Author Archives: Peter Levine

cause c?l?bre

(En route to Chicago for an American Bar Association meeting.) Last week, a leaked National Intelligence Estimate made headlines by asserting that the Iraq war was a ?cause c?l?bre? for jihadists. That topic has since been knocked out of the newspapers by a congressional sex scandal, tragedy in Amish country, and other riveting stories. However, I?ll weigh in belatedly and say that I don?t believe the ?cause c?l?bre? argument was ever a good one to make against the war. First of all, it?s a fancy French phrase. Besides, we sometimes should and must do things that rile up the other side. If (contrary to fact), the invasion of Iraq had been wise, legal, and in the best interests of that nation, it would still have given terrorists a ?cause c?l?bre.?

For me, a sufficient argument against the war is that it violates one of the few substantial elements of international law. Members of the United Nations simply may not invade one another without the explicit authorization of the Security Council. However, this argument is not politically very potent, because it seems legalistic and likely to uphold UN interests against those of the US.

Thus I would emphasize a different argument, which (as Henry Kissinger once said on another topic) has the ?additional merit of being true.? The invasion of Iraq was part of the war on terror, but it was a colossal strategic error in that war. It helped the jihadists by knocking off a hated secular dictatorship, under such conditions that fundamentalist movements would likely replace it. It put hundreds of thousands of mostly young Americans right into the Middle East where they were vulnerable to being attacked; more have died there than on 9/11. It created a profound dilemma: Winning the counter-insurgency would require deep and daily engagement with Iraqis, which would be extremely dangerous; whereas protecting US troops in Iraq would require separating them from the population, which would make it impossible for them to succeed. Above all, the invasion made the United State responsible for handling a violent struggle among Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds, Arabs and Persians that we are poorly equipped to understand, let alone resolve. And if we fail, the consequences range from a massive loss of credibility, to terrible suffering, to the creation of a jihadist state at the head of the Persian Gulf.

In fact, one could say that there were only two ways for jihadists to achieve a strategic victory against the United States after 9/11: by obtaining and using weapons of mass destruction on US soil, or by luring us into the middle of a civil war in the Mideast. We gave them the latter victory and must devoutly hope to avoid the former. That we also gave terrorist recruiters a ?cause c?l?bre? is almost beside the point.

survey of college students’ civic literacy

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently released a survey showing that college students don’t know much about American history, constitutional principles, and economics; and they hardly gain knowledge over their four years in university. The biggest gains are supposedly found at the least prestigious institutions. At fancy schools like Brown, Georgetown, and Yale, knowledge actually falls between freshman and senior year.

I was all set to praise and quote the report, because it draws attention to topics–civics and history–that I fear we overlook. The failure of prestigious schools to add value would confirm my suspicion that higher education is largely about conferring status–not educating students.

However, I have serious questions about the methodology of the report, which simply surveyed groups of freshmen and seniors and compared the differences. There is no mention of dropout rates. It is very likely that the less prestigious schools, where students apparently showed a lot of improvement, also have high dropout rates. Their seniors score higher than their freshmen because those who make it to senior year are the academically successful survivors of a winnowing-out process.

For example, the report praises Colorado State University for adding 11 points to its students’ knowledge scores. But Colorado State has a 6-year retention rate of only 63%, meaning that four in ten of its students leave without getting a degree. CSU seniors were probably better students back in their freshman year than many of their peers who left without graduating.

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glasses that are partly full

I don’t mean to dwell too long on our new survey (described yesterday), but I find the press coverage an interesting study in subjectiveness. Based on the very same release and oral presentation …

Matt Stearns and Rick Montgomery wrote in the Kansas City Star: “Apathetic, detached? Not today?s young people. A study finds that 15- to 25-year-olds are more involved in their communities than expected.” Their lead is: “Turns out, the seminal rock band The Who was correct: Gloomy stereotypes about civic detachment to the contrary, the kids are all right.”

But David Alexander wrote in Reuters (picked up in the Boston Globe and elsewhere: “Few U.S. youths involved in civic life: study.” His lead is: “Nearly two-thirds of young Americans are disengaged from political and civic life and only a quarter regularly vote, a survey released on Tuesday showed.”

And the Philadelphia Inquirer printed Matt Stearns’ piece under this headline: “Younger folks do their civic duties, a study confirms; Involvement for those 15 to 25 in some cases neared elders’ levels.”

So which is it? All of the above, of course. It’s a mixed story, as we realized when we thought about how to pitch it. I did hope that the headlines would be positive (although I’m not at all surprised to see the negative ones). Perhaps there’s no one valid way to capture a complex picture in one short phrase, which is what a headline must be. But we think a positive summary is closer to the truth in this case.

new CIRCLE survey of youth

I’m at the National Press Club, about to release the result of a major new survey of American young people. [It has been covered, so far, by Reuters, Fox News, the Scripps Howard wire, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other McClatchy Newspapers, the Kansas City Star, on p. 1, and the Washington Times. Coincidentally, John Bridgeland and I also have an op-ed in today’s Washington Times.] The report is available on the CIRCLE website. From the press release:

The Future of American Democracy: A Mixed Picture

More Young People Are Involved,

But Nearly 1 in 5 Are Civically and Politically Disengaged

African-American and Asian-American Youth Most Engaged

Washington, DC ? Conventional wisdom is challenged by a new report on the political and civic involvement of young Americans. Young people are working in many ways to improve their communities and the nation by volunteering, voting, protesting, and raising money for charity and political candidates. In addition, African-American and Asian-American youth are the most engaged, according to the study conducted by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE). But, the findings also show that a large group of young people are completely disconnected from civic life.

In the last year, more than 36 percent of young people aged 15-25 volunteered, nearly 20 percent have been involved with solving community problems, and almost a quarter had raised money for charity. Many of the civic and political indicators showed only small differences between this age group and those aged 26 and older.

Despite this higher-than-expected level of engagement, the study does show that nearly two-thirds of young Americans are considered disengaged, with nearly one in five not involved in any of the 19 possible forms of civic participation. ?Participating is good for kids? development. Our schools and communities need their contributions. And their civic development is crucial for the future of our democracy,? said CIRCLE director Peter Levine.

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purple nation

We’re just back from a high school reunion in Macon, Georgia. Bush took 58% of Georgia’s vote in 2004, and 96% of the “white conservative protestant” vote in the state. At the reunion, nobody talked about politics, but religion was freely discussed, and it was clear that most participants were conservative and protestant (and white). We live in DC, where only 2% of exit poll respondents described themselves as “white conservative protestants” in 2004, and Bush took just 9% of the vote.

This seems a good time to mention “A House Divided: The Psychology of Red and Blue America,” a recent article by D. Conor Seyle and Matthew L. Newman in The American Psychologist. The authors criticize the omnipresent map of red states and blue states. They contend that this map is not merely a flawed device for representing our situation; it also affects us in troubling ways.

The map is a misleading representation because it organizes America along one dimension and divides all the states into just two categories. In reality, there are differences among Democrats and among Republicans, and there are big regional variations within states. Sometimes, the line between red and blue seems clearly inappropriate. For example, Pennsylvania and Ohio are pretty similar politically; but on the map, Ohio is as red as Utah, and Pennsylvania is as blue as Vermont.

This misrepresentation may have negative effects:

1. It can make the political minority in a state feel marginal and demoralized, although sometimes they have great political potential. (For example, Kerry took Bibb county, where Macon is located.)

2. It can prompt the two groups to move to their extremes, following a well-known pattern in social pyschology.

3. It can instill a sense that we are fundamentally divided into two identity groups, whose members not only vote differently, but also worship differently, eat different food, and hope for different futures for their children. To a large extent, that’s false.

It’s worth contrasting the red-versus-blue scheme with old-fashioned party labels. The “Democratic” label is a cue to think about electoral politics; and electoral politics is about disagreement and competition. To call yourself a “Democrat” may prompt positive feelings among fellow Democrats and negative ones among Republicans–which is fine. Even people who vote differently can get along well when they’re not talking about politics.

In contrast, “red” and “blue” appear to be “unique and overlapping” categories (as Seyle and Newman write). They indicate a person’s culinary taste, regional accent, denomination, race, preferred means of transportation, favorite news source, and practically everything else about him. If we think in such categories, it’s hard to cooperate even when we happen to agree.

Senator Obama was right:

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an ‘awesome God’ in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.