According to Jay P. Greene and colleagues, there has been a big decline in the proportion of new schools that are named after presidents and other historical figures. For instance, “In New Jersey, naming schools after people dropped from 45 percent of schools built before 1948 to 27 percent of schools built since 1988.” It is now especially common to name schools after geographical features or biological species (e.g., the 11 “Manatee Schools” in Florida).

This trend reminds me of the decline in two courses that predominated in American schools at mid-century: “civics” and “problems of democracy.” Both courses dealt regularly with controversy. Many people think that that’s why they were cut between 1965 and 1980. Likewise, it would be controversial to name a school after Robert E. Lee, Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Laurence Dunbar, or any of the historical figures who inspired school-namers 25 or 50 years ago.

But why are school systems more shy of controversy today? There was surely no lack of bitter political arguments back in the days of McCarthy and Wallace–or of Herbert Hoover and Huey Long. I don’t know the answer, but I can think of some theories:

1. Local elites were more secure in the past, partly because their communities were often homogeneous and stood behind them, partly because there was less power in state and federal agencies, and partly because citizens were generally more deferential to authority. Thus a school board in the South could name a school after Jefferson Davis without worrying about controversy. It was not that everyone in America felt the same way about Confederate history. It was rather than a local school board could make a decision and no one would be able to do anything about it–not minority citizens within the district, not the national media, and not state or federal officials. (By the way, Jefferson Davis is just an example. Another district could name a school after a liberal icon like Fiorello La Guardia or Walter Reuther without worrying that those figures were seen as communists elsewhere.)

2. We are more shy of controversy as a people, and this is a sign of declining civic virtue. We have retreated to consumerism and celebrity culture because disagreeing about important matters is hard work. Yet we cannot engage in the public realm unless we risk disagreement. (This is a plausible theory, but I have never seen any data about trends in tolerance for controversy.)

3. The nature of controversy has shifted. Adults were relatively comfortable when teenagers debated unions, wars, unemployment, communism, and the New Deal. They are uncomfortable with discussions of abortion, gay marriage, and sexual harassment. These topics are more central to politics than they once were. You might ask: what has this shift got to do with the naming of schools? In some cases, there’s a pretty direct link. For instance, Eleanor Roosevelt (whose name graces many American schools) took liberal positions on sexual and gender issues. In other cases, the link may be more obscure, but it still matters. For instance, some Americans line up as conservatives today because of social issues, such as abortion. Perhaps they distinguish between conservative and liberal historical figures and do not want their schools named after the liberals–even though men like Lincoln and FDR had little to say about today’s social issues. Likewise, liberals who are basically motivated by social issues may not want their schools to be named for dead white men who said conservative things about sexuality and gender. Manatees (which say nothing at all) are safer for everyone.

Despite my reservations about the prosecution of Scooter Libby, I think it is lawless for a president to reduce the punishment of his own friend and ally, especially if the administration demands tough and automatic sentences for everyone else. I have no doubt that the president should be denounced for this act. I do, however, have some doubts about whether Democratic politicians should do the denouncing. It seems to me that Republicans are in the national dog house because they have a record of incompetence, rashness, and injustice. But Democrats are also in trouble, because people don’t believe that they can govern. Only about one in four Americans currently approves of the Congress, slightly fewer than approve of the president. More importantly, most Americans distrust government today and are unwilling to give it new responsibilities–which is bad news for progressives. Under these circumstances, I disagree with liberals who say that Democratic politicians should “make hay” by criticizing Libby’s commutation. If I were a Democratic elected official, I’d let the president’s decision speak for itself–people don’t like it. But I’d try to give the impression that I was spending all my time and energy solving your problems: Iraq, education, health care, global warming. “Shenanigans in the White House again? Sorry, but I really can’t focus on things like that right now. We have an education bill we’re working on.”

Eric Goodman sent me the following movie, prompted by my post on celebrity culture and politics.

Goodman’s movie is about paparazzi and celebrities and the case of Princess Di. (The end is especially strong and thought-provoking.) Coincidentally, on Sunday, my wife and I watched Stephen Frears’ film The Queen, which is about the same subject. I think The Queen presents complex contrasts that are worth considering.

First, there’s the contrast between the stoical, laconic, stiff-upper-lip mores of the Royal Family and the outpouring of popular grief when Diana dies. In the film, Prince Phillip expects his grandsons to handle their grief by waking up early to hunt stags in the cold air of the Highlands. Meanwhile, millions of Britons who had never even met the princes’ mother sit in public with tears streaming down their cheeks.

I recognize the attitudes of the Royals from my days in an English school during the 1970s. There is much to be said for the franker and softer emotions that now prevail in Britain (and which Diana Spencer displayed). Among other things, the old stoicism could be bloody-minded; it was a military virtue that underlay imperialism. Today’s Britain, being softer, is a relatively benign global presence.

Yet the outpouring of public grief was not entirely praiseworthy, in my opinion. The public’s view of Diana could surely be called “sentimental,” meaning excessive, self-indulgent, idealized, and untempered by any critical thinking. Incidentally, there is nothing new or un-British about sentimentality, especially when its object is a reasonably attractive young princess. Consider Edmund Burke–that great conservative Englishman–writing on Marie Antoinette in 1793:

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy. 0, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.

Burke weighs the emotions of the young Queen much more heavily than the great issues of social justice that impelled the Revolution. He sounds a lot like the Londoners quoted in The Queen, who wish they “could ‘ave done somefink for Di.” We should seek, I think, some balance or median between the frostiness of Prince Phillip and the emotional indulgence of the British and American publics.

A second opposition is between the private world of authentic human relationships and the public world of “the media.” In the movie, the Royal Family seems extraordinarily private, surrounded by 65,000 acres of wilderness at Balmoral. We also see inside Tony Blair’s private, middle class domestic sphere as he “does the washing-up” and tousles his kids’ hair. In contrast, we see Princess Diana, hounded on a private date by paparazzi until her car crashes. Surely the private zone is what we should prize and protect.

But again, the contrast is complicated. All the characters in the movie–certainly including the princess–use the mass media for their own ends. They even use it to influence their private relationships, as when Charles tries to get the press on his side as part of a classic struggle with his mother. It’s possible to lead a private life, but not after you’ve appeared all over television and issued press releases about your emotions.

The Queen is appalled by public spectacles of grief. She prefers dignity. But the monarchy has always been a show. Long before television was the medium of choice, monarchs used stone to send messages about their majesty and might. They built Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace to communicate to mass publics. Once the British crown lost most of its political power, it became almost nothing but a public spectacle. In the film, the Queen Mother is deeply offended that Princess Diana’s funeral might be based on plans for her own. But that is not because the Queen Mother is a private person whereas Diana is a public figure. It’s because Diana is threatening to take the Queen Mother’s spectacle away.

Anyway, public affairs are important. Because The Queen is a movie, it drives our attention to human dynamics–for instance, to the blossoming relationship between Blair and the Queen. But it’s also very important that the Labour Party gained political capital from the funeral of Diana. How they used that popularity is a more significant question than whether Tony Blair saw the Queen as a mother figure. Labour’s “spinmeisters” are depicted as villains in the film, but if they gained popularity in order to use it well, maybe they weren’t so bad.

A third opposition is between serious people of merit and talent and empty celebrities. Prince Phillip is horrified by the thought of Elton John at Westminster Abbey. Of course, Sir Elton has some talent as a singer, whereas Phillip is famous basically for impregnating the Queen. Movie stars and singers are unreliable role models and sources of wisdom on matters of public importance. Then again, so are hereditary monarchs, yet the British constitution now treats the sovereign as an official adviser to the Prime Minister. Once again, there is nothing completely new about celebrity culture. Queen Elizabeth I was already a kind of celebrity. But the scale and scope have expanded during the reign of QEII.

In the end, I suppose I’m worried whenever there is a politically significant relationship between a great mass of people and very few individuals. This is always a fake and easily manipulated relationship, because we millions cannot really know those few famous ones. We millions appear fickle–a major theme of The Queen–because we are working from little information and much imagination. This is not an argument against democracy. It is an argument against forms of democracy in which the central question is what great numbers of people think about a few “leaders.” A healthy democracy is rather a complex set of relationships among people and organizations.