Tag Archives: civic literacy

The Politics We Deserve

My speech to the Annual Meeting of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

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We have just emerged from one of the most depressing sessions of the Indiana legislature I can remember. It was anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-teacher, anti-public-employee…We passed a mean-spirited and largely unconstitutional immigration bill. We defunded Planned Parenthood, in violation of federal law, and deprived some 22,000 women of vital medical services like pap smears and cancer screenings. At a time that polls show a slight majority of Americans favoring same-sex marriage, our legislators began a process to add a ban to the Indiana Constitution. (One of my students who interned at the General Assembly told me he calls it the “Hate-house” rather than the Statehouse.

Washington is, if anything, worse. Other states—notably Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Florida—are worse still. Lunacy abounds. So Marsha has asked me to address a not-so-simple question: What did we do to deserve what can only be characterized as the politics of farce?

Good question–to which there are many possible answers.

One of my favorite stories is the one about the Rabbi in a little shtetl in Eastern Europe. Two villagers come to him with their argument. He hears the first man’s side, and says: “You are right.” Then he hears the other man’s argument, and says “You are right.” At that point, a bystander protests “They can’t both be right!” The Rabbi nods sagely and says “Ah—you too are right!”

When I look at today’s toxic political environment, I feel a lot like that Rabbi. On one hand, it is tempting to say that there’s really nothing new here: any student of American history will recognize long-standing elements of American public life that have been amply documented: In 1964, Richard Hofstadter wrote his famous Harper’s article, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” which began

“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics. In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant…     I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.”

Hofstadter’s description sounds familiar to anyone who spent any time at the General Assembly, or who has been following Congress.

Hofstadter won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his analysis of anti-intellectualism in American life, by which he meant resistance to evidence and reason in favor of ideology and blind faith. I looked at that same phenomenon through a somewhat different lens in my book “God and Country: America in Red and Blue.” And I don’t have to tell all of you that there is nothing new about racism, tribalism, anti-Semitism…all of which historically have increased during times of economic stress and times of significant social change—both of which we’ve been experiencing. So—if you tell me our current politics are nothing new, I’d have to say you’re right.

On the other hand—there is another hand. Some elements of our contemporary landscape are undeniably new.  The internet is clearly the most significant of the new elements; never before in human history has information, rumor, falsehood, fantasy, propaganda and spin traveled so far so fast. And we don’t have any history to instruct us, to tell us what this new element means for our ability to live together with some semblance of amity.

History tells us that during FDR’s Presidency, there were all sorts of rumors about the “Jewish cabal” that was controlling Roosevelt and running the country and the banks. I’m old enough to personally remember the rumors during JFK’s campaign—people actually told me that the Catholics were stockpiling arms in the basement of their churches, and would engage in an armed uprising after the election (I can’t remember now if the uprising was going to happen if Kennedy won or if he lost). So crazy isn’t new–but today, crazy is enormously amplified by the ease of transmittal. My husband gets forwarded messages from some of his relatives and we can only roll our eyes. Friends who find themselves on odd email lists share some unbelievably paranoid and racist transmittals they’ve received. Indiana is hardly exempt from this sort of thing, and it isn’t restricted to the demonstrable nut cases. I’m on the email lists of both state parties, and to read their messaging is to wonder if they live on the same planet, let alone the same state. The internet amplifies our worst fears, and its anonymity encourages some seriously sick minds.

Worse, this avalanche of propaganda and spin is not being adequately countered by responsible journalism. Newspapers are dying; the audience for broadcast news is dwindling. In the absence of a  business model that works in the era of Craigslist and Huffington Post, news organizations have fired a huge percentage of their staffs, primarily reporters. When I was in City Hall, there were two newspapers and three full-time reporters covering city government, and at least that many covering the Statehouse. Now there is one increasingly thin newspaper, and so few reporters that we have totally inadequate coverage of local and state government. I teach a course called “Media and Public Policy,” and the title of the textbook I’m using next fall is “Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights.”

In place of news geared to the general public, we are seeing what has been called the “niching” of the media. Today, it is relatively easy to live in a reality of your own construction by choosing the “news” that simply confirms your pre-existing biases. The historic responsibility of the press, to fact-check and to serve as a watchdog to power, has diminished to an alarming extent. Granted, that’s not altogether new—early in American history, political parties sponsored newspapers—but again, the ease with which the internet can spread disinformation makes the absence of a responsible, objective press both dangerous and troubling.

What else is new? Globalization. Don’t kid yourselves that Indianapolis and Indiana are somehow exempt from the effects of globalization and the greatly increased mobility and interconnectedness that come with it—we aren’t. Next fall, SPEA will offer a course called “Global Indy,” exploring the multiple local effects of these new realities.  One of those effects is a vastly more diverse Indiana population. Another is the transformation of the global economy, where multi-national corporations with budgets larger than those of many nation-states exercise power that is arguably outside the laws of any particular country. Yet another is the ongoing transformation of war: we have fewer conflicts between nation-states and more threats from terrorist groups, both homegrown and foreign, whose attacks are more random and less predictable—and thus much more frightening and destabilizing. Globalization, paradoxically, has strengthened tribalism, as people who lack the personal resources to deal with radical change cling more tightly to the world they know.

It isn’t entirely hyperbole to suggest that, in the wake of Obama’s election, a lot of older white guys woke up, looked around and said “Oh My God—there’s a black guy in the White House! There’s a woman running Congress!  There are brown people coming over the border! There are gay people getting married! I want my country back!” The world is changing before their eyes, and at a rate that is unprecedented and disorienting.

So—if you tell me the current political environment is something new—well, as the Rabbi in my story might have said, you also are right!

We can talk for a long time about how we got here, and whether we deserve the politics we have, but of course, the important question is: what do we do? How do we stop electing extremists and buffoons, and encourage thoughtful people to get back into politics? The primary challenge to Dick Lugar won’t help. When a certifiable loon convinces 80% of Indiana Republican Country Chairs and a significant portion of the GOP base that Dick Lugar is too “liberal,” when the evidence of that liberalism is that he voted for the START treaty and co-sponsored the DREAM Act, we have a problem. When Mike Pence is considered a “mainstream” gubernatorial candidate, we have an even bigger problem.

I wish I knew how to remedy this situation. I don’t. But I do have a small part of the answer: civics education. Bear with me here.

I study how constitutional values operate within a diverse culture, how those values connect us to people with very different backgrounds and beliefs and make us all Americans.  That research has convinced me that widespread civic literacy—a genuine understanding of the history and philosophy of our country—is absolutely critical to our continued ability to function as a unified people. That research has also convinced me that the civic literacy we need is in very short supply.

Let me share an anecdote that may illustrate my concern. When I teach Law and Public Affairs, I begin with the way our particular legal framework limits our policy options, and how “original intent” guides our application of Constitutional principles to current conflicts. I usually ask students something like “What do you suppose James Madison thought about porn on the internet?” Usually, they’ll laugh and then we discuss how Madison’s beliefs about freedom of expression should guide courts faced with contemporary efforts to censor the internet. But a couple of years ago, when I asked a young woman—a junior in college—that question, she looked at me blankly and asked “Who’s James Madison?”

Now, as we academics like to say, the plural of anecdote is not data. Unfortunately,however, there is plenty of data to support a charge of widespread civic ignorance. Only 36 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government. Only 35% of teenagers can correctly identify “We the People” as the first three words of the Constitution. Only five percent of high school seniors can identify and explain checks on presidential power. A few years ago, the Constitution Center reported on a poll they’d taken with the headline: “Americans Revere the Constitution and Have No Idea What It Says.”

Civic ignorance explains a great deal of the craziness and conflict we see around us. People who have little grasp of American history or the Enlightenment roots of our particular approach to government are those most easily mobilized by Tea Party pontificators or the demagogues who populate talk radio and television.

Constitutions are expressions of political theory, efforts to address the most basic question of society—how should people live together?  Americans have answered that question in a certain way. In fact, as I have often maintained, America is more an idea, more a philosophy of governance, than a place on a map.

This was the first nation that wasn’t based upon geography, ethnicity or conquest, but upon a theory of social organization, what John Locke called a “social contract” and Todd Gitlin has called a “covenant.” That theory—that idea—was incorporated in our constituent documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When you think about it, the American idea should make us uniquely situated to thrive in a world where trade and technology are making geography increasingly irrelevant; where travel, immigration and economics are forcing diversification of even the most insular societies, because it based citizenship on behavior rather than identity, a then-radical choice that made America particularly hospitable to Jews and other minorities.

The American Idea reflected certain assumptions about human nature and accordingly, privileged certain values—values that ought to be more explicitly recognized, discussed and understood, because they provide the common ground for our citizenship and they define our public morality. Understanding them is absolutely fundamental to our ability to construct a civic and civil society.

The great debates between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were about the proper role of government. That debate continues today, and reasonable people will have different opinions about where the lines should be drawn. But reasoned disagreement requires at least some common ground. When people don’t understand the most basic premises of our legal system—when they insist that this is a Christian Nation, that there is no separation of church and state, or that the states are not legally bound to respect the Bill of Rights—our public discourse is impoverished and ultimately unproductive.

Civic literacy requires an acquaintance with American history and the context of our constituent documents—an accurate understanding, not a Texas-Board-of-Education understanding, not a Michelle Bachmann or Mike Pence understanding, and most certainly not a Mike Delph understanding. (It’s probably tacky to point out that Delph—author of Indiana’s anti-immigration bill—recently failed the Indiana bar exam. I’m not surprised.)

In a country where, increasingly, people read different books and newspapers, visit different blogs, watch different television programs, attend different churches and even speak different languages—where the information and beliefs we all share are diminishing and our variety and diversity are growing—it is more important than ever that Americans understand their history and their governing philosophy. Our constitutional values are ultimately all that Americans have in common.

All governments are human enterprises, and like all human enterprises, they will have their ups and downs. In the United States, however, the consequences of the “down” periods are potentially more serious than in more homogeneous nations, precisely because this is a country based upon covenant. Americans do not share a single ethnicity, religion or race. Culture warriors to the contrary, we never have. We don’t share a comprehensive worldview. What we do share is a set of governing values, and when we don’t know what those values are or where they came from–or even worse, when we “know” things that aren’t so–we lose a critical part of what it is that makes us Americans and we get the deplorable politics we deserve.

At the end of the day, our public policies must be aligned with and supportive of our most fundamental values; the people we elect must demonstrate that they understand, respect and live up to those values; and the electorate has to be sufficiently knowledgeable about those values to hold public officials accountable. To put it another way, our ability to trust one another ultimately depends upon our ability to keep our governing structures true to our fundamental values, and we can’t do that if we don’t know what those values are or where they came from.

In a country that celebrates individual rights and respects individual liberty, there will always be dissent, differences of opinion, and struggles for power. But there are different kinds of discord, and they aren’t all equal. When we argue from within a common constitutional culture—when we argue about the proper application of the American Idea to new situations or to previously marginalized populations—we strengthen our bonds and learn how to bridge our differences. When our divisions and debates pit powerful forces trying to rewrite our history and our most basic rules against citizens who lack the wherewithal to enforce those rules, we undermine the American Idea and turn the political process into a struggle for raw power.

At the end of the day, the issue is whether we can once again reinvigorate the American Idea and make it work in a city, state and world characterized by nearly instantaneous communications, unprecedented human mobility, and global challenges like climate change and international terrorism.

Let me be as clear as I can be: Americans don’t have to agree about economic and social policies; we don’t have to share political philosophies, and we can disagree about the proper application of constitutional principles to new situations. But we do have to have a common framework for our disagreements—we can’t communicate with each other at all until we can argue from within the same reality. And that means that we won’t have a reasoned and civil politics until the majority of Americans have at least a basic familiarity with the country’s historical and constitutional roots.

We talk a lot about our fiscal deficit, and we need to address that. But our civic deficit may be a bigger challenge, and remedying that deficit is no less important.

Thank you.

What Ted Said

My upcoming IBJ column.

Right now, Americans are deeply involved in one of our periodic debates about government spending and the budget deficit. Important as that is, I am more concerned about our civic deficit—the widespread lack of basic constitutional literacy.

In these pages a couple of weeks ago, recently-retired Indiana Justice Ted Boehm made a strong case for the importance of civics education in a democracy. He focused especially on the need for an educated citizenry that appreciates the constitutional separation of powers: the assignment of different duties to different branches of government. His concerns are well-founded; barely 36% of Americans can even name the three branches, let alone explain the theory behind separation of powers and the role of the judiciary.

I agree with everything Justice Boehm said in that column—and then some.

The research is depressing. Fewer than half of 12th grade students can define federalism. Only 35% of teenagers can correctly identify “We the People” as the first three words of the Constitution. Only five percent of high school seniors can define America’s system of checks and balances.

The consequences of this civic deficit are profound and alarming.

For one thing, when a country is very diverse, as in the United States, it is particularly important that citizens know the history and philosophy of their governing institutions; in the absence of other ties—race, religion, national origin—a common understanding of constitutional principles is critical to the formation of national identity.

A shared understanding of our most basic institutions is also necessary if we are to have productive—not to mention honest—political debates. When citizens are ignorant of the most elementary facts of our founding history, when they lack even the most rudimentary familiarity with the Founders’ philosophies (and yes, that’s plural, because the architects of our legal system were not a monolithic entity), they are easy prey for the propagandists, buffoons and conspiracy theorists that populate the airwaves and thrive on the internet.

Case in point: David Barton and his Wallbuilders have been around for a long time, offering a carefully edited—and inaccurate—“history” to those who find provisions of the actual Constitution inconvenient. He is a joke (or worse) among American historians and legal scholars. Recently, however, his revisionism has been embraced by Tea Party members of Congress, most notably Representative Michelle Bachmann. Among other things, Barton claims that state and local governments are not bound by the provisions of the Bill of Rights, because the Founders intended it to restrain only the federal government. He doesn’t mention that the 14th Amendment—adopted in 1868—changed that.

Students who have had even the most basic government course ought to know enough about the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment to reject this sort of nonsense out of hand. But clearly, they don’t. The result is that political discourse has become an exercise in which people occupying different realities talk past each other.

People who are civically literate can and do have good-faith differences of opinion about the application of constitutional principles to new “facts on the ground.” (Should the 4th Amendment’s prohibition against “unreasonable” searches prevent police from using information from your cell-phone provider without a warrant? What about NSA data-mining?)

I sometimes introduce discussions of original intent by asking my students what James Madison thought about porn on the internet. Madison could not have envisioned cyberspace, of course, but he had strong opinions about free expression. I don’t expect students to agree about what Madison’s position would be, but I do expect them to know who James Madison was.

Increasingly, they don’t.

Comments

Enabling the Frauds

A colleague emailed me this morning to alert me to the cover story in the current American Bar Association Journal, which bemoans the sorry state of civics education in the U.S.  My email box also included my Monday issue of Sightings, Martin Marty’s e-newsletter from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Marty is perhaps the pre-eminent scholar of religion in this country; his message this morning highlighted one of the great frauds of our generation, David Barton.

Marty discussed Barton’s lack of both credentials and credibility, and noted sadly that efforts by legitimate historians would undoubtedly be met with assertions of “liberal bias,” despite the fact that a number of quite conservative Evangelical scholars have pointed out numerous flaws and outright fabrications in Barton’s “scholarship.”

“Notice that self-identified “evangelicals” are not at the edges but in the center of the professional historian elite—among them, across the spectrum of non-secularists,  Mark Noll, Joel Carpenter, Edith Blumhofer, George Marsden, Grant Wacker, Harry Stout, and dozens more who deservedly all but dominate their caste as it covers religious history. Find one who respects what Barton does to their field of work or through his methods. Ask them. Some other critics use the word “fraud” and more, with good reason, come up with terms like “distorter” or “ideologue.” Barton’s cause: to show from eighteenth-century documents that Founding Fathers determinedly and explicitly established a Christian state, which leaves all non-Christians as second-class citizens. He and his “Wall Builders” institute cherry-pick lines from the documents and banner them or engrave them in public expressions. Barton & Co. get to pick the history texts for Texas etc., and thus push out of contention authors and publishers who, for all their flaws, are vocationally committed to fairness and, yes, truth-telling.”

These two items are not unrelated. Civic ignorance enables frauds like Barton. It encourages those who are so inclined to choose their own version of history, their own reading of the Constitution, and to trot out their own “experts” to explain away inconvenient facts.

This ignorance is not limited to civics, of course. There’s a long tradition of “know-nothingness” in America. During the last Presidential election, a majority of Republican primary candidates reportedly didn’t believe in evolution. The current batch–from crazy Michelle Bachmann to grizzly-bear “laughing all the way to the bank” Sarah Palin, to “man on dog” Rick Santorum, et al–cite Barton as their “historian.”

When such astonishingly ignorant people are elevated to positions of prominence, it does not bode well for the American future.

Burning Down the Village to Roast a Pig

One of my favorite lines from a Supreme Court decision was delivered in the opinion striking down the mis-named “Internet Decency Act.” The Court compared the measure to burning down a village to roast a pig.

The “pig” this time is the budget deficit, which is unquestionably a very significant problem. Unfortunately, Congress is attacking America, not the problem.

Any credible economist will confirm that even if we zeroed out all discretionary spending–that is, if we spent only on the military and entitlements, and absolutely nothing else–we would not erase the deficit for twenty-plus years. (Actually, we would never erase it, because that would destroy the economy and lose billions in tax revenues.) If we are to get the budget balanced, we must couple responsible, judicious spending cuts (including military cuts) with measures to grow the economy and increase tax revenues. We might begin with rolling back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

Instead, Congress is merrily proceeding to destroy civil society.

There has been a lot written about the effect of defunding Planned Parenthood on the health of poor women, and about the effort to kill public broadcasting. Those proposals are in the news. But another proposed cut that has been less discussed would defund the single most successful civic education program we have. The “savings” wouldn’t pay for a single fighter jet, but the cost would be incalculable.

The program is “We the People.” In a 2010 study conducted for the Center for Civic Education, students who completed We the People were far and away more knowledgeable about the country’s democratic principles and institutions compared to their peers.

We the People national finalists also were:

* More likely to register to vote, write to a public official, investigate compelling political issues, participate in lawful demonstrations, and boycott certain products or stores.

* More likely to agree that keeping up with political affairs, influencing the political structure, developing a meaningful philosophy of life, becoming a community leader, and helping others in need are of strong to absolute importance.

* More likely to agree that people should be able to express unpopular opinions and that newspapers should be able to publish freely, without government interaction.

As a graduate student who has worked with the program put it in an email to me:

“It’s mind boggling to me that right now, when we need it most, the best program in the country on educating citizens would be eliminated. This is very real, as the Center for Civic Education had to cancel the We the People – Frontiers partnership. Frontiers is a 70+ year old organization providing civic engagement opportunities to the African American community. Four years ago, we teamed up with them to provide We The People to their inner-city and urban club students on nights and weekends, since their schools are no longer teaching civics. These kids traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, competed in We the People competition and experienced the civil rights movement first-hand, learning from Foot Soldiers who marched when they were their age. That event was scheduled to take place in July and has been cut. 600+ inner-city and urban youth from around the country have already been hurt by this, not to mention the millions more in the future who may never know We the People.”

I wonder what those who are stoking the fire will do when our civic village is gone.

Comments

Restoring Civic Literacy

The following text is a speech I recently gave to the Indianapolis Chapter of the League of Women Voters about the abysmal state of historical/constitutional knowledge in America.

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When I was asked to speak, my “assignment”—or at least my intention—was to discuss one of my recent books, “Distrust, American Style.” In that book, I examined the claim made by some political scientists that America’s growing diversity has increased levels of social and interpersonal distrust. (In “academic speak,” such trust is called “social capital.”)  I disagreed with that analysis, because my own research suggested a rather different villain.

My thesis was—and remains—that the toxic political culture we inhabit isn’t a result of increasing diversity. Rather, I believe it is largely an outgrowth of our loss of trust in our common social and political institutions—primarily, although certainly not exclusively, our government—and that restoring that trust is critically important if we are to make our democracy work .

You can read the book (cheap on Amazon!) and decide for yourselves whether I made my case. And I’ll be happy to elaborate during Q & A. But today, I want to talk about what I think is one of the primary reasons so many of us don’t trust our government, and I want to ask for your help—the League’s help—in addressing the problem.  Let me explain.

I study how constitutional values operate within a diverse culture, how those values connect us to people with very different backgrounds and beliefs and make us all Americans.  That research has convinced me that widespread civic literacy—an understanding of the history and philosophy of our country—is absolutely critical to our continued ability to function as a unified people. That research has also convinced me that the civic literacy we need is in short supply.

Let me share an anecdote that may illustrate my concern. When I teach Law and Public Affairs, I begin with the way our particular legal framework limits our policy options, and how “original intent” guides our application of Constitutional principles to current conflicts. I usually ask students something like “What do you suppose James Madison thought about porn on the internet?” Usually, they’ll laugh and then we discuss how Madison’s beliefs about freedom of expression should guide courts faced with contemporary efforts to censor the internet. But a couple of years ago, when I asked a young woman—a junior in college—that question, she looked at me blankly and asked “Who’s James Madison?”

It’s tempting to dismiss this as anecdotal, but let me share with you just a tiny fraction of available research. A survey by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs recently asked high school students questions about the government. Here are some of those questions, and the percentages of students who answered them correctly:

What is the supreme law of the land? 28

What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution? 26

What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress? 27

How many justices are there on the Supreme Court? 10

Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? 14

What are the two major political parties in the United States? 43

We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? 11

Who was the first President of the United States? 23

Who is in charge of the executive branch? 29

There’s more—much more. Other research reveals that only 36 percent of Americans can correctly name the three branches of government. Fewer than half of 12th graders can describe the meaning of federalism. Only 35% of teenagers can correctly identify “We the People” as the first three words of the Constitution. The National Assessment of Education Progress reports that barely a quarter of the nation’s 4th, 8th and 12th graders are proficient in civics, with only five percent of seniors able to identify and explain checks on presidential power.

This is appalling. If you think about it, the choices originally made by the men who designed our constitutional architecture have shaped our culture. They dictate contemporary definitions of public and private, our notions of governmental and personal responsibility, and our conceptions of human rights. They frame the way we allocate collective social duties among governmental, nonprofit and private actors. In short, those initial constitutional choices created a distinctively American worldview.  Failure to understand and appreciate those initial decisions is failure to understand the world we live in; it is failure to understand the context of contemporary politics and policy.

Civic ignorance explains a great deal of the craziness and conflict we see around us. People who have little grasp of American history or the Enlightenment roots of our particular approach to government are those most easily mobilized by the demagogues who populate talk radio and television.

Constitutions are expressions of political theory, efforts to address the most basic question of society—how should people live together? That is also the question that animates almost all of my work, and it is the question that’s been central to my last three books. In one way or another, those books were my efforts to understand why we Americans so often seem to occupy different universes. (I really related to Barney Frank when he responded to a woman who characterized the Affordable Care Act as Obama’s “Nazi health care bill” by asking her “Madame, on what planet do you spend most of your time?”)

Much of what I’ve written over the past 15 years or so has revolved around one question: How do we live together? My very first book was “What’s a Nice Republican Girl Like Me Doing at the ACLU?” (That was written as the GOP was abandoning its traditional roots and getting more and more…whatever it is the party has become.) It was in that book that I first explored something I called then—and still call—“The American Idea.”

My fundamental premise is that America is more an idea than a place.

Ours was the first nation not to be based upon geography, ethnicity or conquest, but upon an Idea, a theory of social organization, what John Locke called a “social contract” and Todd Gitlin has called a “covenant.” That theory—that idea—was incorporated in our constituent documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When you think about it, the American idea should make us uniquely situated to thrive in a world where trade and technology are making geography increasingly irrelevant; where travel, immigration and economics are forcing diversification of even the most insular societies, because it based citizenship on behavior rather than identity.

The American Idea reflected certain assumptions about human nature and accordingly, privileged certain values—values that ought to be more explicitly recognized, discussed and understood, because they provide the common ground for our citizenship and they define our public morality. Understanding them is fundamental to our ability to understand ourselves and to construct a civic and civil society.

Now, I realize that the founders of this nation didn’t all speak with one voice, or embrace a single worldview. All of our governing documents were the result of passionate argument, negotiation and eventual compromise. And as remarkable as the founders’ achievement was, as enduring as the bulk of their work has proven to be, the system they established wasn’t perfect, nor was it sufficient for all time. History and context matter—and you don’t get either by reading carefully selected portions of the constitutional text on the floor of the US House of Representatives or by attending one of Michelle Bachmann’s “Constitution classes.”

Take the issue of “original intent.” There are those who believe that the role of the courts is to identify the founders’ intent and mechanically apply it—nothing more. Such a view of the judicial function arguably misreads history. In any event, it’s impossible. Whose “original intent” are we supposed to apply? John Marshall’s? Thomas Jefferson’s? James Madison’s? And how are we to determine what that intent really was?

More to the point, constitutions are by their nature statements of basic principles to be applied to fact situations which may or may not be foreseeable at the time the principles are enunciated. Our inquiry, properly understood, must be to identify the principle or value the founders wanted to protect, and apply it to a rapidly changing world. The question isn’t: What did James Madison say about pornography on the internet? The question is: how do we apply this principle James Madison enunciated –the importance of protecting free expression from government censorship—to this new form of communication?

The great debates between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were about the proper role of government. That debate continues today. While we have enlarged our notion of citizenship since the constitutional convention to include women, former slaves and non-landowners, the framework remains the same. The overarching issue remains where to strike the balance between state power and individual autonomy.

The issue, in other words, is: who decides? Who decides what book you read, what prayer you say, who you marry, whether you procreate, how you use your property? Who decides when the state may deprive you of your liberty? How do we balance government’s duty to exercise authority and enforce order against the individual’s right to be secure in his person and free in his conscience? The founders answered that question by carving out, in the Bill of Rights, things the government was forbidden to do. (As I tell my students, the Bill of Rights does not confer rights. We have those rights by virtue of being human. The Bill of Rights was meant to keep government from interfering with them.) Protection of individual liberty was an overriding value, to be circumscribed only when absolutely necessary.

Over the years, those individual rights have come under attack from both the Left and Right.  The Right’s argument is that the U.S. has gone too far toward individualism and individual liberties, to the detriment of authority and traditional morals. The Left’s theory is that we’ve gone too far toward individualism and individual autonomy, to the detriment of community and the rights of the majority. In both views, the good of the whole, as they define it, should take precedence over the rights of individuals.

Another way to think about this is to ask: what is the “common good”? And more importantly, who gets to decide what it is? What are the “rights” of the majority? How do we determine them? When we ask those questions, we immediately see that there are two very different answers possible. In a totally majoritarian system—the system too many of my students think we have—the rights of the majority at any given time are what the majority decides they are. In such a system, the only issue will be one of accuracy and definition: what shall constitute a majority for purposes of legitimizing the use of state power? How can we be certain the votes accurately reflect citizen sentiment? Who has the right to vote?

In a truly majoritarian system, voters would have the right to decide what books are printed and sold, which religious practices would be tolerated, how much authority the police could exercise, and so forth. The only limits to government’s power over individuals would be those sanctioned from time to time by the voters, and those limits could be changed at any time by a subsequent vote. A truly majoritarian system would certainly reflect “community values” at any given time. It would also impose those values on those who do not share them. Holders of minority opinions, dissenters from the prevailing wisdom, would have no recognized or enforceable right to be different.

Such a system is precisely what the founders feared: it’s what they meant by “tyranny of the majority.”

The second answer to the question of majority rights is the one chosen by the founders of our republic. In the system they bequeathed us, the rights of the majority are derivative of our individual liberties; the right to participate equally with one’s peers to make those decisions which are properly assigned to majority vote; the right to be protected from those who would threaten our physical safety or otherwise deprive us of social goods to which we are entitled; the right to have our agreements with each other enforced and our disputes mediated—all without favoritism or bias. And there is the right which Justice Louis Brandeis once called the greatest right conferred by a civilized society—the right to be left alone.

History provides us with plenty of examples of what happens when the common good, or the “good of the many,” is piously invoked to outweigh the rights of individuals. A paraphrase from George Orwell’s Animal Farm sums it up nicely: Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.

When people are ignorant of constitutional history, when they fail to understand that the central constitutional issue is the use and abuse of power, they confuse support for constitutional rights with support for unpopular uses of those rights. The issue is who decides what books you read—not the merits of the books you choose. An insistence on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy is not the equivalent of a “pro-abortion” position—many women who oppose abortion nevertheless do not believe that government has the right to make that decision for individual women. An insistence on freedom of the press certainly doesn’t translate into approval of anything the press may choose to publish. A lawyer who represents a child molester is not “endorsing” child molestation. He or she is upholding the right of every citizen to the due process of law. (I was appalled during the recent campaign for Marion County Prosecutor by a Mark Massa commercial suggesting Terry Curry was unfit to be prosecutor because he had represented criminal defendants. That commercial, in my opinion, made Massa unfit to hold office!)

The central issue of civil liberties is the power of the state—or the majority—to compel our behaviors or infringe our personal liberties. When people don’t understand that, when they don’t understand when government is empowered to impose requirements and when it isn’t, when they don’t understand the most basic premises of our legal system, our public discourse is impoverished and ultimately unproductive.

Civic literacy requires an acquaintance with basic constitutional principles and values. It also requires an understanding of American history and the context of our constituent documents—an accurate understanding, not a Texas-Board-of-Education understanding.

In a country where, increasingly, people read different books and newspapers, visit different blogs, watch different television programs, attend different churches and even speak different languages—where the information and beliefs we all share are diminishing and our variety and diversity are growing—it is more important than ever that Americans understand their history and their governing philosophy. Our constitutional values are ultimately all that Americans have in common.  It is critical that we teach them to our children.

All governments are human enterprises, and like all human enterprises, they will have their ups and downs. In the United States, however, the consequences of the “down” periods are potentially more serious than in more homogeneous nations, precisely because this is a country based upon covenant. Americans do not share a single ethnicity, religion or race. Culture warriors to the contrary, we never have. We don’t share a comprehensive worldview. What we do share is a set of values, and when we don’t know what those values are or where they came from, we lose a critical part of what it is that makes us Americans.

At the end of the day, our public policies must be aligned with and supportive of our most fundamental values; the people we elect must demonstrate that they understand, respect and live up to those values; and the electorate has to be sufficiently knowledgeable about those values to hold public officials accountable. To put it another way, our ability to trust one another ultimately depends upon our ability to keep our governing structures true to our fundamental values, and we can’t do that if we don’t know what those values are or where they came from.

In a country that celebrates individual rights and respects individual liberty, there will always be dissent, differences of opinion, and struggles for power. But there are different kinds of discord, and they aren’t all equal. When we argue from within the constitutional culture—when we argue about the proper application of the American Idea to new situations or to previously marginalized populations—we strengthen our bonds and learn how to bridge our differences. When our divisions and debates pit powerful forces trying to rewrite our history and most basic rules against citizens who lack the wherewithal to enforce those rules, we undermine the American Idea and erode social trust.

At the end of the day, our diversity (however we want to define it) isn’t the problem. And that’s a good thing, because that bus has left the station; the reality of the 21st Century is that our diversity will only increase. The real issue is whether we can once again reinvigorate the American Idea and make it work in a brave new world characterized by nearly instantaneous communications, unprecedented human mobility, and the global challenges of climate change and international terrorism.  It has never been more important for citizens to understand the constitutional roots of American culture.

That brings me to my request—or maybe I should call it an invitation.

Scholars and educators have expressed concern over inadequacies in civic literacy and citizenship education for a very long time. Periodically, there have been efforts to increase requirements for civic and constitutional educational content, generally in government or “social studies” classes. Most recently, in 2003, the Alliance for Representative Democracy launched the Congressional Conference on Civic Education, and evidence indicates it did have a modest effect.  However, it followed the typical trajectory of these efforts, which has been an initial burst of enthusiasm followed by limited implementation.  The vast majority of new initiatives have had a very limited impact; worse, some states are now reducing social studies and civics requirements in order to focus on subjects tested under the No Child Left Behind Act.

I am currently working with four colleagues on a project to address these persistent failures. We represent five different disciplines—law, social work, religious studies, bioethics and education—because all of those disciplines are adversely affected by low civic literacy. We intend to determine

  • what programs and curricula have demonstrated effectiveness in producing civically-literate students; and
  • why previous efforts at reform have lacked staying power.

Our ultimate goal is to develop a set of recommendations for basic civic education that can be both implemented and sustained.

I don’t know the structure of the League of Women Voters, nor how you decide what causes to adopt and support. But I do know that there is no organization better situated to actually improve civic literacy in this country. You are national, you are respected, you are non-partisan, and you are credible. In short, you are precisely the sort of organization that should help spearhead this effort.

I don’t have the answers to our research questions yet, and I certainly didn’t come here today with a fully-formed plan or request. I’m just throwing this out in the hopes that we might be able to work together to rebuild the base of a functioning political system—one where our disagreements are about the proper application of a commonly understood history, rather than on revisionist fabrications or lunatic worldviews posted on the internet.

If this is something the League would be willing to explore, I offer my research team’s enthusiastic cooperation.