MANAGING SOCIAL FORCES

Readers of this blog are aware that it is reporting on a book from the late 1960s, Political Order in Changing Societies (POCS).[1]  That book was written by a respected political scientist, the late Samuel P. Huntington.  He became somewhat well-known among the general reading public with his book, The Clash of Civilizations, 1996 – it engendered a bit of controversy.  The earlier book did not, but it made the case for the importance of political institutions; something many today have seemed to have forgotten.

          In POCS, Huntington offered a major argument:   when a lesser developed country (LDC) experiences relatively high modernization (development), but at the same time has a relatively slow development of political institutions, it will suffer from political instability.  Enough instability and the political system of that polity will fail and, if that happens, it cannot provide the services any country depends on to maintain order and to shepherd economic activities.

          These possibilities can be very serious, particularly if the country already is dealing with those challenges associated with getting an economy growing and becoming viable within the expectations of the twenty-first century – after all, it is within that economic environment that those nations must compete.

          The last two postings reviewed the general aspects of Huntington’s argument.  They reviewed the role social mobilization, social forces, economic development, political norms, and political stability plays in the drama these countries face.  This posting reviews briefly the role certain types of political institutions play in maintaining – or perhaps help establishing – political stability.  Those institutions are the military, reforms, and political parties.  But first, a definition of political institutions is offered.

          That is:  organizations and procedures which routinize political behavior into accepted forms.  This posting will only briefly review Huntington’s analysis of these institutions because the overall concern here is to demonstrate parallels between LDCs and advanced countries in terms of how they both rely on institutions, but the demands are different and, therefore, the affected institutions will reflect different attributes even if there exists a parallel. 

The US, for example, and its current concerns over institutions has a different set of factors.  To meet those concerns, a different set of institutions are called upon to meet the concerns; they become crucial, such as the media.  But in looking at the relevant institutions LDCs utilize to meet instability, one might extract useful insights.

The first of the institutions Huntington highlights is the military.  The military changes its function as an LDC moves along a development path.  Initially, it serves a guardian role – above politics – but eventually will probably be dragged into countering the rising influence of an urban, middle-class becoming too powerful.  While an increase in power among these groups is inevitable with economic development, things can get too lopsided at the expense of the peasant population.  This, at minimum, will undermine the democratic quality of the polity.

In this eventuality, there is a parallel with advanced countries.  As those advanced countries in the past number of decades have become more involved and dependent on global markets, the urban elite has benefitted mightily.  And what has been the reaction in one advanced nation after another?  In many of those countries, the rise of nationalism has resulted, mainly based on support from agricultural areas or in areas where manufacturing jobs have been lost to cheap labor countries (some being LDCs). 

In turn, that has caused virulent instability within these advanced countries’ internal, political environments.  The instabilities are currently threatening international agreements and associations.  Probably Great Britain dropping out of the European Union (Brexit) is the most noted, but in the US the rise of Donald Trump, a self-identified nationalist, can also be so regarded.

And that leads to the next institution, reforms or the accepted processes by which to institute reforms.  The reforms set out to accomplish a straightforward goal:  to tamp down the inordinate advantages some groups might have over other groups.  While such a concern does not present an existential challenge to an advanced nation – as might be the case for an LDC – serious disruption can result if this institution, reforms, does not function and function sufficiently effective.

Those in charge of designing, fighting for, and implementing reforms have a tall order to accomplish.  To be successful, those so charged have a difficult task.  Be it in LDCs or advanced countries, they need skill because reforms interfere with immediate rewards by those who are advantaged by the existing conditions.  In turn, those negatively affected by reforms might enjoy high levels of power that reforms, beyond causing immediate pain, might upset their power bases.

The last of the “Huntington” institutions, political parties, refers to what a previous posting described.  That is the funneling function; national politics funnels diverse desires, aims, goals, interests, and the like into a set of public policies.  In that process, those involved whittle away those ambitions that simply do not have enough support, mostly by powerful players. 

An array of actions is involved:  compromise, power plays, deceit, promises, deferred ambitions, glad-handing, trades, on and on.  Political parties are those arrangements where these actions take place at a national level.  By the time parties are involved, a lot politicking has gone on at more local levels.  Parties are just about the last political “locale” – before the actual governmental arena – where these actions occur.

But a populist chief executive, where popularity is essential to garner votes, can undermine the role parties should play.  What is that?  Yes, parties are about advancing self-interests – rare is the politician (party member) who endangers his/her chances at reelection – but through negotiations, parties can act to balance social forces. 

That is the case if no one in the mix has inordinate basis of power.  But if the chief executive can bring to bear opposing politicians in his/her respective party’s nomination process – in the US that would be primaries.  This can nullify usual party-level negotiations and compromising.  The chief’s opponents, in the US, can be “primaried.”  Other systems have comparable possibilities.

A popular head of a party that has gained the chief executive position – a president, a prime minister – can pull off such a strong-arm position.  If that chief caters, usually with the use of rhetoric only – such policy positions that are interpreted as addressing disadvantaged segments of the population – the above scenario is possible and history has offered sufficient examples.

Huntington favors two-party systems.  Apparently, given the overall funneling process, two parties serve the right amount of funneling at the national level.  Single parties, without having sufficient competition, can become too oppressive and indifferent to popular concerns.  Sometimes they are ideological and their ideology serves to rationalize dictatorial power-positioning.  Multi-party systems undermine the need for majority support in issuing policy or they over-compromise in their negotiations and thereby undermine their effectiveness.

With that, this blog ends this review of Huntington’s book.  Overall, this writer feels the late political scientist offered ideas and concerns citizens of advanced countries should consider not only in dealing with LCDs, but to take note of how healthy their respective polities are doing – disruptions, instabilities, and other norm shattering events can have serious consequences.  The need for strong political institutions does not go away as countries become “advanced.”  And civics students, this writer believes, can understand the outlines of these concerns.

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[1] Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1968).

THE FUNCTION OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

In the last posting, it brought to the attention of the reader a 1968 book[1] by the late political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington.  Part of the that account included Huntington’s major argument in that book.  That is:  when a lesser developed country (LDC) experiences relatively high modernization (development), but at the same time has a relatively slow development of political institutions, it will suffer from political instability.  In this relationship, students of development can measure modernization/development by rates of social mobilization.

          The posting then defines key terms associated with this relationship.  Beyond, but including, social mobilization and political institutions, they are economic development, political norms, and political (in)stability.  The reader, if he/she has not read that posting, is encouraged to do so.

          This posting picks up on that description, but first a reminder.  The purpose of going back to Huntington’s book is that given the current American political scene, one can see parallels between the challenges LDCs confronted then and now and challenges this nation unfortunately is experiencing.  Today, it seems basic political institutions are under attack.  If so, what does that mean?  What can the consequences be?

          The major link Huntington seems to have argued is that development, more specifically its accompanying political development, means higher levels of political participation in the form of increased group demands and accompanying political action. 

Economic advancement, which defines the central element of development, in relation to the realities of developing nations (often lacking in economic assets), causes unrequited expectations which are voiced directly into the political system because they lack the necessary institutions to peacefully handle these demands.  One way one can visualize political action in relation to demands within a nation is to use the analogy of a grand funnel.

If one thinks about it, no two persons share exactly all their political desires and aims.  There is, in any nation, a great variety of what is wanted.  The activity one calls politics acts to funnel that diversity into a coherent set of policies.  In the US – or any advanced nation – there are a set of institutions (organizations and procedures which routinize political behavior into accepted forms) that function – in various degrees – to funnel demands.  They include neighborhood groups, interest groups, and political parties.

In advanced countries these are well established and defined both on paper (law and other documentations) and in people’s minds.  But if a polity does not enjoy having or, if having, not having sufficiently established institutions, this funneling process does not occur sufficiently.  And the one thing any economic development causes is rising expectations.  If these are unrequited, a basic precondition for instability has been set.[2]

Political order or stability can be viewed as a continuum.  That is, a reality of degrees in which where the ratio of institutionalization to participation is high, that system creates a civic polity; but a ratio relationship which is low, creates a praetorian polity, a polity seeking an advanced status, but not having achieved it.

To quote Huntington:  “Political stability … depends upon the ratio of institutionalization to participation.  As political participation increases, the complexity, autonomy, adaptability, and coherence of the society’s political institutions must also increase if political stability is to be maintained.” 

Those falling short, one can describe as praetorian societies and in danger of failure.  They are those societies in which private claims cannot be channeled peacefully (not funneled), and personal – as opposed to institutional – power becomes the basis for conflict resolution.  The question here is:  can this sort of imbalance affect advanced nations as well, not with rebellion, but with levels of instability that make normal politics more difficult to accomplish?

After the relationship between political institutions and political participation are reviewed, the book explains how certain social forces can lead a political system out of the praetorian status into the civic one.  This account (in upcoming postings) will describe the roles that military rule, reforms, and political parties have in helping to create the necessary political institutions and in controlling the effects of development.

These forces can enhance political institutions’ ability to (1) reflect power distribution while attracting and assimilating new social forces; (2) balance any advantages output agencies (bureaucracies) have over input agencies/factions (interest groups); and (3) regulate succession.  A lot of this comprises the below-the-radar governance that is important, but attracts little attention – one just tends to assume this stuff goes on on a regular basis.

But to varying degrees, these concerns can be detected, from time to time, in advanced countries.  For example, according to Michael Lewis, the transition between the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration, output agencies were seriously undermanned and, in turn, has had their advantages heavily compromised in favor of well-positioned factions.[3]  What can go wrong?

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[1] Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1968).

[2] There is a famous overall explanation for rebellion or internal disruptions that relies on this very relationship.  It is called Davies “J” Curve.  See John T. Jost and Avital Mentovich, “J-Curve Hypothesis,” Encyclopeadia Brittanica, accessed February 11, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/J-curve-hypothesis .

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

SOME KEY IDEAS REGARDING DEVELOPMENT

Some years ago, verging on fifty, Samuel P. Huntington wrote a fairly influential book, Political Order in Changing Societies (POCS).[1]  In that book, he offered an analysis of what factors affected the aims and goals of lesser developed countries (LDCs).  With the conflicts in southeast Asia of that time (the sixties), there seemed to be a bit of interest over the challenges LDCs faced – challenges that still exist today. 

Communist attempts to spread their influence among those nations probably spurred a lot of interest here in the US.  With the fall of communism, at least that communism that emanated from the Soviet Union and a more virulent Red China, concern in the US has waned a bit.  But it is felt here that what Huntington wrote about those countries, does seem to have relevance today.  It gives one not only understanding of what can or should happen to LDCs, but perhaps what is happening or should happen in the US.

          This posting and, at least, the next posting will review Huntington’s book and draw from it what might give one understandings over current American realities and their significance.  At first, the review will describe that book’s content as it dealt with the LDCs’ issues.  Overall, POCS is a systems analysis of what Huntington saw was the most pressing problem LDCs faced; i.e., their ability to govern.

          His study assumes that any analysis of an LDC should be contained within the boundaries of that LDC.  It should also question that nation’s political system’s ability to meet the social/political/economic requisites necessary to stave off decay, that could eventually lead to systems failure.  In other words, for LDCs that are in the midst of developing, their efforts are on a time clock; can they accomplish sufficient development before their system fails bringing its efforts to a crashing end?  It turns out, development unleashes disruptive forces.

And what are they aiming to develop?  That would be becoming a society with a self-sustaining economic system, sufficient equalization of economic distribution, and sufficiently democratization of political processes.  In other words, how much like the Western democracies of North America and Europe can they imitate or resemble. 

So far, a more current reading of this study suggests two criticisms one can lodge against the book:  one, it “unwisely” limits its view to only internal factors – perhaps paying an unjustified blind eye to the manipulation external elites and powerful nations have on the politics of LDCs – and using capitalist nations of the West to be the model for these nations to follow – irrespective of their varied cultures, geographic conditions, or historical narratives.  But with that in mind, one should move on.

What Huntington seemed to be after was his hope that subsequent emperical studies of LDCs would identify those factors that lead to political conditions in which polities can govern.  In that, he made a further assumption:  development or (another proWestern term) modernization creates new social forces within societies and, in turn, they cause disruptive influences which makes necessary adaptations hard to accomplish.  It was Huntington’s observation that success in adaptation, at that time, was rare.  Instead, one could expect, in those nations, instability.

So much so, that Huntington saw stability as the essential prerequisite to development or modernization.  Stability was his measure of a polity’s ability to govern, and, therefore, he held it as his major focus – his major dependent variable or condition.  He seemed to be warning:  get this wrong and all else is a waste of time; development will not happen. 

Yet, both on the part of developed nations who are playing a role in LDC development and indigenous parties involved in that process tend to be insensitive to or not sensitive enough to the implications of Huntington’s advice.  These players, Huntington judged, were missing the mark for they were not addressing the essential requisites and that neglect landed up only furthering disruption.

He identified a complex social fabric.  Events that on the surface seem prudent and positive, prove not to be; while, events that intuitively seem dysfunctional, turn out to be essential.  For example, what usually is disruptive, violence, at times proves unavoidable and useful.  Where economic development, seen as an independent goal, can be of obvious use, but at the same time proves to be disruptive.  And then there is corruption – at times, believe it or not, a potential substitute for revolution or rebellion – is almost synonymous with instability.  Complexities abound.

The central argument posed by Huntington was that relatively high modernization (development) progressions, which can be measured by rates of social mobilization and economic development, but is accompanied with relatively slow pace in the development of political institutions leads to political instability.  To digest what Huntington meant, one needs a clear understanding of his major ideas.

An understanding of modernization or overall development calls one to appreciate what its essential attribute is:  social mobilization.  The term, social mobilization, refers to a process.  That process is felt or observed when traditional economic, social, and psychological commitments no longer hold, forcing people to attach themselves to new values, attitudes, and most importantly to higher economic expectations. 

In other words, it is large scale transformative change at a national level.  Readers of this blog, hopefully, can appreciate, from past postings, how difficult that is to accomplish at the level of an organization, much less a nation.  Yet, Huntington claimed that that needs to occur for a nation to modernize.

As for the other ideas:  Huntington saw the idea of higher economic development as mainly a nation being able to produce higher quantities of material output, usually manufactured goods.  LDCs usually already produce high quantities of agricultural goods and/or minerals.  The problem is:  the land used for those activities are owned by the elite few who tend to be very rich and as such have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. 

Political institutions are organizations and procedures which routinize political behavior into accepted forms.  People accept these forms and they are usually referred to as political norms.  An example of this could be when two cars happen to run into each other, the police come out, ask questions, perhaps take pictures, make sure everyone is alright, and so on.  That is what is expected in, say, the US; a policeman taking a bribe from the luxury car driver is not expected and defies a political norm, as well as a law.  Laws, in turn, are expected to be upheld.  These are not universal norms; in many, if not most nations, elite privileges are the norm.

Where corruption is common, priveliege is expected to go to those who own or control desired assets – money, land, property, power (both legitimate and illegitimate forms), etc.  The point is:  to establish stability – i.e., high levels of expectations and their realization – a nation needs well-ensconced political institutions that are counted on to counter disstabilizing events and conditions.

And that leads to the last of these ideas, political instability.  It can be characterized by violence, social group conflicts, corruption, and bureaucratic inefficiency.  It also leads to the tie-in to current political concerns in the US.  No, America is not an LDC.  It is a developed country – some might consider it the most developed.  But can Huntington’s concerns cast any light on what is happening in the politics of America today?  This blog will pursue this question in the upcoming postings.

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[1] Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1968).

THE MEANING OF “UNALIENABLE”

This posting picks-up on a theme – Jefferson’s belief in a moral sense – that was described and explained in the last posting.  If not read, to make fuller sense of what follows, the reader should look it up.  In this posting, it develops a notion:  people seek to be moral in order to induce a pleasure; being good feels good.  That last posting investigates this claim and lands up accepting it, but in a nuanced way. 

But the point here insists that Thomas Jefferson believed it and that belief plays an important role in his use of the term, “unalienable,” in the Declaration of Independence.  As the last posting ends:  “Turns out, how most students are led to understand this term is not exactly right.”

One of the factors reviewed in the last posting was reason.  That account described reason as the human faculty that serves to aim moral thought and action.  It calculates.  It provides the “means” for what a moral “drive” might determine an “end” should be.  But as with describing or understanding the moral sense, many competing desires, many murky facts, many possible rationalizations can be felt or thought of.

Reason might point a person – using Jefferson’s language – toward being vicious (it might not), but the moral sense always points that same person toward being virtuous.  That sense can be ill served by reason, but its unwavering aim – hence making it a drive – is to be good toward others. 

Of course, this and other drives are subject to forces, such as cultural forces, within a given social landscape.  And this includes how events and the particulars of those events are defined or otherwise understood.  All of this can be complicated, but it does provide a useful context for related issues. 

And with the above as context, one can address the notion of rights, a related issue.  Often in this blog, this writer has pointed out that the natural rights view of rights has to do with having the social and legal prerogative to do what one wishes to do.  Yes, this is constrained by others having the same legal standing, but this sense of rights opens a vast array of options for individuals to pursue. 

With the use of the term, “unalienable,” in the Declaration of Independence, one senses a very liberal take on an unfettered life, unfettered and only subject to one’s self-restraints in most cases.  But the above context hints at a different feel for this quality.  And one aspect of this reason to reflect, is that the whole Lockean notion of rights – the natural rights view – was a relatively new idea in the late 1700s, at least on these shores. 

There had not been much philosophic, theoretical, or political reflection what exactly this meant.  According to Gary Wills, earlier use of the term, “right,” was reserved to mean “right order.”  The sense was that “its earlier use was as a power exercised in the name of the state.”[1]  And ideally – presumably – that was to advance the interest of the nation or other jurisdiction (like a fiefdom, a city, a parish, etc.). 

The ruler had the necessary powers to so rule – in accordance with those jurisdictional interests – and he/she administered it or alienate it to the subjects.  That is, he/she gave the power or benefit to those ruled.  To alienate meant to give away, to make alien from the giver – usually for a given reason.

Jefferson gives his readers a hint at his meaning by not using the term, property, in his list of unalienable rights.  He writes “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” not “… and property.”  They are unalienable not because the fear is a state might deprive a person of these “rights,” but that the individual cannot give them away. 

A person’s life, liberty (to do good), and happiness are part of his/her nature.  The individual has a sense for morality, a sense that that is not subject to being alienable.  Therefore, they are unalienable.  In all this, according to Wills, Jefferson was highly influenced by Francis Hutcheson and this latter writer explains this distinction, between rights over one’s person and the right to pursue the moral sense.  Wills writes:

Rights arises in, and because of, society; it is a power over others so long as benevolence or innocence are directing the powers.  The test is public good.

          Hutcheson then divides rights into perfect and imperfect.  The perfect, as essential to the public good, can be defended even with private force.  The first example he gives is the right to life.  The basis of the societal bond is benevolence, and no society can undermine its own fundamental value.  Yet security in the possession of life is not only the basis for all goods one can bestow on others; it is, more important, the necessary precondition for doing good – no man can be benevolent unless he is first alive…

          He asserts the right of liberty on similar grounds:  “As nature has implanted in each man a desire of his own happiness and many tender affections toward others in some nearer relations of life, and granted to each one some understanding and active powers, with a natural right exercise them for the purpose of these natural affections, it is plain each one has a natural right to exert his powers, according to his own judgment and inclination, for these purposes, in all such industry, labor, or amusements as are not hurtful to others in their persons or goods, while no more public interests necessarily require his labors or require that his actions should be under the direction of others.  This right we call natural liberty.”[2]

Sorry for the overly, philosophic language; here is this writer’s understanding:  Liberty seems key, but the meaning of it takes on an unaccustomed turn.  The term, natural liberty, today has been coopted by natural rights advocates, a la an altered Lockean view, by his current devotees. 

Under that more recent sense, unalienable refers to the state not being legally or legitimately able to take away rights.  But that according to Jefferson, is impossible, as impossible as negating any other part of one’s nature.  Hence, a better term today for a Jeffersonian sense of liberty is federal liberty – a liberty that advances a citizenry able and willing to be federated among its membership.

In securing rights, therefore, governments do not have the option of taking them away, but they can interfere with their exercise.  They can make it harder to exercise, they can distort them, they can minimize them, but they are unalienable; i.e., they cannot be taken away or given up, they are part of everyone’s nature and is as likely to be taken away as taking away one’s sense of humor.

And, in turn, this sense of liberty, while it is unalienable, introduces duties.  Yes, one can pursue self-interest, but the duty is not to arrange such interests to be contrary to the common good.  Because, as with humor, one’s pleasure in benevolence or doing good toward others is also part of that nature.

Instead, to varying degrees, the duty is to advance the common good.  Rights are not, according to Hutcheson, to be treated as a form of property; they are instead to be seen in their correlative relations to duties.  Or, duties are seeing rights from another perspective.

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[1] Gary Wills, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1978/2018), 213.

[2] Ibid., 216-217.  Emphasis in the original.

JEFFERSON’S SENSE OF A MORAL SENSE

Can this writer not succumb to the temptation to state:  “I’m baaack.”  He obviously cannot.  With this posting, this blog ends the respite its writer enjoyed.  To provide some sort of context, this is, by the writer’s counting, the 801^st posting of this blog.  So, here goes another 400 entries before the next rest; at least that’s the plan. 

To begin, a question is offered, one that civics teachers should consider:  Is one a good person because it makes sense to be good – goodness leads to being liked, gaining cooperation, enjoying heart-enriching company, etc. – or because it is part of one’s nature?  Thomas Reid wrote the following:

Man was destined for society.  His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object.  He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.  This sense is as much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the kalon, truth, etc., as fanciful writers have imagined.  The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm.  It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree.  It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.  This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this; even a less one than what we call common sense.  State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor.  The former will decide it as well and often better than the latter because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.[1]

Reid, in other words, argues that people have, beyond a moral reason, a moral sense.  Being moral is just part of being human.

          But is this not just another way a person seeks pleasure, which a la John Locke is universal?  Writers like Reid make the observation that when a person does something good to others, it feels good; it’s pleasurable.  So, as Locke might have said, this seeking goodness is just another expression of the pleasure drive; a drive people are born to pursue. 

Further, this drive, at times, competes with other drives.  Like what?  The drives to secure material comforts, to secure physical pleasures, to satisfy ego-induced feelings, and the like.  These drives seem to vie for a person’s commitment. 

And these drives often lead to immoral behaviors.  After all, moralists of the past have thought of categories of immorality, such as the seven deadly sins.[2]  And the word deadly is used to indicate that placating these associated drives lead to unhappy endings. 

Why?  Because they often rely on doing harm to others.  There are even arguments that when no one else is involved, possibly as with gluttony, and the harm is on oneself, one has a moral obligation to take care of oneself.  This last position does engender some controversy, but such self-harm is seldom not injurious to others. 

Potential harm can be directed toward loving family members or fellow-insured people who, through their premiums, pay extra due to unnecessary self-abuse among the populous.  “No man is an island” and this trope applies most stridently to the effects of immoral behavior.  This can get complicated.

Be that as it may, Thomas Jefferson saw morality as purely a social concern.[3]  This writer, in describing the morality associated with federation theory, has also described morality in this way.  But by so doing, one does need to be careful.  The possibility of affecting others by one’s behavior at times is quite clear and visible, but at other times, not so much. 

One needs to be honest here and not rationalize away with cheap mental gymnastics the responsibility for the harm one does to others.  This can be tricky as the just mentioned example indicate.  Actually, at times, it is quite easy to hurt others when that is not the intent.  If one wants to avoid such incidences, one has the responsibility to think before one acts.

Given this competition between drives, one can still make the claim that to be moral is part of being human.  It is also a factor – an interest – as one calculates one’s situation when it comes time to decide what one will do.  Jefferson saw the moral sense as man’s highest source of happiness:  “the brightest gem with which the human character is studded.”[4]  And, further, if one accepts this designation, this is the basis of equality.

As described in previous postings – when this blog reviewed federation theory’s case for equality – even though people might vary in their levels of talent and other assets, they are equal in their consent.  Jefferson adds some clarification regarding this more general claim.  He sees all are essentially equal because having a moral sense opens a person accountable to him/herself and to others. 

This permits the creation of a polity based on self-governance since the ability to consent, to be accountable, allows the common man, the ploughman as well as the professor, to meet the inherent social obligations such a polity demands.  Or, as this blog has referred to federal liberty:  the freedom to do what one should do.

And what of the faculty of reason?  Well, reason, according to another writer of Jefferson’s time, Francis Hutcheson, functions as a targeting agent; it decides in what direction and in what style a person decides to be moral.  Conditions present moral challenges or events in a variety of situations. 

Mere intuition or emotionally spurred reaction(s) often lead to less than harmless results.  The use of reason helps to minimize such eventualities.  Some call this type of distinction as being the difference between ends and means.  But while reason can play a helpful role – assuming the end goal is to be moral – it can also be used to manipulate the factors involved. 

Mentally, one strongly wants a given end – perhaps one that causes harm or causes more harm than other alternatives – and self-deception takes place or, if not self-deception, the concern is in how resulting behavior might be judged by others, and that person rationalizes by choosing an immoral option. 

Reason is a tool for good or evil; but long-term, reason points to morality.  It is also subject to faulty performance – it errs.  Or it is subject of varying forces like those emanating from the culture with its biases or erroneous bits of “common” knowledge that is not knowledge at all.  They are instead prejudices, that have become accepted without question. 

All of these hinder the function of reason.  They are often inordinately driven by emotions and resulting rationalization can take on a reasoned appearance that everyone needs to be on guard against in order to be truly reasonable.  The use of logos, in appearance, can be false logos.

People dealing with these issues – back in the days of Jefferson and even today – should consider reasoning that directs a person to be altruistic or in any way directs his/her behaviors to assist others should not counter a basic insight Locke points out. 

That is, “man automatically and infallibly pursues pleasure.”[5]  A person might err in his/her calculations, but the aim is always to induce pleasure.  As it turns out, helping, assisting, coming to the aid of others induces pleasurable sensations within the person so acting.  Whether one agrees with that or not, Jefferson seemed to have agreed with it.

The next posting will pick up on this theme and proceed to further develop this notion of pleasure seeking, reason, moral sense and how they affected Jefferson’s use of the term, “inalienable.”  Turns out, how most students are led to understand this term is not exactly right.

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[1] As quoted in Gary Wills, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1978/2018), 202-203.  The argument here is described and explained by Wills in this cited work.  To bolster this message, there are current writers, albeit a bit nuanced, do seem to agree with Reid. See Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave:  The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (New York, NY:  Penguin Press, 2017.  Of interest are human’s potential to opt anti-cheating reactive behaviors and the role of the frontal cingulate cortex (ACC) in empathic reactions to the misfortunes of others.  Also, Sapolsky writes of the role oxytocin play in humans pairing and bonding, making them more charitable, more sensitive parents or parenting, more prosocial, more concerned with social approval, and more responsive to social approval or reinforcement.  So, the moral sense does seem to have a basis in human biology.

[2] Reminder:  they are envy, gluttony, greed or avarice, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath.

[3] Gary Wills, Inventing America:  Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

[4] Ibid., 211.

[5] Ibid., 212.

THE INDIVIDUAL WITHIN COMMUNITY

[Note:  This posting will mark the 800^th posting of this blog.  As when this blog hit the 400-posting mark, its writer will begin a break – this time for one or two months.  The blog itself will still be found at this site and its archive feature will be in effect.  The reason for this respite is that the writer wants to finish another writing project.  Hopefully, the readers of this blog will be on the lookout for the blog’s resumption.]

For those readers who have been reading the last few postings of this blog know it is currently reporting on some of the fundamental ideas of phenomenology psychology/philosophy.  In the last posting, it reported on a developmental model presented by the philosopher Hegel.  In that model, humans are described as experiencing, through the years of their lives, a maturing process – a development in three stages.  The reader can scroll down to the last entry to read that description.

          Hegel is mostly noted for offering a historical-dialectic model in which through history, human societies are cast as working themselves through a series of conflicts over various ideations of what the nature of societal/political life is and/or should be.  Through these conflicts the events of the past are “guided” to be what they have been. 

That guidance took form through the antagonism inherit within certain societal qualities or elements such as subject and object of knowledge, nature and mind, self and other, freedom and authority, faith and knowledge, etc.  The aim here is not to explain his complex philosophy, but to provide a context for Hegel’s view on human development – it’s based on contradiction and tension within a person’s consciousness.

To summarize the three potential stages, one can apply the following: 

·        in the first stage a child naively accepts what he/she is told or explained to be real and the child makes moral determinations by relying on authoritative/moral positions of those in authority;

·        in the second stage, a young person – usually of teenage to young adult years – questions authority and strives for, without much sophistication, freedom; and lastly,

·        in the third stage, a mature person comes to terms with authority and other power-holders by understanding his/her freedom is advanced within communal settings.

The word “potential” is used because there is no guarantee that any individual will advance through all three stages – they might not even advance beyond the first stage.  And besides – or because of – the shifts from stage to stage are fraught with contention, conflict, and tension.  This posting aims at sharing Philip Selznick’s view[1] concerning the implications this development has on the health of a commonwealth. 

A commonwealth relies on its populous to be supportive of its basic values, aims and goals, general processes, and institutions.  To the degree that populous engages in personal changes, characterized by conflict – between the individual and society and within themselves – one can readily see this does not tend to help maintain or advance the commonwealth’s health.

          Of course, this is a matter of degree.  A society of any stability can accommodate various levels of such conflicts.  Heck, one can argue these conflicts provide some beneficial elements; e.g., spurring on creativity and motivation.  But to maintain a functional level of such tension, prudence calls for societal processes to establish those institutions to help it handle these conflicts.

This creates roles within a society and in which schools have a part.  And that role can only be successfully met with an understanding of what is taking place within each of their students.  But further, school personnel – those who deal directly with students on an ongoing basis – need to acquire a sophisticated understanding not only of what is happening, but what is needed to happen to advance toward what is healthy for the student and for society. 

Schools, as this blog has argued and provided expert opinion supporting, are not currently meeting this obligation very well.  In part, the educator, as best as he/she can determine, needs to commit to know and understand what constitutes the student’s consciousness.  And the Hegel model helps in devising the questions that educators should ask of what he/she perceives student behavior to be including what those students’ expressed concerns and desires are.

Such questioning can be directed at specific concerns.  The first is the issue of freedom.  Here, teachers need to understand that true freedom – as opposed to intuitive freedom – can only be obtained by a person being true to themselves.  This further calls for an inner strength that students might find hard to attain and a self-awareness most people try to avoid.  And central to this process is the use of reason.  Only through this questioning and process can one enlarge one’s consciousness – a challenge that lasts a life time.

Hegel did not believe in subjective morality.  There is a right way in his eyes. 

He did not believe people choose ideals or decide for themselves what is right or wrong.  Rather, the moral worth of an event, decision, or practice is known by the contribution it makes to an objective and immanent ideal, derived from human nature and the human condition, whose dimensions are revealed as history unfolds.[2]

This view demands two, what seems to be, opposing approaches.  The first is an objective view of what is happening – what events mark a person’s life.  And the second is an understanding of the historical context within which one is placed.  While times change – and with it the prevailing assumptions, biases, and understandings – one is served and services a functional consciousness by approaching reality with examined preconceptions.  It is a posture of proactive attentiveness; a person views reality with a “fresh look.”

How?  By evaluating the conceptual world – what some might call, one’s theories-in-use – about what is happening.  These conceptualizations often take on a hidden quality as the person opts a posture of “that’s just the way things are.”  In political matters, for example, beliefs structure perceptions; i.e., they form, and, in turn, they dictate what one perceives to strengthen existing and invested-in opinions.  That way of viewing constrains consciousness and hinders maturation.

So, while everyday experiences can be the source of hindrance, it still is the only venue that affords one the opportunity to grow.  Phenomenologists call that one’s lifeworld and it exists both at the personal level and at the societal level.  In each level it is unique.  It is the stuff of which one’s life transpires, it fills the textured settings – the details – of the different elements of one’s experiences.  It provides the “wellsprings” of life.

And through the lifeworld and its uniqueness the conscious landscape is formed in which one’s moral and “spiritual” life can ground itself in what is concrete.

Acceptance of uniqueness brings a realm of freedom – the freedom to be different and to be oneself.  Interdependence, however, creates the enmeshed, embedded, implicated self.  Without awareness of that condition, and responsibility for it, freedom is unguided and spiritually empty.[3]

This take on phenomenology reminds the writer of the work of Thomas Reid and his argument for common sense.  Once one matures beyond a stage, looks back with some chagrin, he/she might view the whole prior years and embarrassingly think, why of course.

[Note:  So long for a while.]

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[1] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[2] Ibid., 67.  Emphasis added.

[3] Ibid., 69.