Some truck enthusiasts are intentionally producing copious amounts of diesel exhaust, spewing black smoke into the air as a form of political protest. It’s called “rolling coal.” Vocativ covered the subculture in an article last month, reporting “coal rollers” can spend thousands of dollars altering their rides to produce ever greater amounts of smoke.
This costly display of political spleen is evidently intended to display the driver’s disdain for “elitist pinko” concerns about clean air and climate change. Of course, what it really displays is the intellectual age of the vehicle’s owner.
It reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. It’s a beautiful day, and Calvin’s father insists that he go out and play. In the last frame, Calvin is telling his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, “I’ll show him! I won’t have fun!”
What was the old adage about cutting off your nose to spite your face?
Breathe deeply of that air you are fouling, protestors……
According to a report I read–naturally, I don’t remember where–a 16 year-old whiz kid has created a plug-in for browsers that allows you to hover over the name of a member of congress and get a pop-up that lists all the donations made to that congressperson-and who made them. Which lobbyists, corporations, etc.
Think about that for a minute.
The Internet has enabled so much crap–conspiracy theories, mind-numbing games, disinformation, celebrity worship…we sometimes forget what a marvelous tool it can be. The same technology that keeps Sarah Palin’s latest moronic utterances in circulation can also be used to enhance transparency and accountability.
The kid’s motto is “Some are red, some are blue, ALL are green”!
Maybe it takes sixteen-year-olds to show us the way.
The introductory essay by former Supreme Court Justice David Souter really laid out the reason for both the Journal and the Center for Civic Literacy. Souter shared his concern that– without an understanding of the fundamentals–constitutional values will make no sense to people, because they have no context for them, no framework within which to understand them. And after listing the numerous influences that divide and polarize Americans, he wrote:
“These are conditions, historical and contemporary, that drive us apart and tend to disunite us. What have we got pulling on the other side? By and large, what we have pulling on the other side is an adherence to an American Constitutional system… The American Constitution is not simply a blueprint for structure, though it is that. It is not merely a Bill of Rights, though it is that, too. It is in essence, a value system… We need to teach that we have a value system, and the one common value system that we can claim to have in the United States is the constitutional value system: a value system that identifies the legitimate objects of power, the importance ofdistributing power, and the need to limit power by a shared and enforceable conception of human worth.
That value system is the counterpoise to the divisive tendencies that are so strong today, and civic ignorance is its enemy. It is beyond me how anyone can assume that our system of constitutional values is going to survive in the current divisive atmosphere while being unknown to the majority of the people of the United States. It is only in the common acceptance of that value system that at the end of the day, nomatter what we are fighting about, no matter what the vote is in Congress or the State House or the townmeeting, we will still understand that something holds us together.”
That danger–that Americans will increasingly fracture into interest groups and contending constituencies, that we will increasingly lose the “unum” in the maelstrom of our “pluribus”– will be the focus of the Center for Civic Literacy’s upcoming National Conference on August 22-24 in downtown Indianapolis. The (somewhat ungainly) title of the conference is “Connecting the Dots: The Impact of Civic Literacy Gaps on Democracy, the Economy and Society, and Charting a Path Forward.”
We want to move the conversation about how to address our civic deficit away from a single-minded focus on classroom and curriculum—important as those are—to a consideration of the multiple other ways in which public ignorance of basic history, government, economics and science are impeding America’s ability to achieve even our most widely-held political, economic and social goals.
We also hope to go beyond the usual hand-wringing, and consider our options for improving the situation.
The program will open with a welcome from former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Ted Boehm, who chairs the Center’s National Advisory Committee, and will feature presentations from such nationally-known figures as Ted McConnell, Executive Director of the Civic Mission of the Schools Campaign, David Schultz, election law expert and Professor at Hamline University, Dallas Dishman, Executive Director of the Geffen Foundation, and Kim McLauren, Director of the Brennan Constitutional Literacy Foundation, among many others. (Even yours truly.)
Attendance at last year’s conference was limited to members of our National Advisory Committee. This year, we have opened it to members of the general public who may be interested, although space considerations limit the number of people we can accommodate. (Registration information is here.)
I hope at least some of you who follow this blog will deliberate with us, and join the ranks of the civic deficit hawks. We need all the help we can get.
And no, as you might imagine, the subject of that agreement is most definitely not same-sex marriage.
I’m referring to a recent story in The Indianapolis Star reporting that Governor Pence will confer the Sachem Award on P.E. MacAllister.
According to the report, “The award is given once annually to a Hoosier who demonstrates wisdom, judgment and grace, and whose character shows the importance of providing a moral example. The name comes from the Algonquin term given to leaders who exhibit those qualities.”
I have known–and treasured the friendship of–P.E. MacAllister for well over 35 years, and I can think of few Indianapolis citizens more deserving of an award recognizing wisdom, judgment and grace. Governor Pence quite properly praised P.E.’s impact on the life of the city–an impact far more extensive than many people recognize. P.E. has been a patron of the arts, a valued counselor to elected officials (including, despite his strong Republican bona fides, Democratic elected officials) and a longtime and effective advocate for good government and the value of public service.
Once, when I complimented him on his support of some civic enterprise, he responded with a biblical phrase–something along the lines of “From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.” That phrase, and much of his quiet, extensive and modest philanthropy, reflects a deep and nuanced scholarship that extends well beyond the bible. He is one of the most intellectually curious people I know, with interests in everything from history to anthropology to constitutionalism and civil liberties. The phrase “a gentleman and a scholar” is apt.
Indianapolis and Indiana have been very fortunate to have a citizen like P.E. MacAllister. I would be remiss if I failed to congratulate Mike Pence for recognizing that fact. (Of course, as the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every so often….)
A comment to yesterday’s blog on “fact rejection” referenced a similar meditation by Paul Krugman. Krugman, as one might expect, focused upon the phenomenon in the context of economic dogma versus performance.
You might wonder why monetary theory gets treated like evolution or climate change. Isn’t the question of how to manage the money supply a technical issue, not a matter of theological doctrine?
Can anything reverse this descent into dogma? A few conservative intellectuals have been trying to persuade their movement to embrace monetary activism, but they’re ever more marginalized. And that’s just what Mr. Nyhan’s article would lead us to expect. When faith — including faith-based economics — meets evidence, evidence doesn’t stand a chance.
Seven years ago, I wrote a book titled God and Country: America in Red and Blue (still available through Amazon if anyone is interested), in which I explored–among other things–the effect of America’s early Calvinism on present-day social welfare and poverty policies.
My research confirmed that several of our ostensibly secular policy preferences have decidedly religious roots. From poverty to foreign policy to the environment, religious world views are far more potent than most of us realize.
Our everyday experiences with “reality rejection” tend to reinforce the prevalence of the phenomenon. At least mine do.
Several years ago, I was the guest on a call-in radio program in Charleston, South Carolina, and the discussion turned to what was then a hot issue: posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. A caller who favored doing so “quoted” James Madison to the effect that the Bill of Rights could only be entrusted to people who lived by the Ten Commandments. The quote had been previously circulated by an extremist organization and thoroughly discredited; Madison had not only never said anything of the sort, but the sentiment was contrary to everything he did say.
I politely informed the caller that his information was incorrect, and referred him to a Madison scholar for verification, whereupon he yelled “Well, I think it’s true!” and hung up.
Those of us who try to live in the “reality-based community” have our jobs cut out for us.
