CRITIQUE OF PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, II

 

To continue with this critique of the parochial federalism view of governance and politics, this posting delves more extensively into that view’s bias toward limited parameters of what or who should be included within its purview and how that leads one to consider the issue of who is a person.  As indicated earlier in this blog, the construct did establish a general partnership of the citizenry under the auspices of the US Constitution, but in practice, that did not include everyone, at least as the common folk perceived that relationship.

That is, at least at an emotional level among the people, its inclusion was limited to the descendants of Western Europeans.  And even there, such nationalities – especially the Italians and Irish – were not readily included.  The last posting took this exclusionary bias and was addressing how it expressed itself into high – even oppressive – levels of conformity as late as the 1950s. 

Given today’s notions of personal liberty, a product of natural rights’ dominant position in American society in the last seventy years, this level of social conformity seems unthinkable – as to, for example, what one should serve at a dinner party.  And in parochial federalism’s opposition to the natural rights view, it would not, if it somehow could replace the natural rights view, exert such control.           Basically, such control is deemed as being disrespectful of individual integrity.  Parochial federalism, for all its rhetoric of individual integrity, was – in its day – never developed by its devotees in such a way as to address that issue squarely.  As a consequence, in practice, abuses were not only common but institutionalized. 

Such decisions as whom one could marry, who could buy the house next door, who could apply for a job, and so on, were based on such arbitrary criteria as race, accent, marital status, religion, and the like.  Often such practices were supported by local law and formal sanctions enforced a vast array of exclusionary customs and norms.

Exclusivity became much more common than the heralded guarantees of equality so eloquently defended and enshrined in the documents of the founding fathers of the republic.  This account asserts the claim that one of the driving forces toward the social revolution that led to the dominance of the natural rights perspective in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was the desire of excluded groups to be treated in equitable ways.  Actually, that process is still unfolding.

Such efforts as the civil rights movement of African Americans to force the political and social communities of the nation to live up to the promises contained in those founding documents proved, to a degree, to change laws and even customs.  While the nation has not eliminated all vestiges of the more exclusionary times, a more equitable social/political environment prevails.  Unfortunately, that necessary revolution helped overturn the whole federalist-republican ethos as the prevailing social/political construct of the nation.

Individual integrity is primarily defined by how rights are defined and thought of by the public.  And closely associated with a lack of definitional clarity as to what rights are, what rights people have, and what constitutes individual integrity is the inability or unwillingness of the American social/political culture to address who is a person. 

A review of the Constitution demonstrates how important the term or concept is.  For example, Amendment Five reads:

 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

As this amendment demonstrates, the idea of “person” plays a central role in identifying rights.

This problem – a lack of a clear definition – was true during the period when parochial federalism was dominant and still exerts a very serious concern today.  The inability of the political-social culture to arrive at an acceptable definition of a person made it impossible to settle the slavery issue in the 1800s, short of civil war.  And today, the lack of clear definition affects the whole contentious politics surrounding whether women have the right to abortions.

Today, along with the abortion issue, there exists impregnation through vitro fertilization.  Currently, state legislatures, in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Organization decision – that overturned Roe v. Wade (and related cases) – are considering defining the state of personhood beginning at conception – a purely religious notion.  But with a lack of previous definitional agreement among the American people, this development can be seen as probably inevitable and based on a less than majority supported solution or definition.

And that does not even mention various genetically technical developments – such as cloning – which promises to present challenges in the future.  And those challenges will probably include emotional issues because of this lack of a consensus.  This is a question demanding a cultural answer – more encompassing than a Supreme Court decision – because, unfortunately, science or law cannot give a nation a definitive answer that will be readily accepted.

At stake is the determination of who or what will be given individual status with all the integrity and rights attached to that status.  Therefore, this nation’s political/social perspective must have an answer for that question if it is to avoid the constitutional turmoil that the nation is currently experiencing as a reaction to the Dobbs decision.  Unfortunately, parochial federalism merely counted on local notions as to who was a person.

And the claim here is that the question demands a national debate – one that should have been conducted after the Roe decision – to arrive at an answer.  So far, the issue has been skirted with such questions as when does humanness at the individual level begin.

One can argue that humanness or human life begins at conception, but that embryo has none of the attributes one associates with a human being – a person – and that includes any level of self-awareness.  Or one could argue – as is often done – that human life, as with that embryo, begins at conception, but the same can be said of a human cancer cell (also human life, albeit with a damaged DNA).  The concept “person” without any attributes that denote an ability to think, consider, and be able to make decisions – at least at some level – seems to be seriously deficient.

It, instead, smacks of some religious belief – such as that a conceived being has a soul.  One might add, a belief not shared by all religions.  To rely on such a rationale for the Dobbs decision approaches, if not crosses, the barrier the First Amendment includes against the establishment of a religion. 

For one can establish a religion in various ways, including the demand that citizens must live according to the precepts of a religion or a group of religions.[1]  And all this stems from parochial federalism not providing an answer or enough conceptualized direction toward defining what constitutes a person.

Another shortcoming of the traditional federalist perspective is a lack of a clear structural component guaranteeing a non-centralized system and that will be the topic of the next posting.  But before leaving this concern over personhood, this blogger cannot overemphasize how a lack of a clear and definitive definition has led to untold suffering and wasted resources.  And it is an issue that should be revisited every twenty or so years – once per generation[2] – so that the American people can live harmoniously with whatever definition a given population – thru majority rule – decides is workable for the challenges it is facing.

---

[1] Can religion play any role in the formation of policy?  Yes, this blogger would claim, it can inform the consideration of enacting policy or doing away with policy, but it cannot be the sole basis by which policy is determined.

[2] Another possible way to meet this need is for a system in which some percentage of the populace signs a petition calling for the initiation of a process in which the issue is discussed, considered, and can potentially institute a newer definition.  Of course, such considerations would include any costs entailed with changing the prevailing definition.

CRITIQUE OF PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, I

 

This blog has been in the first phase of an extended argument by using the dialectic model offered by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and made commonly known by Karl Marx.  That is, at any given time, a major or array of clashes is taking place, and, in Hegel’s case, those reflect opposing ideas.  These are summarily known as dialectic struggles. 

At a given time, there is the dominant view, the thesis, the counter position, the anti-thesis, and the eventual resolution, the synthesis.  This blog, for some time now, has been reviewing the thesis that existed going into the period of World War II.  That thesis was a more liberal version of parochial/traditional federalism which by that time had become somewhat softened by the late 1940s but was being challenged by a more moderate form of natural rights. 

This blog has taken up this ongoing struggle as the natural rights advocates were mounting, in a mostly un-reflected fashion, a winning challenge to the dominant view.  The result was a shift toward a softened version of natural rights thinking.  Simplified, the version states that people have the right to form their own values and goals and the right to pursue them as long as they do not hinder others having the same rights. 

This blog takes up this dialectic progression as the last gasps – as a dominate ideal – of the parochial federalist position – one that argues for

·      a view of governance and politics as best conceptualized as the product of a compact among the citizenry, and

·      in which each citizen is a partner and has the responsibilities and duties to promote and defend the welfare of the national partnership. 

That compact is the US Constitution. 

With a review of that thesis completed – written from the perspective of current day conditions – this blog will now present a critique of that thesis and provide its – the blog’s – position as to whether parochial federalism should be reestablished as the nation’s dominant social/political purview of governance and politics.

This blogger is an advocate of federalist principles.  As such, most of the sentiment expressed by parochial federalism’s ideals and goals are judged to be legitimate and correct for the reasons stated in its defense, which was the topic of the last twenty-five postings.  There are, though, some major reservations held by this blogger.  He feels that in both substantive areas and in areas having to do with pedagogic applications, the traditional federalist approach has serious limitations.

The upcoming postings will be dedicated to those concerns.  By way of previewing this postings’ content, the following reservations will be explained:

 

·      The definition of rights and the definition of individual integrity are vague and as such, subject to extensive abuse.

·      The designation of person is not addressed.

·      Structural guarantees for the protection of a non-centralized system are wanting.

·      There is a hereditary assumption – favoring the descendants of Western European nations – to the dynamic elements of the federalist model which discourages current definitional development.

·      There is a lack in the global view within the traditional federalist perspective.

·      There is no accounting for meaningful ethnic/racial/nationalistic diversity.

·      There is a lack of flexibility for diverse classroom approaches.

·      Communal dimensions are limited only to geographic types.

 

Historically, there has been a social/political context one needs to understand to appreciate this critique.  From the earliest colonial period, ideal government on the North American continent has been associated with majority rule.  With a strong religious foundation, separate communities formed.  That American experience has had a strong congregationalist character.[1]  A lot of that social bonding was organized around religious practices, but that trend of late – resulting from growing social developments over the years – has been diminished in that less than half of the population is so engaged today.[2] 

In short, while the federalist spirit contained elements of individual integrity,[3] these ideals were ill defined and in practice were subject to extensive abuse by today’s standards.  While one can cite through the years those leaders or thinkers who harbored more liberal sentiments and well-thought-out arguments promoting more inclusive beliefs, values, and aims, overall, the American public was extensively parochial along various lines.  These lines included race, nationality, ethnicity, and regionalism.

By way of completing this concern, while the shift to natural rights overall has advanced more inclusive beliefs and practices – documented by the enactment of such laws as the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 – today’s political environment is rife with exclusionary elements as demonstrated by the level of polarized politics (highly characterized as identity politics) with which the nation is currently dealing.

But to pick up the historical development, the early trend of exclusion became institutionalized.  Local communities could be and often were highly oppressive to any signs of unusual behavior or actions which went counter to overly sensitive moral standards.  Actually, local restraints are not unique to the American experience. 

Perhaps America, with its isolated communities of the eighteenth and nineteenth century frontier experience, had a more intense version of a very human condition in which local values and procedures are highly intolerant of non-conforming beliefs and ways of being.  Writes Robert Nisbet:

 

Much of the argument of the individualist with respect to the nature of freedom derived from the apparent fact that the most intellectually creative ages in history have been ages of the widespread release of individuals from ties of traditional values and relationships … the individual escaping his social group, his class, family, and community.  Such relationships may give security but do not excite the imagination.[4]

 

The implication is clear.  Such eras of tolerance and liberal acceptance in history are the exception, not the rule.  In America, the rural communities that dotted the landscape as settlements stretched westward institutionalized strong moral codes of behavior – codes that could be oppressive, priggish, and insulting to individual integrity.

          This posting ends with a fairly telling citation from 1960 when there still existed residues of parochial/traditional sentiments among American households,

 

The social life of these Park Foresters [typical 1950s suburbanites] embodies the same principle.  Their parties must be modest but show some signs of originality in the kind of food served and entertainment provided.  There are periodic waves of food fashions so that the household is never completely at a loss for acceptable new dishes.  [David] Riesman’s concept of “marginal differentiation” expresses well the kind of “individuality” that Park Forest encourages.  Wandering too far from the margin brings penalties, as the housewife who was discovered reading Plato and listening to The Magic Flute learned.  In this community, even the ways of “being different” are standardized.[5]

 

This simple description of suburban life in the 1950s captures the extent in which social norms were able to control individual life and its choices.  This element of this critique will continue in the next posting.

---

[1] Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism:  A Double-Edged Sword (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1996).

[2] Scott Neuman, “Fewer than Half of U.S. Adults Belong to a Religious Congregation, New Poll Shows,” NPR (March 30, 2021), accessed July 6, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/30/982671783/fewer-than-half-of-u-s-adults-belong-to-a-religious-congregation-new-poll-shows.

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

[4] Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community:  A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (San Francisco, CA:  Institute of Contemporary Studies, 1990), 208.

[5] Maurice R. Stein, Eclipse of Community:  An Interpretation of American Studies (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1960), 206.

JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XXV

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Culture (cont.)   

This posting ends this blog’s presentation of a parochial federalist advocate’s defense of that construct.  In doing so, what follows are the final thoughts regarding the commonplace of curriculum development, the milieu, and its element of a student culture.  To this point, this blog has made an attempt to deal with meaningful increases in diversification that led to fewer supervisory roles and, with that, less demanding curricular content.

          Schools also lost a good deal of cultural vitality and consequently, the youth generation, especially in the 1960s, found its vitality.  Since that time, youth’s cultural elements such as music, clothes, hair styles, and attitudes have become more distinctive and antagonistic to traditional, adult values.  Under the auspices of the natural rights perspectives, the younger generation was given more rights that were never before deemed appropriate for that age group.

          Schools lost their traditional role of loco parentis in which students were expected to fulfill duties and responsibilities and teachers and other school officials had near parental authority to see that they would be carried out.  Instead, the emphasis was on granting more student rights, at times upon the insistence of court decisions.[2]

          The youth culture in schools can be described as less supportive of school functions and authority, less supportive of disciplined attitudes in which students are solicited to do their best, and less apt to be intimidated by rules and sanctions which schools have at their disposal.  Along with this, youth culture at schools has become less supportive of school ceremonies and rituals which not only encourage school allegiance but community inclusion.

          “Increasingly schools became simply spaces to which one went, more or less willingly to work, rather than communities for which they felt loyalty and affection,”[3] was a sentiment expressed toward the end of the twentieth century.  More recent research finds repeatedly that such factors as school spirit – a communal aspect experienced on secondary school sites – correlates with high academic performance.[4]  A study funded by Varsity Brands concludes,

Students with higher levels of school spirit perform better academically, are more civically engaged, and are happier in general than their less-spirited peers … This online research was conducted by Harris Poll … this past spring among 1,016 high school students, 315 parents of high school students and 150 high school principals across the United States to learn more about school pride, academics, self-esteem, community involvement and more.

The research found that students with higher levels of school spirit also have higher average Grade Point Averages and are more likely to plan to further their education than students with lower school spirit. Additionally, the large majority of principals (89%) feel that it’s important to build school spirit at their school and four in five (80%) agree that school spirit is a key measure of an effective school administration. Parents who say their child has a lot of school spirit are more likely than parents who don’t to report that their child performs above average in school academically compared to other students (61% vs. 31%).[5]

But this study or other efforts find little evidence that that spirit is relatively high in occurrence in today’s campuses.  Instead, one finds a mixed bag of findings as to how well schools are doing.  This reflects unclear expectations on the part of the American public as to what they want their schools to accomplish.

          Goals stretch from preparing the next generation for the work-a-day world to easing or “fixing” an array of social ills such as race relations, crime, language deficiencies, and other perceived cultural shortcomings.  This has led to what seemed to be the consensus that American schools were not meeting reasonable levels of proficiency. 

Books, not so long ago, lamented the state of American education.  They included No Child Left Behind (2008) by William Hayes and The Death and Life of the Great American School Life (2010) by Diane Ravitch.  From personal experience as a classroom teacher for twenty-five years (last one in 2000), in terms of accomplishing curricular aims and goals, American schools have much room to improve.  This blog has repeatedly reported that schools are not doing a good job regarding civics, a conclusion readily supported by any review of how well Americans are doing in terms of self-governance and the prevalence of the polarized political landscape the polity is experiencing.

Whatever one’s position on how well schools are doing, an advocate of parochial/traditional federalism would support the idea that steps should be taken to reintroduce and advance a higher rate of engagement by parents and citizens, in general, as to how well their local schools are doing and what they, the schools, should be about.  That would be a federalist response to what prevails today.

This engagement would aim at helping to define what their local school(s) stands for and that that should reflect the culture of those local communities.  Given the cultural roles schools play, each one should not be a “cookie-cutter” rendition of some idealized image of what it should be, but a human location that reflects the students who attend it. 

Included should be the personalities of those schools’ student bodies whether they be urban, rural, or suburban communities, whether they be Anglo, African American, Hispanic, Asian or any other cultural designation they might be.  And the student body, to levels that reasonably reflect the maturity levels of those students, should be involved in determining that “personality.”  It would be a matter of going beyond the day-to-day concerns facing those schools and graduate to developing, defining, and promoting an articulated mission for each of them.

And the assumption here is that that can even be accomplished in diversely populated schools.  Parochialism need not necessarily be defined by race, ethnicity, or nationality.  This is not an either/or issue.  It can also be defined in a way that enhances diversity as long as one puts in place a priority on individual integrity.  A commitment to bring diverse groups under a federalist formula in which individual integrities of students are respected, but in which they are encouraged to be committed to republican, communal values can be the source of a strong emotional attachment.

Authority based on such a commitment can engender support because it is a common bond that once established, could provide a sense of liberty that is enriching and not shallow and self-absorbing.  The more communal message of the traditional federalist perspective provides a more human face to education. 

To follow what is prevalent, maintaining a bureaucratic leaning location in which schools are more concerned with “downtown’s” policies than addressing the human concerns before them, those schools’ personnel will continue to make them officious places.  That is, they will be “… like a commuter junior college, offering choice and diversity and exercising fewer controls over school behavior, but unable to stimulate any but the most modest sentiments of commitment, community, and shared purposes.”[6]

A place to start a shift toward a more communal and shared milieu could be to adopt a parochial/traditional federalist construct in the teaching and the studying of American government and civics.  No course in the secondary curriculum more closely would address the above concerns than would civics and government courses.  And with that parting sentiment, the next point of interest in this blog is a critique of a parochial/traditional federalist construct.

---

[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] The argument here is not that these decisions were all mal directed.  But the overall effect has been to curtail school official authority at the school site.  See, for example, New Jersey v. TLO (1985), United States v. Lopez (1995), and Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L. (2021).  To illustrate, in terms of the Mahanoy case, see Sophia Cope and Naomi Gilens, “U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Public School Students’ Off-Campus Speech Rights” (September 30, 2021), accessed July 5, 2022, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/us-supreme-court-upholds-public-school-students-campus-speech-rights.

[3] Christopher Hurn, The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling:  An Introduction to the Sociology of Education (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 1993), 285.

[4] See, for example, “Survey Shows with School Spirit Are Top Achievers,” National Federation of State High School Associations (February 5, 2015), accessed July 3, 2022, https://www.nfhs.org/articles/survey-shows-students-with-school-spirit-are-top-achievers/#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20showing%20support,than%20their%20less%2Dspirited%20peers.

[5] “Research Connects School Spirit and Student Achievement,” Varsity Brands (September 3, 2014), accessed July 3. 2022, https://www.varsitybrands.com/varsity-brands/research-by-varsity-brands-identifies-connection-between-school-spirit-and-student-achievement-involvement-and-confidence.

[6] Hurn, The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling, 291.

JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XXIV

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

          This posting continues this blog’s positive review of the parochial/traditional federalist construct’s usefulness in the development of a civics curriculum.  It finishes that effort by reporting on William Schubert’s last commonplace of curriculum, that being the milieu and its element, “student culture.”[2]

Student Culture

          America, for some time now, has set the stage and “encouraged” (mostly unintentionally) a youth culture.  Here is what this blog has previously cited about this development,

 

All in all, the strategy [to institute a values education component] did not meet with much success, and it has generally, through the years, been abandoned.

What remained was an almost total abandonment of handling value issues in the classroom, at least in a thought-out fashion.  This left a vacuum that was filled by two sources.  One has been the all-pervasive media and its implied values.[3]  The other has been the young people themselves.  This latter source was often played out in the context of a youth culture becoming ever more pervasive, especially in large urban comprehensive high schools.  The result:  a highly narcissistic and self-absorbed youth population.[4]

 

This sort of observation has been around for many years.  Back in 1993, Christopher Hurn identified several changes that have affected the milieu of American schools.[5]  Starting in the 1950s, large migration patterns began in this nation.  This included large numbers of black and Latino/a populations moving into northern and midwestern schools.

          The effects of this movement included changes to ethnic integration, or at least desegregation, in many schools.  Also, the small community school began to be a thing of the past or, at least, very rare as large comprehensive schools became common.  Socially, schools became less homogeneous settings characterized by familiar and uniform cultural symbols and artifacts.  By the 1970s, the common school population was a mix of races, classes, ethnicity.  All of this, by today’s eyes, are just the way things are and should not be innately considered a negative situation.

          But has the society found effective ways to meet these newer realities – surely enough time has transpired for appropriate accommodation to these changes?  One way to judge whether schools have met the implied challenges would be to take a measure of how young people are doing.  The Pew Research Center took on this question and reported on it in 2019. 

Summarily, Pew reports, “American teens have a lot on their minds.  Substantial shares [of American teens’ mental states] point to anxiety and depression, bullying, and drug and alcohol use (and abuse) as major problems among their age, according to … survey [results] of youth ages 13 to 17.”[6]  This study goes on to describe how seven-in-ten youths state that levels of anxiety and depression are characterizing their peers. 

And this overall concern is backed by what mental health researchers and clinicians are reporting.  To put some numbers to this concern, the Pew report cites that between 2004 and 2016, the percent of students reporting “major depression episodes” rose from 9 to 12.8, and “major depression episodes with severe impairment” increased from 5.5% to 9%.  That’s nearly one of every ten teenagers in 2016. 

In addition, in terms of bullying, “About a fifth of high school students … reported being bullied on school property in the past 12 months; 14.9% said they’d experienced cyberbullying (via texts, social media or other digital means) in the previous year.”[7]  The report goes on to share information on gangs, poverty, and teen pregnancy, all proving to be areas of concern.

The takeaway is that in many ways, today’s youths in the US live a life apart from the general population and that that world in many ways places significant obstacles to a smooth and productive transition to adulthood.  However, all of this is not new but a continuance of what was probably first noticed in the 1950s.  With the advent of universal schooling, what became obvious was that the main effect was not necessarily the spread of knowledge – useful for employment and developing self-fulfilling social lives – but the rise of a social and cultural transformation.

The late sociologist James Coleman warned in the 1950s,

 

The child of high-school age is “cut off” from the rest of society, forced inward toward his own age group, made to carry out his whole social life with others his own age.  With his fellows, he comes to constitute a small society, one that has most of its important interactions within itself, and maintains only a few threads of connection with the outside adult society.[8]

 

And why did this shifting to a more “hands-off” approach to schooling come about?

          Here one has a double whammy:  one was the diversification of school populations (as mentioned above) and the general, growing natural rights perspective to social and governmental policies and behaviors.  The expectation by society, at large, was that schools, in order to meet the times, should become less authoritative, more tolerant, less unequal, and more democratic (in a natural rights sort of way).

          In short, student culture was allowed to develop at school with less adult supervision since there was no consensus as to the cultural standards that would set parameters on this new level of toleration.  “… [I]t is understandable that many teachers and school officials became confused and uncertain about their mission …”[9]

          This blogger’s personal experience – both as a student and a teacher – can attest that without a solid sense of mission or direction, too many students lost respect for their schools as these sites seemed to be devoid of moral authority.  Students, in ever larger degree, lost the sense that schools were worthwhile.

          The next posting will continue this rundown about how the post-World War II social landscape has affected American youths and their evolving youth culture.  With that completed, this blog will revert to what this blogger has to say, i.e., his critique of the parochial/traditional federalist construct before he presents the advocacy for the natural rights construct.

[Reminder:  The reader is reminded that he/she can have access to the first 100 postings of this blog, under the title, Gravitas:  The Blog Book, Volume I.  To gain access, he/she can click the following URL:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zh3nrZVGAhQDu1hB_q5Uvp8J_7rdN57-FQ6ki2zALpE/edit

 OR

click onto the “gateway” posting that allows the reader access to a set of supplemental postings to other published works by this blogger by clicking the URL: http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/ and then looking up the posting for October 23, 2021, entitled “A Digression.”]

---

[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).

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

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

[5] Christopher J. Hurn, The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling:  An Introduction to the Sociology of Education (New York, NY:  Harper and Row, 1993).

[6] Drew DeSilver, “The Concerns and Challenges of Being a U.S. Teen:  What the Data Show,” Pew Research Center (February 26, 2019), accessed June 29, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/26/the-concerns-and-challenges-of-being-a-u-s-teen-what-the-data-show/ .

[7] Ibid.

[8] As quoted in Paul Howe, “We’re All Teenagers Now,” Aeon (n.d.), accessed June 29, 2022, https://aeon.co/essays/how-us-high-school-culture-brought-teen-values-to-the-world ;

[9] Hurn, The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling, 284.