Category Archives: Uncategorized

Polite Company

Remember the old saying to the effect that one shouldn’t discuss religion or politics in polite company? Last night, I think I observed a slightly different version, to wit: people with wildly different political orientations can be perfectly pleasant to each other if they avoid discussing specific policies.

I realize this isn’t exactly practical as a prescription for civic argumentation, but hey–it’s a start.

Last night, an undergraduate class at SPEA–under the direction of Professor John Clark–presented a community discussion on the topic “Distrust in Government.” The students did all the work–conceived the program, invited the participants, found the venue and promoted the event. They did a great job, and despite the really awful weather, the Lilly Auditorium at IUPUI’s library was approximately two-thirds full.

The first panel was particularly interesting: it included a representative of the local Tea Party, a long-time chair of the Indiana Libertarian party, and a member (she declined to be identified as a “representative”) of the Indiana Occupy Wall Street movement. All three were pleasant, civil to the others, and in agreement that government is broken. The Tea Party representative began by assuring the audience that “we’re nicer than people think.” He quoted the Founding Fathers and portions of the Constitution (much as Biblical literalists quote the Bible, without dwelling on questions about how those texts should apply in a complex contemporary society), and urged the students to become involved. Hard to argue with that.

The Libertarian was easily the best speaker and clearly the most nuanced thinker of the three. He was funny and he was also realistic about the prospects that face third parties.

The woman from OWS seemed bright, but exhibited what has widely been seen as a central weakness of the movement–when an audience member asked her what it is that the OWS movement is trying to achieve, she responded that different members want different things, and she explicitly rejected the idea of what she termed “hierarchy” and what some of us might call organization.

What all of the panelists expressed, in one way or another, was frustration–with politics, with the role of money in politics, with the fecklessness or overreaching of government, or both.

It was an entirely civil discussion, because it focused upon a theme all three could endorse–we need to fix our government so that we can trust it again. Had the question been “how should we fix it?” my guess is that the civility would have been harder to sustain. But it was a start.

Kudos to Dr. Clark and his students. We need more venues for such discussions–even for more heated ones.

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The Trust Conundrum

I was recently asked to participate in a panel exploring current levels of trust and distrust in government. Among other things, we were asked to consider what citizens might do to mitigate the growing cynicism about politics, and whether we thought the current media environment was contributing to widespread distrust of government at all levels.

These are questions worth pondering.

I think a great deal of distrust in government is a result of the deficit in civic literacy that I have written about previously. When citizens don’t understand constitutional constraints on the public sector, when they are unfamiliar with the most basic historical and philosophic roots of our particular approach to self-government, they are unable to evaluate the lawfulness of government activity. One result is that government action that should be entirely predictable looks arbitrary, while corruptions of the process are seen as “business as usual.” Normal checks and balances are decried as unnecessary red tape, and egregious abuses of legislative mechanisms like the filibuster are seen not as a misuse of power, but part of the ordinary, mysterious processes of the political system.

When citizens aren’t able to distinguish between use and misuse of the power of the state, it’s no wonder they believe all public policy is for sale.

The current chaos that is the media is even more consequential, because a healthy Fourth Estate is critical to democratic self-government.

Citizens can’t act on the basis of information they don’t have. The paradox of life in the age of the Internet is that there are more voices than ever before—theoretically, a good thing—but we’ve lost news that is collectively recognized as authoritative, which is proving to be a very bad thing. A babble of opinion, spin and outright fabrication has replaced what used to be called the “iron core”—reliable information that has been fact-checked and authenticated.

It is one thing to draw different conclusions from a reported set of facts; it is quite another to deny the existence of the facts themselves.

On the one hand, the Internet has empowered many more government watchdogs; on the other, it has facilitated the rise of innumerable conspiracy theorists, fringe groups, special interests and outright liars. The result is that someone who prefers to believe, say, that global climate change is a hoax or that President Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya can readily find sources that confirm those suspicions.

The days when everyone listened to—and trusted the veracity of—reporting by Walter Cronkite and his counterparts in the mainstream media are long gone. (Indeed, there is a persuasive argument to be made that there is no longer such a thing as “mainstream” media.) Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts.  Today, thanks to incredibly shrinking newsrooms and proliferating propagandists, people are choosing their own facts, and increasingly living in alternate realities that conform to their pre-existing beliefs and prejudices. When thoughtful Americans aren’t sure what news they can trust, and ideologically rigid Americans—left and right—are living in information bubbles of their own choosing, the lack of constructive dialogue and institutional trust shouldn’t surprise us.

In a world that is changing as rapidly and dramatically as ours, the importance of real journalism—not “infotainment,” not talking heads, not bloggers, not columnists, not “he-said, she-said” stenographers, but actual fact-checked, verified news in context—becomes immeasurably more important.

Without a shared reality, we can’t build trust. Without accurate civics education and an authoritative journalism of verification, we can’t share a reality.

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Tea and Sympathy

A number of commentators have compared the Occupy movement with the Tea Party. Although there are some similarities–mainly frustration with the status quo and anger at the political system–those comparisons ultimately fail.

The Tea Party–to judge by its spokespersons, placards and photos of meetings–is a profoundly reactionary movement. Its slogan is “I Want My Country Back,” and there hasn’t been much subtlety about the identity of those from whom they want it “back.” Viewed through a Tea Party lens, some people are more American than others.

The Occupy movement’s slogan is equally telling. “We are the 99 percent” is both an affirmation of how Occupiers see themselves and an expression of solidarity with the broad majority of Americans of all kinds.

Those who see the Occupy movement as a repeat of the Sixties miss an essential difference. As E.J. Dionne pointed out in a recent column,”The protests of that era were rooted in affluence. Too often in those years, the left cut itself off from the concerns of the white working class and disdained its values. That’s the history the right wants to revive. In fact, the Occupy demonstrations are precisely about the concerns of Americans who have been sidelined economically. This in turn is why polls show broad support for Occupy’s objectives of greater economic equality and more financial accountability.”

The response of the peaceful students who were pepper-sprayed at UC Davis was instructive. As numerous You Tube videos plainly showed, the students responded to unwarranted brutality by linking arms and remaining seated, despite the obvious pain they were experiencing. These were not Weathermen; they were earnest young people protesting a system that has been corrupted by  the haves–a system that now protects status and wealth at the expense of the poor and (dwindling) middle-class.

Whenever there is a “movement,” there are unhinged hangers-on, and neither the Tea Party nor Occupy should be judged by their fringes. That said, their common frustration with the status quo should not blind us to the very significant differences between them.

Nostalgia for a highly idealized past and a palpable resentment of “others” animates the Tea Party; sympathy and a demand for social justice motivates the Occupiers.

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The Younger Generation

Last night, I attended a community forum sponsored by SPEA students of John Clark. John is well-known in Indianapolis–he has long been active as a public intellectual and sponsor of the website Provocate. His enthusiasm for global-local connections has clearly motivated his students.

The subject of discussion was: can Indianapolis become a “humanitarian hub”? The venue was the Athenaeum, and the room was filled with an interesting mix of Indianapolis’ residents. There were old folks like me (and a couple even older!), but mostly, attendees were in their twenties and thirties–and it soon became obvious that most of them were already deeply involved in humanitarian and nonprofit enterprises. Worried about Haiti? The experience of immigrants in Indiana? Efforts to integrate minorities into the broader community? Fair trade? These young people are working on all of these issues, and many others, with passion and realism.

The students who convened the forum asked participants to consider who should be involved in an effort to make our city an international humanitarian “hub,” and what benefits might accrue to the city from such an effort. The clear consensus was that creating such a hub should not mean trying to lure the headquarters of large humanitarian organizations–that instead it should be accomplished, if possible, by encouraging and facilitating the efforts that are already percolating among our young social entrepreneurs, and working with organizations like Kiwanis, the National Guard and many others who are already engaged in these efforts.

There was also a consensus that creating such a hub would make Indianapolis a more inclusive, welcoming city–a city that people would want to live and work in. (Others noted that changes in the Indiana legislature will be needed in order to create an “inclusive” culture. Immigrant-bashing and anti-gay measures aren’t exactly helping.)

I left the meeting feeling the way I often do after a discussion with students in my class–hopeful that the next generation will be able to clear away some of the social debris my own generation is leaving them. Americans talk a lot about values–the young people with whom I interact demonstrate the values important to a just society–compassion, personal responsibility, a recognition of what we might call social duty. They are both idealistic and realistic, and that is so encouraging at a a time when major party Presidential candidates are neither.

The class will hold its next community forum at the Lilly Auditorium in IUPUI’s Library from 7-9 on November 29th. The topic: distrust in government. (Full disclosure: I’ll be on one of the panels.)

If you are interested in learning more about these efforts, and the literally hundreds of humanitarian programs and organizations that already exist, check www.globalindy.org.  

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Time to Talk Back

A friend of mine emailed me this morning to share one of those internet “jokes” that make the rounds. He was astonished–and disheartened–to think that the relative who’d forwarded it evidently agreed with what might loosely be called its “message.”

On opening the attachment, the first thing I saw in large letters was “What a dumbass!”

In slightly smaller type, the text went on: “The problem with public housing is that the residents are not the owners.  The people that live in the property did not work for it, but were loaned the property from the true owners, the taxpayers.  Because of this, the residents do not have the “pride of ownership” that comes with the hard work necessary to earn the money to purchase the items.”

Following a couple more paragraphs of this were posted pictures of the President in the White House, with his feet up–a pose that evidently demonstrated his lack of pride and his usurpation of the premises from the “rightful” owners.

Let’s deconstruct this. Not only is the premise both incorrect and stupid–plenty of renters show a lot more respect for property than many “owners” (and plenty of “owners” are for all intents and purposes renting their homes from their mortgage holders)–but a President who won an overwhelming majority of both the popular and electoral vote is as “rightful” as a White House occupant gets.

But those are just factual objections. What is most distasteful is the obvious racism–the implicit message is that renter=black person=person who doesn’t respect property=illegitimate President. And what is even more irritating is the strong likelihood that the people who forwarded this particular bit of bilge would indignantly deny any racist intent–indeed, they probably don’t admit it even to themselves.

I think the only way to combat this ugly underbelly of what passes for political discourse is to call it what it is. When people of good will receive this sort of unAmerican bilge, we need to respond to the sender. We need to ask “why would you forward something like this to me?” And when the sender protests that their animus to this President is based upon “policy differences,” we need to press them on precisely what those policy differences are, and why they justify a portrayal that focuses upon the race of the President rather than on the failings of his policy proposals.

When we fail to respond, we enable the ongoing denial of racial motivation. It’s no different than remaining silent when someone tells a “joke” about “kikes” or “wops” or “spades.” If we don’t make clear that such labels are offensive–and not at all funny–we are complicit. If we simply hit the delete button, and don’t respond, we are equally complicit.

It’s time to talk back. We probably won’t convince the senders–they have demonstrated their obtuseness–but we may at least make them think twice before forwarding the next one.

And we’ll feel better.

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