maintaining a regulated equality.[5]  A current viable example of this debate or tension is the nation’s efforts to meet the challenge of providing medical care for all citizens. 

And these tensions are played out in schools as well as in any social arrangement dotting the American scene; but it should be formally addressed in the nation’s civics classrooms.  It – majority rule vs. individual rights – should garner an extensive look in civics lesson as those classes shift their concerns to the nation’s political culture.  Those lessons should definitely focus on the relevant contributions that political science provides – how that relevant academic field sees the above issues. 

And that is where this blog will take up this topic in the next posting, but one more word before closing this one.  One should remember that the goals of political scientists do not include making the job of civics teachers any easier.  Their aim is to advance political knowledge, not to teach it to secondary students.

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[1] That would be previous postings but instead of listing a set of those postings, the reader can get a sufficient overview from Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020) AND, more formally, Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966) AND Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

[2] Even after the Civil War and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Slaughterhouse decisions upheld local ordinances that protected New Orleans’ establishment of a slaughterhouse monopoly at the expense of competing butchers.  This case illustrates the bias toward representative, law-making bodies over the interests of individual citizens.  One can interpret that bias as one reflecting a more federalist view.

[3] “Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905),” Justia, US Supreme Court, 198, n.d, accessed September 21, 2020, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/198/45/ .

[4] Admittedly, this writer is simplifying things a bit.  The initial segregation against “foreign” elements entering the partnership reflected the fact that federal leaguing first gained favor as it grew from religious practices among Protestant, Puritanical, congregational practices.  They formed their church-based communities through the utilization of covenants.  This tradition was established early – through the Mayflower Compact, 1620 – and they, the agreements, would commonly claim allegiance to the British crown and as such, were exclusionary by design.  For a more nuance overview of this process, see Donald S. Lutz, “Introductory Essay,” Colonial Origins of the American Constitution:  A Documentary History, edited by Donald S. Lutz (Indianapolis, IN:  Liberty Fund, 1998), xx-xl.

[5] Regulated as exemplified by laws establishing a minimum wage or minimum health care.

GENERAL AIMS AND OBSTACLES

 

[Note:  From time to time, this blog issues a set of postings that summarize what the blog has been emphasizing in its previous postings.  Of late, the blog has been looking at various obstacles civics educators face in teaching their subject.  It’s time to post a series of such summary accounts.  The advantage of such summaries is to introduce new readers to the blog and to provide a different context by which to review the blog’s various claims and arguments.  This and upcoming summary postings will be preceded by this message.]

This blog has of late reviewed various challenges civics educators face in the classroom.  These challenges need to be contextualized in terms of the common expectations people share concerning that subject matter; the same people who fund its efforts.  Admittedly, those taxpayers – when speaking of public schools – or tuition payers – in terms of private/parochial schools – probably do not give this concern much thought.  But to the extent they do, they cannot be happy with the lack of success that portion of the curriculum achieves.

          Of course, such judgements need to first consider what civics education is meant to accomplish.  People generally ascribe to civics the aim of promoting good citizenship.  And perhaps here is where the problems begin.  It turns out not everyone shares the same image as to what good citizenship is.  There is no unified vision of what qualities a good citizen has. 

Is it being loyal to a leader, is it a person that consistently obeys the law, is it a person who proactively participates in governmental decision-making, or is it someone who maintains allegiance to a set of national goals?  Probably in some places a totally apathetic citizen fits the bill.  Each of these standards reflects a different way at looking at governance and politics. 

And each, where it holds sway, is usually supported by not only a structure of government, but also by a set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and of a political culture that prevails in a given geographic area of the world.  Not only do these views differ among nations but within nations as well. 

This writer has argued that the dominant view of governance and politics in the US has changed since the nation’s inception.  It began with a version of federation theory – a view that perceives the American political system as a product of a grand agreement, a compact, that establishes a partnership among its citizens. 

That version, while introducing such espoused values as inclusion, equality, and a form of liberty (federal liberty), became dislodged – after a long decline from favor – in the years following World War II.  In its place, another construct took hold.  This latter view – a view that took on some currency all the way back to the time when the Constitution was being ratified – is the natural rights view.  This view has become so dominate most Americans would probably list its tenets as being that of the US Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights.

As one reads this blog, one gathers that the blog’s aim is to support the federalist view and disparage the dominance of the natural rights view.  Early on, the blog argues for the merits of federation theory.  It highlights the theory’s description of how the American constitution establishes not only a structure – three branches of government, a bureaucracy, central and state governmental arrangement, etc. – but a set of processes that counts on citizens being communal, collaborative, and disposed to support a spirited partnership with fellow citizens.

The reasoning of such expectations stems from the reasoning that the founders of the American republic had.  That is, one joins with others to form this communal entity for the common advantage of each within the congregated group.  They form a partnership under a realization that their individual welfares are tied to the health of that union.  It is not the creation of an extended family – an organic view – or of a collective – a socialist view – but of a mutually advantaged group of people understanding their common interests.

This is motivated by three social qualities:  reciprocity, sentiment, and self-fulfillment.

·       First, one joins such a grouping due to an understanding that one and others are naturally motivated to reciprocate both to positive interaction (someone does one a favor, one is apt to do one back) or negative ones (someone harms another, he/she is apt or, at least, motivated to harm that person back). 

·       Second, emanating from reciprocity, one gets to know others and if the interactions are positive, will tend to like them or even love them.  That furthers the ties.

·       And last, as one matures and all this becomes clearer, one seeks his/her fulfillment – doing that which one comes to see as his/her “purpose” – being derived from such a league.

At each step or level, the richness of the partnership grows if the values sustaining such processes are known, honored, and advanced.  Hence, this is a federalist view of good citizenship, good governance, and good politics.  That is, the ultimate aim is for citizens to become federated.

          Under this view, challenges to civics education would primarily originate from a view that does not share the ideals associated with federation or, at least, does not promote them.  And fulfilling that description is the view that is dominant today, not only within the American political culture but within the civics curriculum of the nation.  That is the natural rights view. 

It is not that the natural rights view opposes people from ascribing to federalist values, that’s up to the individual.  What it opposes is for publicly funded entities to promote those or any other values except one.  And that value is natural liberty.  Natural liberty holds that individuals have the right to determine their aspirations, values, attitudes, and the freedom to pursue them short of prohibiting others the same opportunity.  It is called natural because it reflects the capacities of all natural creatures except for the last attribute.

Respecting the rights of others prevails only, where it exists, among humans.  And this capacity leads to the concern about why people are motivated to interact with others under the conditions this view identifies.  And the motivation, when all else fails, is transactional:  one does X for someone else in exchange for Y – tit for tat. 

Yes, this is a form of reciprocity but more limited compared to how federal theory views it.  As opposed to a federal exchange, a transactional exchange is limited to the immediate interaction – specified exchanged assets – and nothing else.  Expressed this way, the distinction between these two theories seems to be one of degrees but that is not accurate. 

Federalism counts on a sense partnership to develop and people who have experienced viable partnerships know that more than any set of immediate exchanged goods is involved.  Marriage serves as the most common example.  At the same time, natural rights thinking holds an indifferent sense to any such bonding or communality to develop.  The former sees government’s role as promoting communal forces; natural rights sees that with indifference and, if assets are needed (read tax dollars), its advocates tend to be hostile toward it.

As such, natural rights does not encourage one to see civics as anything beyond describing and explaining how the public transactions of the nation are conducted especially through the agency of its government, both through the central government and those of the states.  But a federalist approach broadens the concern.  And that stretches from family interactions – e.g., a single dad handling his teenage daughter’s initial experiences with intimacy – to how the nation handles its workers losing their jobs to cheap labor nations.

The aim of this account is not to investigate how the natural rights view affects the whole school experience, but how it affects the maturation process of students and schools’ civics education.  It also looks into the effects the political landscape has both in terms of how citizens interact and how it affects political parties.  But overarching these reviews, this blog attempts to highlight the fact that social arrangements, despite whatever problems they face, are loaded with assets.

Among these assets are the talents, financial resources, genuine good wishes, connections, inspirational insights, instructional experiences, and many other types of potential assistance from which one can benefit.  They can and will provide competition that brings out or encourages one to develop to one’s potential.

But this interaction, of course, can also be challenging, upsetting, or threatening.  One can and will run into those who harbor bad intentions.  These other actors oftentimes are motivated by short-term thinking in which advantage is sought through shortcuts to valued prizes at one’s expense.  Usually, those so motivated are exhibiting some form of immaturity.  They do not seek true federation with their fellow citizens, or they limit any such feelings to their meaningful others, e.g., to his/her family.

But all this understanding of the social world, of its potentialities, is not natural.  People do have a natural sense toward linking up with those considered part of one’s identity, of one’s grouping.  But in a nation, especially like the US with its varied population, there is no natural bent toward such inclusion.  Acceptance, tolerance, much less establishment of an expanded sense of Us, has to be taught.  In a “Pluribus” social environment, a good deal of instruction goes into establishing the “Unum.”

  This teaching is at two basic levels.  One is at imparting the belief that being federated is possible and worth achieving.  And two, conducting those lessons that impart the belief, knowledge, and skills aimed at advancing communal and collaborative dispositions, and an understanding that the nation’s societal health is at stake.

The reader might find all this a bit idealistic.  One should not belittle idealism.  Espoused theories that one hold act to motivate behaviors judged to be good or right.  Yes, a people don’t always live up to those standards, but they do play a role for after all most people find guilt to be discomforting and will act according to such theories to avoid it.

This writer expressed the espoused values of federation theory in previous postings and in his book, Toward a Federated Nation.  This and the following postings are more realistic.  And that realism looks at what stands in the way of Americans living up to the standards one associates with federalist theory. 

One place federated ideals are not being promoted or advanced, at least to the degree they should be, is American schools.  As various prior postings point out, schools and America’s youth are noted for their narcissistic character.[1]  As this blog has stated, “things are not good right now.”

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[1] Jean M. Twenge and W. K. Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (New York, NY:  Free Press, 2009).

LAST FOCUSED WORD ON POLARIZATION

 

Starting with the June 30^th posting, “Next:  Polarization,” this blog has featured postings that review the factors and elements making up the nation’s current divisive politics and, in turn, affect its governance.  This posting will end this targeted emphasis by providing some summary comments concerning one of those elements:  the advantages rural conservative areas have over urban liberal/progressive areas when it comes to voting strength.

          To capture this issue with a summary statistic, here is what Ezra Klein points out:  “By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will live in the fifteen largest states.  That means 70 percent of America will be represented by only thirty senators, while the other 30 percent of America will be represented by seventy senators.”[1]  And given the ability of senators to filibuster and the need to have 60 senators to end a filibuster, rural interests will be able to effectively block any federal legislation urban citizens need.

          This was recently hinted at when the COVID virus was affecting northeastern states, like New York, but had not filtered out to the rest of the country.  One heard, well, that’s a blue state problem, why should red states care or spend tax dollars to solve their problems?  That is, it could be stated as a “blue/urban state problem.”  And that illustrates Klein’s point.

          In addition to the Senate, as the selection of presidents is currently constituted, these rural states can be determining who the chief executive will be and given the shift of power the presidency has enjoyed, urban areas can further be penalized.  And one needs to remember, it's not “land” that is being underrepresented, it’s people. 

          And in terms of substantive policy, rural equates to conservatism and that has various consequences.  Their candidates run from gerrymandered districts, they benefit from biased campaign funding laws, and also benefit from various voter restriction laws (such as voter identification requirements).  In turn, this will tilt the field even more.  So consciously, the issue among Americans, as they talk about it, is not urban-rural, but as the Democratic-Republican divide.

          That is, the issue is one of partisan identity which goes along with the other conflicted identity divides, such as race, ethnicity, gender, etc. that this blog has highlighted.  Conversations among Americans center on the animosities associated with being either “blue” or “red.”  And one foundational fact that underlies this whole business is that the system was not set up to account for political parties – the founding fathers didn’t even consider them.

          Klein considers various reforms that addresses this constitutional shortcoming.  The reader is encouraged to read his book, but those reforms exceeds the limits of this account.  What is of primary concern here is that given the imbalances in place and given how the Constitution sets up the amendment process, one is hard pressed to see any changes that will ameliorate the undemocratic arrangement that currently exists.

          There are changes that can be implemented that fall short of ratifying any amendments, but, again, they would call for those in power – from rural areas – to see beyond their partisan interests and look toward the common good.  There exist serious cultural shortcomings that do or would preclude even the consideration of such changes.  The natural rights view is too self-centered to even think of such possibilities.

          With that pessimistic message, this blog will bring its treatment of polarization – as a focused issue – to an end.  It will now take a few postings to review, in summary fashion, how the natural rights theory affects the current American political landscape.  That stretches from the makeup of the political culture, the ubiquitous issue of maturation, and the polarization beleaguering the political landscape.  In part, these topics constitute what ails civics education today.

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[1] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (New York, NY:  Avid Reader Press, 2020), 257.

THE LACK OF DEMOCRACY CHALLENGE, PART III

 

The last two postings report the overall findings in Jonathan Rodden’s book, Why Cities Lose.[1]  That book claims that winner-take-all election arrangements – those that determine members of representative bodies (in national or regional legislatures, congresses, parliaments) – allow overrepresentation of conservative/rural areas at the expense of liberal/urban areas.  That structural element reflects a derived British bias since Britain and her former colonies, such as the US, all share that feature in how they select their representatives.

          So, while the US has the added element of gerrymandering, it does not stand alone in this form of inequality.  As a matter of fact, not only do those other nations not have gerrymandering, their districts are not drawn by elected officials as they are in the US.  Instead, they are drawn by independent commissions purposely established to make district boundaries neutral and avoid any imbalances within the resulting legislative bodies.  They have not succeeded in that aim.

One can form that judgement by reviewing election results.  For example, ideally, if the population is 60% urban, then representation of those urban centers should make up 60% of the representatives.  The previous postings share with the reader data that indicates that is not the case in “Anglo” jurisdictions, at least those jurisdictions at the national (and in the US, at the state) levels.  And in each case, it is the urban areas that are shortchanged. 

In turn, that gives conservative policy makers a meaningful advantage and this advantage, mathematically, has been a standard feature in the US since the New Deal.  Initially, those results were hidden but they have come out of incubation since the onset of the 1990s.  A little history will help explain how this imbalance developed.

The New Deal policies of the ’30s did encourage a strong population shift toward the urban areas.  But initially, since the popularity and application of New Deal programs stretched across the country, the policy differences between urban and rural areas were greatly subdued.[2]  But by 1960, this effect had significantly run its course. 

Yet, starting in the 1960s, local Democratic pols were sophisticated enough to know they had to change their messaging.  They drew away from the leftist positions of the national party and, with more conservative positions, were able to compete with conservative opponents.  These conservative Democrats, under such titles as “boll weevils” or “blue dogs,” won their share of elections beating Republican candidates.  They did this by creating distance between their espoused positions on most issues and those of the Democratic presidential candidates.

But Democratic candidates that maintained an allegiance to national, liberal platforms and presidential candidates catered to urban constituents, i.e., industrial workers, migrants from rural areas, and immigrants from other nations.  In turn, those areas, geographically, trace their roots to nineteenth century industrial (and now postindustrial) economic developments. 

One can physically see that evolution by looking at where railroad lines were laid since the main customers of those trains were industrial producers.  They needed to have access to their resource supplier and, in turn, to their customers who were located more and more in urban centers.  Previously, this blog mentions that by the time of the Civil War, most lines stretched east to west and linked the larger cities such as New York, Cleveland, and Chicago.[3]  

Labor unions were instrumental in how all this took shape in terms of the resulting politics.  At first, there was a bias toward socialist parties (see WWW and the candidacy of Eugene V. Debs) but eventually shifted to the Democratic Party.  By 1940, the large cities became the bedrock of the Democratic support and that arrangement still exists today.  But before one accepts this linear progression, as with much of reality, there is a hitch.

And that hitch has to do with civil rights.  Part of the Democratic coalition of old, as a product of that party’s association with Southerners and the slave economy,[4] was the “Solid South” contingency.  That alliance survived through World War II but with the Truman administration (with the desegregation of the armed forces) and the advancements in equalizing the conditions of African Americans with the passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s, Southern Democrats became Southern Republicans.  Once established, the Democratic Party became the undiluted urban/labor party of the US – constituting its current public image.

So, what does that public image mean in terms of policy positions?  Well, in total, the party now funnels all those positions that make up the left side of the divide.  Yes, that includes labor interests and civil rights but it also includes environmental advocacy, pro-choice abortion rights, gender equity, and more liberal immigration policies.  The party is the more secular party in terms of governmental approach to religion while its rhetoric does not abandon the religious ties its individual members claim.

While diverse and by necessity compromising among its various voices, the party does have its boundaries.  And part of this exclusive element is its unwillingness to bend further to accommodate those Southerners or other constituents who are not willing to sign onto its liberal agenda. 

The “Republican-ation” of disposed workers demonstrates how true one needs to be to be included into the Democratic Party; that is, swim along or become a Republican seems to be the message.  In the process one is hard pressed to find a non-urban, elected Democratic office holder.[5] 

Yet, due to further complicated developments, the Democratic side includes higher educated urban dwellers.  They support the global economy and at times find their position being counter to the needs of labor workers.  And what this points out is that the left of center coalition is not only diverse but highly complicated.  The party is striving to become more congruent within its ranks and to win general elections, it needs to find the ways by which to smooth out the rough edges between and among its various constituencies. 

This story, according to Rodden’s research, has more wrinkles to it, but the above gives a civics teacher a starting point by which to grapple with this side of the polarized divide.  He gives his readers an extensive description of how this end of the polarized arena developed, how urban underrepresentation is currently shaping the politics of the nation, and how the resulting polarization is detrimental to the health of the overall polity.

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[1] Jonathan Rodden, Why Cities Lose:  The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide (New York, NY:  Basic Books, 2019).

[2] Such programs as rural electrification helped in this liberal trend among agricultural areas of the country.

[3] Ted Widmer, Lincoln on the Verge (New York, NY:  Simon and Schuster).

[4] A tradition that stems back to the party’s origins and even earlier – that is all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and solidified under Andrew Jackson.

[5] One notable exception is Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  His record shows pro conservative positions in terms of budget restraint and gun rights.  But he does seem to hold a liberal bent when it comes to socially compassionate policy positions.