Author Archives: Peter Levine

John the Baptist, raw and cooked

It occurs to me that a structuralist anthropologist could make hay out of Matthew 3:4 (“And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.”)

As I understand it–barely–the distinction between raw and cooked is one of the central oppositions that creates the structure of any culture, according to the pioneering anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. He notes that human beings are capable of eating a very wide range of things either raw or cooked. What is considered edible varies enormously by culture. But the distinctions of raw/cooked and edible/inedible always exist and create a whole set of rules and norms by which people live. The category of the raw is always associated with the natural and often with the dangerous or forbidden. The cooked is associated with culture and with fitness for human consumption. Thus people are never to be cooked. In some cultures, pigs can be cooked; in others, not. In some cultures, you must cook fish to make it edible; in others, it can be eaten raw (but elaborately prepared). The cook is always a borderline or “liminal” figure who selects what to prepare and thus transforms it from a raw to an edible state. We then take the food into our bodies and make the natural into the human.

So what of John the Baptist? He is a wonderfully liminal figure, bridging the Old Testament and the New. Catholics see him as a Hebrew prophet who dies before the Crucifixion and can never take communion (which is eating the body of Christ); yet he recognizes Jesus as savior. He comes from civilization but wanders in the desert alone like a beast. The two items that he eats are especially interesting from a Levi-Straussian perspective. Honey is a carefully prepared ingredient, but it is made by bees in their elaborate society, not by humans in ours. We don’t heat it to prepare it for our consumption, but eat it “raw.” And locusts are generally considered inedible, although John subsists on them. He ends up with his head on a plate, but served raw at Salome’s table. Most interestingly of all, John’s main function is to pour water on Jesus’ head to transform him and begin the new dispensation. That sounds a lot like cooking.

When a particular story happens to fit a theory perfectly, we cannot conclude that the theory is right. The story of Paolo and Francesca is a beautiful fit for Jacques Derrida’s idea of logocentrism, but that doesn’t vindicate Derrida. It is, however, satisfying to find a perfect illustration of a major theory, even one so out of fashion as structuralism.

hyper-local news

Since 2005, I’ve served on the advisory board of the New Voices project, which supports hyper-local news. Last Friday, we met to choose a third round of grantees. The formats that we support include websites, wikis, and radio (among others). The topics range from general-interest news in small communities to specialized subjects such as climate change in Vermont. The news is always produced by people who could be called “citizens,” meaning that they aren’t professional journalists, government officials, or media companies–although these can be involved in various ways. Our small grants have seeded some impressive projects. For example:

♦ The Twin Cities Daily Planet in Minneapolis/St Paul (MN) is a whole newspaper-like website. Original material produced by citizens is combined with articles selected from the local professional media. It’s got lots of updated content and substantial amounts of advertising revenue. It’s also an association that provides training and social networks for citizen journalists.

♦ The Forum in Deerfield, CT, came online just as the town ended its old tradition of town-meeting government. It gets 37 new citizen-generated articles per week, in a town of 4,000 residents. There’s lots of online discussion. Advertising revenue is quite robust.

♦ Vermont Climate Witness is a site where citizens can post and discuss evidence of climate change at the state level. Its central feature is a map onto which citizens can add all kinds of content.

♦ NewCastle NOW is a community newspaper for the bedroom community of Chappaqua, NY that has 57 contributors and covers all its costs through advertising. Chappaqua, home of the Clintons, has a wealthy and highly educated population. Still, I think the grant was a great idea because the Chappaqua team is figuring out all kinds of practical strategies and tools that can be easily imitated elsewhere.

♦ Appalshop in the Kentucky Mountains trains local citizens as a Community Correspondents Corps. They produce radio segments that are broadcast on local public radio. The segments are also collected on a website and available as podcasts.

These projects are typical of a broader range of civic experimentation in America today. They are nonpartisan and they welcome diverse perspectives, yet they are not rigorously neutral and detached. They support deliberation combined with creativity and action. They are unaffiliated with major institutions such as governments, unions, and religious denominations, but loyal to particular communities. They try to develop skills and confidence even as they produce useful products on deadline. They deliberately combine politics and issues, culture and entertainment, and social networks. They are entrepreneurial and eager to mix for-profit with non-profit funding.

philosophy of the middleground

1. Should the government require national service?

That’s a question that modern political philosophers are primed and ready to address. It concerns the proper power of the state and the responsibilities of its citizens. Libertarians, communitarians, civic republicans, and others have fundamental principles that they can easily apply to this question. I call it a “background” issue because it deals with the fundamental rights and duties that define a whole society. It’s like a question about whether everyone has a right to health care or free speech, or whether the government may compel taxation. These “background” issues are central to modern political theory.

2. Should I enlist in the military or join a civilian service program such as CityYear?

This is also a topic that political philosophers are equipped to address. It raises fundamental ethical questions about the use of force, membership in hierarchical organizations, duties to the community, and the shape of a good life. Pacifists, communitarians, various kinds of virtue-ethicists, pluralists, and others have fundamental principles that apply pretty directly to this question. I call it a “foreground” issue because it deals with a matter very close to the individual–a personal choice. It is like questions about whether to marry, have an abortion, or join a church. Such foreground issues are central to modern ethics.

3. What would a good service program be like and how could we make such a program come into being?

This is the kind of question that modern philosophers are not very good at addressing. One cannot easily answer it by applying the fundamental intuitions that drive mainstream theories of ethics and political theory. There isn’t necessarily a libertarian or communitarian answer.

As a result, the question tends to be addressed in thoroughly empirical, administrative, or tactical ways. The empirical issue is what consequences result from various types of service programs. The administrative issue is what rules or processes increase the probability that the program will be run well. And the tactical issue is how one can build and sustain political support for the program.

All these questions have crucial moral dimensions. It’s not enough to know whether a given program causes a particular outcome (such as higher incomes, or more civic duty). We must also decide whether those outcomes are good, whether they are distributed fairly, whether any harms to others are worthwhile, and what means for deriving these consequences are acceptable. Further, it’s not enough to understand how to run or structure a good program. We must also decide what forms of governance or administration are ethical. (Mussolini made the trains run on time, but that was not an adequate defense of fascism). Finally, it’s not enough to know that a given argument or “message” would produce political support for a program. We must also decide which forms of argument are ethically acceptable.

Thus it’s a shame that philosophers tend to cede the “middleground” to social scientists, administrators, and tacticians. As a result, no one raises the serious, complex moral issues that arise when one thinks about political tactics, the design of programs, and their administration. This is not only bad for policy and public discourse; it is also bad for philosophy. Theories are impoverished when they miss the middleground. For example, it would be a decisive argument against requiring national service if it were impossible to build and sustain a good service program. So any argument for national service that depends entirely on first principles is a lousy argument. It needs its middleground.

Some areas of philosophy have developed a middleground and thereby not only served public purposes but also enriched the discipline. Medical ethics is the best example. It’s no longer restricted to matters of individual ethics (e.g., should a physician conduct an abortion?) or matters of basic structure (e.g., is there a right to life?), but also to matters of administration, politics, and program design. Medical ethicists work in hospitals, advise commissions, and review policies. Harry Brighouse has argued that the philosophy of education should follow the same model. I would generalize and say that across the whole range of policy and social questions, it is worth asking moral questions not only about basic rights and individual behavior, but also about institutional arrangements and political tactics.

for a better america

For a Better America is a student-generated forum for proposing and discussing ideas and connecting to peers. The young organizers cite lots of good, current writing on democracy and civil society and have built an elaborate platform for discussion and action. I like the way such ideas as “produce more environmentally friendly packaging materials” seem to ascend the rankings and get the most attention, whereas the lowest approval ratings go to “elect Mike Huckabee president,” “elect Rudy Giuliani president,” and “elect Hillary Clinton president.” Evidently, For a Better America is about what we can do.

leadership according to the Girl Scout Research Institute survey

The Girl Scouts have released a major survey of about 4,000 girls and boys (ages 8-17), focusing on their attitudes toward leadership. In the Washington Post, Laura Sessions Stepp summarized the report thus: “A new nationwide survey of girls and boys found that a majority of children and youths in the United States have little or no interest with achieving leadership roles when they become adults, ranking ‘being a leader’ behind other goals such as ‘fitting in,’ ‘making a lot of money’ and ‘helping animals or the environment.'” She quoted me: “‘The millennial generation has ambivalent, even negative, feelings about formal leadership,’ said Peter Levine, director of a nonpartisan research center at the University of Maryland that studies young people and civic involvement. ‘They prefer horizontal leadership in which everyone’s a leader.'”

I will be on Minnesota Public Radio today from 10-11 Central Time discussing the report. I have read the full document this morning, and these are some points I notice:

Kids are much more likely to say, “A leader is someone who brings people together to get things done”–not “A leader is someone who is in charge of other people and makes decisions that affect them.”
Being a leader ranks low on the list of goals. This may be partly because of ethical doubts about command-and-control versions of “leadership.” But it’s partly because young people put their own development first. Staying free of drugs and alcohol, doing well academically, and getting into college rank far above being a leader and helping your community. On the bright side, kids say that they rank fitting in, being popular, and being famous very low.
Given a long list of activities that show responsibility or leadership, girls are more involved in almost all ways than boys are–sports being the exception. This result is perfectly consistent with what we know about extracurricular participation in middle school and high school.
African American and Latino kids are more likely than Whites to see themselves as leaders, to enjoy leadership, and to want to be leaders. This comes as no surprise, since African American children (especially) are more engaged in problem-solving and “giving back” to their communities than Whites are.
The importance of “helping others” declines over the age range 8 to 17, but it falls much more for boys than for girls.
Girls and boys alike cite their mothers as by far the biggest influence on their leadership aspirations. This is consistent with other research showing that today’s youth are close to their parents and especially their mothers. When I speak to groups of kids, I often ask them to raise their hands if they have a living hero. Many hands go up. I then ask them to put their hands down if their hero is their Mom. Most hands go down.
The differences in attitudes between girls and boys are quite modest. I suspect the interesting differences are by age, not gender. However, this survey does not include adults, so we cannot compare generations.