A PROVERBIAL AMERICAN TENSION

I have from time to time in this blog used the expression: the freedom to do what one should do, not necessarily what one wants to do. I have further associated this expression with the vision of liberty promoted by federalist thought – at least as an ideal for which federalists strive. I have also made the claim that the founding generation of our political system – those patriots we recognize as starting our republic – were swayed, more so than by any other construct, by federalist thought. Therefore, one can readily assume that I see the founders believing in a severe socialization of youth in which they are taught that the good of the community trumps the good of the individual. By so doing, we can solve the Rousseauean problem: “… we no longer have citizens.”¹ Or stated another way, the founders argued: we should all conduct our lives in such a way that we place the interests of the community above our own. That is what it means to “do what we should do ...”.

The nation, during its Puritanical beginnings and for many years thereafter, placed this kind of burden on individuals. The earliest settlers might not have taken this notion as far as Rousseau did, but religiously stern discipline characterized many of the expectations of those New England settlers. In this blog, I have traced the history of how the harsh initial conditions of the frontier demanded this kind of discipline to assure the very survival of the early settlements. But naturally, as those conditions softened, the rationale for such a view became ever more difficult to maintain. Slowly, the more hospitable environment – caused in no small measure by the discipline exerted by the earlier Americans – led to political and social perspectives that liberalized our laws, customs, mores, and ethos. In addition, writers other than Rousseau, such as John Stuart Mill and John Locke, presented arguments that individuals are entitled to rights and that the community cannot and should not impose burdens on individuals that transgress those rights. These rights are provided by nature.

Since prior postings have spelled out this development, my purpose here is to merely remind you of this overall evolution and to point out that by the time of the founders of our present republic, there was still a very strong sense of societal duty and obligation, but that this sense had been somewhat compromised – how compromised is up to interpretation and debate. Read what a current scholar believes about the state of mind most founders were in by the late eighteenth century:

[The Federalist – collection of essays promoting the newly written constitution of 1787] presumed … that man is selfish and his politics factious. Moreover, stability of the regime is assured only through “mechanical devices” aimed at pitting “ambition against ambition” within government and faction against faction in society. …

It can no longer be taken for granted, however, that the American constitutional founders – even the authors of The Federalist – can be described as Lockean liberals. … I will argue that the revisionists were right in asserting that the constitutional founders were more civic-minded, more concerned about the dispositions of citizens to undertake public duties, than the “possessive individualist” … I reject what I see as a tendency in the revisionist literature [though] to assume that where civic virtue is discussed – and practiced – liberalism must be absent.²

In other words, it is hard to peg the founders on a continuum from republicanism – with a commitment to civic duty – and liberalism – with a commitment to individual interests. My take is that the difficulty lies in the nature of the transition the nation was only beginning to experience at that time and is still progressing today.³

One thing we should not forget when considering the founders is that they saw themselves creating a layered polity. A problem they were trying to solve was how do you get citizens to take on the burdens of obligations and duties without the resulting regime being oppressive. How do you, at the same time, maintain within each of us the ambition to help build that great nation with a vibrant economy that not only provides a better material life, but provides the resources to make the nation strong in relation to other nations? How do you create the conditions that would lead to a foreign policy sufficiently vibrant to protect our national interests? The national layer of the polity was to set the political infrastructure by which such a posture could be created. It would set about a governmental framework to allow this more ambitious agenda by allowing people, at least as far as the national government was concerned, to advance their individual goals and aims. It would create those conditions that would allow a national market with a free trading zone to be established and unleash the natural ambitions of Americans to not only prosper on the Atlantic seaboard, but to conquer a continent chock full of resources. With these aims eventually accomplished, they believed that prominence, power, and wealth would naturally follow. Allegiance to this more grandiose government would be based on its protection of individual rights by first limiting its powers to those delegated in the national compact and later by adding a set of rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, as far as promoting what Richard C. Sinopoli calls “a sentiment of allegiance,” the local government, under the auspices of the state governments, would take the lead in this more communal ambition.

Why? Because the national government was, in the eyes of the founders, probably too big and represented too many diverse interests to be able to engender the attachment and allegiance upon which civic virtue depends. Smaller entities, like the states, with more limited populations, interests, and diversity can engender those bonds of attachment the founders believed essential. Of course, what exactly was viewed as deserving allegiance would be, from state to state, very different and, of course, in one area this diversity almost led to the union dissolving. As it was, it led to a bloody civil war.

Where are we today given this tension between the interests of the individual and the interests of the community? A lot of politics today is an expression of this tension. If anything, the alternative views between the two are being expressed with more intensity than what had been the case some thirty years ago. The presidency of Ronald Reagan gave a shot in the arm to those views promoting the individualist side of the debate. Recently, those who champion the duty and obligation side have had some successes. For example, the passing of the Affordable Health Care Act has been interpreted by many as the society taking on the responsibility of providing health insurance to many who can't afford it. This provision, in turn, is viewed as a program that will lead to a healthier nation and, as such, promotes the common good. The final outcome of Obamacare will go a long way in defining where we are: are we tilting toward the “me” or are we tilting toward the “us”? Are we finding morality under a doctrine of individual determination or under a doctrine of societal welfare calculation?

1Quoted in Sinopoli, R. C. (1992). The foundations of American citizenship: Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 3.

2Sinopoli, R. C. (1992). The foundations of American citizenship: Liberalism, the constitution, and civic virtue. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 4-5.

3In terms of the prominent views of those in the political class between the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, I am partial to the description provided to us by Gordon S. Wood. See Wood, G. S. (1998). The creation of the American republic 1776-1787. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. This seminal work was originally published in 1969.

LOOKING AT POWER RELATIONS

Back in the early fifties, a political scientist, Floyd Hunter,¹ came out with an influential study on power and power relations in a local community. The volume presenting the study is entitled Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Such a study has to, early on, define the concept, power. In this blog, I have used the definition for power as that social factor in which one party can get another party to do something he/she would not do otherwise. Here's Hunter's definition: “[p]ower is a word that will be used to describe the acts of men [and women] going about the business of moving other men [and/or women] to act in relation to themselves or in relation to organic or inorganic things.”² I judge Hunter's definition to be in agreement with how I use the term. So, his study is a view of a local community he names Regional City and how the power relations of that community are structured.

While his study is about the structure of power relations, he readily admits in his introduction that there are other factors, beyond structure, that can influence the nature of those relations. Including structure, he identifies four factor categories. These categories are elements of social life in a community that can and usually do influence how power relations operate and function within that community. In his study, he is focusing on only one of the factors directly. The other three are designated as “residual elements” and he admits that while influential, they would fall outside the scope of his study. The other three are historical reference, psychological motivation, and values, morals, and ethical considerations. By identifying these factor categories, Hunter provides civics educators a helpful set of topics that, if used, can provide a conceptual framework by which to attack this whole area of concern: community power relations.

This posting will give a short description of each element and comment on how they might be addressed in civics lessons. First let's look at historical reference. Here, the claim is that what has been discussed and written in the past about power will have an influence on how power is used and how people will form their expectations regarding power. The list of writers who have addressed the meaning and uses of power includes a who's who of political thinkers. They include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Marx, and many others. Just to cite one of these, look at the influence Marx had, on a global basis, during the twentieth century. And this influence was not limited to national political debates, but filtered all the way down to the local affairs of those nations that fell under communist rule. Another angle to the historical factor has to do with how a particular area has developed or failed to develop from traditional societal conditions to modern and post modern conditions. This development has a lot to do with who has power. Historical development is the context in which power positions are created and the definitions of legitimacy are formulated. All of this is relevant to how power is defined, used, and abused.

In a civics class, the historical context should always be addressed. Even if the main aim of a lesson is not the history of a relation, students need to know how an event or set of events fits, at least on some minimum level, within its historical time. In so doing, an educator should seek out those historical stories that provide the human touch that can liven up what is being addressed. Often, in order to make what is being studied understandable to young students, real stories can provide meaning that an abstract presentation cannot. Let me use an example from my own education on power relations. I, like any American student, read about the “Know Nothing” movement in the US. This movement was an attempt to “purify” American culture and politics from any foreign influence, particularly from the onslaught of Irish immigrants and their Catholicism. Textbook descriptions of the movement never really caused in me much of a response. But when I saw the feature film, Gangs of New York, I understood many of the nuances involved in the power relations associated with the “Know Nothing” movement. That vividness not only provides useful information, but stirs the senses needed to be able to get the whole meaning of how power in a city like New York has been affected by the history of such a time. Even today, the roots, beliefs, traditions, and other aspects of the power relations that were established over a hundred years earlier still have meaning in that city.

The second power factor identified by Hunter is psychological motivation. Once the parties of a relation are made known, knowing what psychological factors affect them becomes a very useful thing to determine. Knowing what psychological motives such as ambition, greed, loyalty, fear, respect, and the like are in play is useful to ascertain whether one is actually engaged in a power relation with someone else or is studying a power relation. To accurately determine what psychologically motivates the subjects of a relation will go a long way in predicting power moves in the future or gaining understanding as to why a person or group acted in a particular way in any given power interaction. Of course, to know what motivates a person or group is hard to determine. We, at times, have a hard time figuring out why we act the way we do, much less why someone else acts as he or she does. But the effort is not only helpful in understanding a given situation, but it gives insight as to the nature of human behavior in general. The need for this type of knowledge is self-evident, but to actually determine motivations can be a very daunting task.

Of course, we don't expect civics students at the secondary level to be knowledgeable enough about psychology in order to determine what the motivations of people are, but asking about why people act as they do is a natural line of questioning. Students engage in such questioning all the time: why did my girl/boyfriend storm off; why did mom insist I wear this dorky outfit; why did Mr. X pile on such an assignment just before vacation? The aim here would be to get students to understand that motivations are varied and oftentimes not obvious or direct. As I stated above, even the person under our analysis might not know his or her own true motivation.

The third power factor Hunter mentions is values, morals, and ethical considerations. Somewhat related to motivations, the values factor has to do with what people consider to be moral or good or, by implication, what is evil or bad. When talking about politics, politicians, and even businesspeople, we often think that such considerations don't come into play. This is not true. How people see the ethical considerations of a situation, especially when the exertion of power is involved, can and do affect how they behave even if what's under consideration is the implementation of a power advantage. Most people attempt to be “good” when they deal with others. The challenges appear when the consequences become highly rewarding or highly costly. The consequences might affect them directly or might affect a loved one or an enemy or someone who can provide him or her an advantage or disadvantage. The real world can become complicated. It is quite an advantage for students to think of these things in the safe confines of a secondary classroom. It is beneficial if they have to think through dilemmas that reflect these complications before they might appear in real life.

The final power factor is structure. This is the most straightforward of the factors and one with which a student would do best to start. Here the aim is to identify the parties involved in a power relation, how the relation is organized in formal and informal ways, and how the relation is situated within larger organization(s). For students, while this type of information is essential and informative, it is, compared to the other above concerns, the most easily determined. Yes, some structures are hidden, usually intentionally for some advantage by those involved, but eventually such information becomes known by journalists and other interested observers. How a person or group is structured gives one hints as to those historical references, psychological motivations, and value considerations that are at work in determining or influencing how a power relation will function. So, as I indicated, this factor is probably the best place to start when one is beginning to study a power relation.

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

2Ibid., pp. 2-3.

NOT A ONE TO ONE RELATION

One of the most fundamental factual understandings that citizens should know about is the disconnect between social mobilization and political viability, legitimacy, and effective authority. What often leads to a common misconception is that social mobilization is often associated with economic advancement and that in turn is linked to stable governments. We think of rich countries or those who are becoming rich, offering their citizens more social mobility. Fair enough, but that does not necessarily make it likely that such countries will have stable politics. In some cases, the connection is warranted. The US is one such case. But in many nations, it takes very little economic advancement to create significant social mobilization and if the conditions are not just right, turbulence can and is likely to result. We see today, for example, that many nations that are beginning to experience minimal economic gains are experiencing meaningful movements among their citizens from rural to urban areas. Such mobility can have far reaching political consequences. Economic advancement – and its related conditions of higher incomes, higher productivity, and the like – and political viability, legitimacy, and effective authority do not necessarily go hand in hand. Let me call these latter conditions effective governing.

We Americans tend to think that the two – economic advancement and political stability – are almost synonymous. If not synonymous, we see an almost inevitable causal link between the two social areas of governance and economics or economics and governance. And yes, there can be a link between the two, but it need not be there as is the case in many developing nations. You can have healthier conditions in one without having healthier conditions in the other. Of course, a nation can suffer from both weak governance and a weak economy, but we should not make the causal link between a stronger economy and stronger governance.

It is easy for Americans to make this type of mistake. Our history has been, by and large, blessed with both growing strength in one and the other. Our development as a nation has been marked with a growing economic capacity and an ever increasing efficiency in our ability to govern ourselves. But globally, we have been an exception. Samuel P. Huntington¹ gives us insight. He argues that as nations have begun to become modern, the ability of individuals and groups to participate in national affairs has increased at an even faster rate. They are experiencing what sociologists and political scientists call growing social change and increasing social mobilization. That is, even small economic advancements are coupled with rapid social changes. But unfortunately, the rate of development in political institutions has, in too many cases, been woefully slow and insufficient to the demands created by the increased mobilization. In too many nations, rapid social change has not seen corresponding advancements in controlling corruption, having processes to accommodate power shifts, or developing processes to channel popular demands. Huntington quotes Tocqueville:

Among the laws that rule human societies there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.²

Economic advancement has the tendency to promote social and financial equality. Equality encourages social mobility. Rapid social mobility tends to place demands on political systems and, in turn, call for advancements in political institutions to handle these increases in demands. Failure to keep pace, which often happens, leads to political violence and disruption.

A lot of the history of the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first century has been about cases of political disruptions. Currently, we are seeing a bloody civil war in Syria. There are bloody clashes with security forces in Egypt. In both cases, while economic advancements have been made, the necessary development of political institutions – advancements suitable to the conditions of those nations – has not kept pace. Writing generally, Huntington states, “[t]he rates of social mobilization and the expansion of political participation are high; the rates of political organization and institutionalization are low. The result is political instability and disorder.”³ What seems crucial in these cases such as Syria and Egypt is the lag between the conditions that create increased social mobilization and the development of political institutions.

What I think is meaningful to ask civics students is: in addition to looking at developing nations, can conditions in a modern, advanced nation, like the US, deteriorate in such a way that economic advancement continues but the political institutions fall into disarray? And if the answer to that question is yes, can that lead to the same type of disruption that frequents many developing nations? Are we witnessing the beginning of such a development? Given the apparent inability of our government to answer many of the challenges our current economic conditions have presented – the inability to meet the real estate bubble and its aftermath comes to mind – can this lead to political disruption here? To date, this has not happened. Can we say that despite problems in some areas, overall American political institutions are well founded, established, and strong enough to withstand relatively small inefficiencies that might very well be temporary at worst? But a nagging concern lingers: as we see the gap between the rich and the rest continue to grow, are we seeing the beginnings of a rocky future?

All of this is worth discussing in a senior government class. Through such discussion, students can first become aware of the relation between social mobilization and political disruption and violence. They can then delve into how such factors operate in the US and other advanced nations. At least, students can walk away with a new found appreciation for the preceding generations that have done the grunt work in establishing our political institutions; that is, establishing the accepted ways of engaging in politics and governance even if the current conditions can be frustrating and foreboding.

1Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

2Ibid., p. 4.

3Ibid., p. 5.

ONGOING CONCERN OVER CIVICS

In 2011, the Carnegie Corporation of New York released an update to a 2003 report. The update is entitled Guardian of Democracy: Civic Mission of Schools.¹ It re-emphasized the findings of the earlier report and provides support to the claims this blog made early on about the many problems facing our civics instruction across this land. While the report expresses these problems in a variety of ways, let me share a summary paragraph that captures the challenges:

It is the current crisis of America that great civic exertions are required of a divided people. Our bonds are strained, our civility has worn thin, and our sense of common purpose has weakened, just as the need for cooperation on large challenges grows urgent.²

As this description suggests, civics education is simply not imparting enough information about the government and political affairs, not imparting enough skills concerning political interactions, and not encouraging enough of those dispositions that both motivate participation in the political process and be of a moral bent when considering such participation. The report suggests that a viable civics program would want students to:

• be informed and thoughtful
• participate in their communities
• act politically
• have moral and civic virtues

Each of these is more fully explained and somewhat justified in the report. My concern is that most of this work, while reasonable and useful, lacks in being firmly ensconced in a thought-out theoretical base. In fact, most of it can be described as commonsensical. The problem with that is the approach does not address the deep seated social and political conditions that have led us to the problems we face. The closest the report gets to identifying the societal sources of the problems is stated in an introductory statement in which they write:

Those who blame our democratic shortfalls on a media failing its responsibilities, the proliferation of money in politics, and politicians serving narrow interests rather than the common good are not wrong – all of these are very real threats to American democracy. But all three of these threats, and others, would be ameliorated by a more knowledgeable and engaged citizenry.³

Much of this blog has been dedicated to describing and explaining these problems.

I have made the argument in this blog that one of the reasons our civics efforts have fallen short has been that, as a nation, we have embraced the mental construct I have called the natural rights construct. While I don't expect these nationally known and respected organizations, such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to keep up with this blog (or to give it much credence), the actual conditions that reflect our adoption of a construct that glorifies the the individual should be acknowledged, since this development stands in the way of accomplishing that organization's stated goals. For example, the goal of having students exert civic action at the community level is highly hampered by the more individualistic and narcissistic orientation too many of our youth exhibit.⁴ These problems need to be addressed head on and they need to be recognized as conditions that reflect culturally defined world views that are readily shared among our youth and adults – including too many teachers. In short, the sources of these problems are profound and daunting and dancing around them will not do.

Having expressed my view of a shortcoming, let me state that I feel overall that the efforts of the Carnegie group – which reflects a very large alliance of civics education organizations – have been useful and positive. There are very influential individuals who are involved with this group and I can readily recommend that interested citizens would do well to look up the publications this group has been issuing along with those of the different organizations making up the alliance. A good place to start is the site: http://www.civicmissionofschools.org/the-campaign/guardian-of-democracy-report . This site is posted by a council of interested citizens that is chaired by the Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor, former Supreme Court justice, and the Honorable Lee Hamilton, former member of the US House of Representatives. Just to list a few of the many reputable organizations under this alliance, there are the American Federation of Teachers, the American Historical Association, and the National Council for the Social Studies.

1Gould, J. (ed.). (2011). Guardian of Democracy: Civic Mission of Schools. Philadelphia, PA: The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. See Internet site: http://civicmission.s3.amazonaws.com/118/f0/5/171/1/Guardian-of-Democracy-report.pdf .

2Ibid., p. 9.

3Ibid., p. 5.

4Twenge, J. M. & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The narcissism epidemic: Living in the age of entitlement. New York, NY: Free Press.

HOW EQUAL IS EQUAL?

There is a generally held myth that is very hurtful to those Americans who find themselves earning incomes in the lower two fifths of all earners. The myth is that America has a meaningful level of economic mobility that justifies it being considered a nation of equal opportunity. The myth is sustained by the relatively small number of cases that can be used to support it. That is, some poor people do become rich. But let us look at this myth and see what some of the numbers indicate is the real situation.

One thing a person who looks into this issue of persistent poverty finds out is that education is central to any chance at breaking out of the “poverty trap.” The economist, Joseph E. Stigliz,¹ reports that in the US, there is a stronger relation not only between parents' educational level and their children's educational level, but their economic and “socio-emotional” outcomes than in just about any other advanced nation. As I have already reported in this blog, the level of inequality is higher in the US than these other nations and this strong relation between parental education and their off-springs' success bodes that future inequality will only get worse. Of course, all of this brings into question: given the current economic conditions in the US, just how much opportunity exists?

Stiglitz adopts a definition of equality as a national economy in which 20% of those in the bottom fifth will not see their offspring escape that lowest level of income. The nation that comes closest to this ideal figure is Denmark, where only 25% of the poorest see their children remain poor. Reputed class-conscious Britain can boast a 30% figure. In America the figure is 42% or, stated more positively, 58% of those in the bottom fifth will see their children escape the bottom quintile level of income. But before you believe this is still a good rate in bettering their lot, let me point out that about two-thirds of those born into the bottom fifth will still live their lives in the bottom 40% of wage earners – those represent households making roughly $40,000 a year or less. These figures indicate an economy that does not provide much equal opportunity as measured either in absolute terms or as compared to other advanced economies.

Given these figures, what should civics students make of them? The first point a civics teacher would attempt to make clear is that ever since the nation's origin, we have had a concern for equality. But this promotion of equality was never one that reflected what would become associated with Marxian thought. That is, our support of equality had more to do with equal condition before the law and equality in terms of economic opportunity. It did not set equal results – people generally living within the same economic and social standing – as the aim. It simply set out to strive for a social reality in which everyone had an equal shot at making it financially and the government would treat everyone the same. For example, if you break the law you should be punished in similar fashion to everyone else regardless of how rich you are or whom you might know. This ideal is so ingrained as a cultural belief that chances are a teacher would need only to remind students of this national bias in order to provide context for what would follow. Then comes the question: what exactly does it mean to have equal opportunity? And once that is determined, how do you know a nation provides equal opportunity? The standard stated above – full equal opportunity exists when only 20% of those in the bottom quintile in income will have their children remain in the bottom quintile – is provided by the Economic Mobility Project. This project is funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and is well respected. But students might be given the challenge of devising their own way of measuring economic opportunity. They might take into account what people in general consider equal opportunity to be by devising and administering an appropriate survey questionnaire to adults they know. The next stage in an inquiry might have students apply their adopted or devised measure to American realities and see how much Americans actually believe, as indicated by the levels of economic mobility, in equal opportunity. This can be analyzed by looking at what really materializes in terms of both economic conditions in the US and how public policy functions in any national effort to establish equal opportunity. Are we a nation that simply pays lip service to this ideal? How have we done historically; have we been better in providing equal opportunity in the past than today, and does existing governmental policy really address providing opportunity or does it offer counterproductive effects? For example, recently Rush Limbaugh, a famous conservative pundit, argued that welfare provides disincentives to people working and that, therefore, acts to inhibit meaningful opportunity. A simple “Google” review indicates that a lot of scholastic and journalistic interest has been dedicated to this very controversial assertion. Again, these concerns can be used to provide questions students can research.

What we do know is that poverty rates have increased since the beginning of our most recent recession. We also know that median wage has decreased during these last few years. And we know that the fate of the middle class in America has been deteriorating since the seventies. The question of whether our nation is living up to our commitment to establish and maintain meaningful economic opportunity has become and continues to be a vibrant concern. Our students should become proficient in talking and deliberating about this important issue. As a federalist based system, equality is a vital and legitimizing ideal for how we organize our governance.

1Stiglitz, J. E. (2012). The price of inequality: How today's divided society endangers our future. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company.

WHAT SHOULD BE SAID

This posting will be relatively short. I basically want to review the evolving thinking concerning the rights contained within the First Amendment concerning free speech. I have, in previous postings, used this right and our view of it to demonstrate one of the points I have emphasized in this blog: we have moved in our constitutional thinking from one of obligation and duty to one of self-serving utility. That is, our original ideal view of our governmental system was the formulation of a federated union in which we all had equal standing, but the union called on us to be part of a dynamic collective formed to attain a certain list of goals. Summarily, the goals were to achieve a more perfect union – see Preamble of the agreement.

Michael J. Sandel¹ identifies a set of quotes that capture the original sense and the more modern view as expressed by constitutional experts. The more traditional quotes are:

• “[T]ime has upset many fighting faiths … [and] the best of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
• “[The founders believed that in] government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary … that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.” Louis D. Brandeis
• “[The First Amendment] is to give to every voting member of the body politic the fullest possible participation in the understanding of those problems with which the citizens of a self-governing society must deal.” Alexander Meiklejohn

As opposed to the following:

• The more modern focus emphasizes “the source of the speech in the self, and make[s] the choice of the speech by the self the crucial factor in justifying protection.” C. Edwin Baker
• “[N]o other approach would comport with the premise of individual dignity and choice upon which our political system rests.” John Marshall Harlan
• “[I]t is nevertheless often true one man's vulgarity is another's lyric … .” John Marshall Harlan (Part of the opinion that found the conviction of a person wearing a tee shirt brandishing the term, “F**K THE DRAFT” – without the asterisks – unconstitutional.)
• “[The purpose of the First Amendment is] to assure self-fulfillment for each individual … .” Police of the City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 96.
• “[Freedom of speech is] intrinsic to individual dignity … [I]n a democracy like our own, in which the autonomy of each individual is accorded equal and incommensurate respect [freedom of speech needs to be protected].” William J. Brennan
• [I]deas which are not a product of individual choice are entitled to less First Amendment protection.” Byron R. White

The shift between these two sets of quotes reflects a profound change in how freedom of speech is seen – how it is defended and how it is seen to function in our political dealings. The older view, captured in the first set of quotes, sees free speech from the perspective that speech and communication need to be free in order to protect and advance the integrity of a political system based on participation. Speech is not only a chosen course of action; it is an obligation and duty each citizen has. In contrast, the second, more modern view, not only softens the sense of obligation, but also attributes this freedom as a reflection of our right to be the individual we have chosen to be. We even get the sense, from White's quote above, that we have an obligation to be reflective in our efforts to formulate the person we are to be.

Students of civics should consider these opposing views. This issue concerning speech and our collective ideals, by which we define the constitutional protection that is extended to speech, serves to represent the whole question: is freedom a matter of one being free to do what one should do or is it a matter of being free to do what one wants to do? Is freedom of speech the right and obligation to participate in the political controversies that confront the polity at a given time or is it the right to express ourselves in whatever way we want or to consume whatever anyone else wants to express? This includes any salacious, hateful, or seditious materials. Of course, these positions are not mutually exclusive in all cases. At times, one can see that wanting to consume certain expressive materials does not interfere with one's obligation to be a participating citizen. But there are cases when these ideals can work at cross purposes. And it is in those cases that students can determine where their positions lie. For example, take the case of the offensive tee shirt cited above. A classroom study of the censorship policies associated with World War I could hypothetically juxtapose a case in which an anti-war advocate wears such a shirt or carries the message on a placard in a demonstration. Students can write a story in which they work out a scenario as to what would happen to such a person. The story would have to depict accurately the laws, the dispositions of the courts, and public opinion of that time. All of this could be followed by a discussion about what the person wanted to say and what the person should have said. Perhaps some students would conclude they are both the same and some other students might conclude that the message would be different and should be different.

1Sandel, M. J. (1996). Democracy's discontent: America in search of a public philosophy. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

MERELY A NUMBERS GAME?

Much has been made of the differences between traditional thinking and modern, scientific thinking. And, in truth, there are significant differences between them, but in one regard, they have a significant similarity: both have an intolerance for indefiniteness. Both seek assurance. One does so through traditional beliefs such as religious beliefs or old cultural myths and the other through observation, measurement, and objective generalizing that is based on those observations and measurements. This posting is a comment on positivist rationalism.

In our modern world, we have given much credence to the value of rational thought. Philip Selznick¹ identifies two forms of rational thought: axiomatic rationalism and positivist rationalism. In this posting, in trying to describe positivism, I will begin by distinguishing it from axiomatic rationalism or idealism. Just to place some context to this attempt, I wrote of axiomatic rationalism a few postings ago – you are invited to click on that posting entitled A Step Toward Reasoned Argument.

The foundation of axiomatic rationalism is the mind and ideas. Unlike with axiomatic rationalism, for positivist rationalism ideas, qua ideas, are struggled against. With axiomatic rationalism, there is a commitment to hit upon objective standards for determining morals and truth. As I described in the previous posting, this type of rationalism is, in the end, based on postulates and assumptions. As such, there is, by necessity, a limit on the determinant quality one can associate with axiomatic rationalism. We believe in rights, for example, because we assume that “all men are created equal.” Such a foundation to a moral belief is unprovable, at least, against the real, observable world – it's simply “self evident.” This type of claim is not so much seeking determinacy in either the domain of morals or in the domain of truth.

Instead, positivist rationalism rejects such reliance, in the long term, on postulates or assumptions. They take on a more limited temporary role, but in the end are subject to being questioned and tested. Truth and morals are sought after in the real experiences of people, not their ideas. This approach strives to be precise in its meanings and to eliminate vagueness. The aim is to be able to test beliefs either through scientific research, in terms of objective reality, or utilitarian calculations, in terms of morals. In this posting, my attention is limited to the scientific methodology.

Part and parcel of this approach is to reduce beliefs or findings to more basic realities; that is, to view the area of interest in a more simple form – in a more definite elemental context. For example, biological knowledge is sought to be reduced to chemical explanation, or to reduce sociological knowledge to psychological explanation. If successful, the knowledge is more widely applicable; that is more powerful. This whole approach has obviously been very beneficial to human progress in terms of material understanding and well-being. But through this reductionism, positivism and our over- dependence on it has led to oversimplifying complex reality, especially when we are concerned with that aspect of reality that pertains to consciously reactive beings – human behavior.

Let me illustrate this problem by pointing out one area with which I am particularly familiar. School reform has been a topic much highlighted in our public discourse. Too many would-be reformers have been reliant on positivist rationalism to come up with the solutions to our unrelenting school problems. Not enough students are learning those things we believe are essential to being productive and participating citizens and workers. Reductionist thinking has led to one “silver bullet” solution after another with little change in school success rates. I have written of these failed answers before and I will skip over the merits or limitations of these “reforms.” What I will express is that educational challenges in our nation might be helped by scientific approaches, but ultimately final solutions will take a lot of complex qualitative study that will be more akin to historical, literary, linguistic, philosophic, and other not so determinant modes of research. Those scholars who have delved into more cultural areas of concern, such as anthropologists and historians, have long ago realized that measuring, numbers, and reductive logic often overlook those factors, developments, nuances, relationships, and norms that don't lend themselves to measurements per se. Story telling skills often are more useful in such research than fancy statistical analysis. Let me share Philip Selznick's words on this issue:

These assertions stem from a general perspective – a nominalist ontology – not from the closely reasoned findings of focused inquiry. They reflect positivism's impatience with the more complex and elusive aspect of social and psychological reality.²

That is, the shortcomings of positivist research stem from its tendency to reduce social phenomena to being the exclusive result of individuals and their choices. By so doing, understanding is likely to be sacrificed as I believe has been the case in our efforts to understand our nation's schools. The subtle facts of relations and their intertwined complications are easily missed by reductionist logic. We even have a difficult time measuring success when it comes to schools. Who is responsible for a child's success or failure? Is it a current teacher, parents, administrative policy, neighborhood conditions, past teachers, etc.? Or is it a combination of factors with immeasurable levels of influence? Is success merely the performance of students on tests or is it a varied compilation of results that include beyond cognitive achievements strong families, safe neighborhoods, honest employees and business persons? All of these are emblematic of viable school systems.

I have already made the claim in this blog that positivist logic is the chosen approach of those who adhere to the natural rights construct – the prominent mental construct of our political and governmental thinking. As such, positivism plays an influential role in how we teach civics and government, as this posting, I hope, makes clear; that's good and bad. It is good in that it encourages our students to take a realistic look at political and governmental activities. There is value in measuring things including the processes and results of our political and governmental efforts. But we need to be vigilant of oversimplifying what we are looking at and remember these are human activities that are the most complex bit of phenomena we can study. We need to be vigilant against promoting an overly individualistic view of social life that feeds more narcissistic attitudes. Often, responsible social research calls for methodology that, while trying to be objective, remembers that what is being looked at is motivated by highly emotional factors. You can, for example, explain why a sports team wins a championship by looking at performance statistics – passing completion rates, batting averages, field goal percentages, greens in regulations, and the like – but you can gain understanding only by appreciating the human ambitions, teammate interactions, family support, and the like that escape the ability of the statistician to observe and measure. That's why we read both reports and scientific studies and why we also read novels.

1Selznick, P. (1992). The moral commonwealth: Social theory and the promise of community. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

2Ibid., p. 51.