Author Archives: Peter Levine

they agree about one thing: Streetlaw

Since I’m on the board of Streetlaw, Inc., I can’t resist quoting this snippet from the Roberts confirmation hearings:

ROBERTS: In addition to those actually involved in the case, one of the pro bono activities that I’m most committed to is a program sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society and an organization called Street Law. They bring high school teachers to D.C. every summer to teach them about the Supreme Court. And they can then go back and teach the court in their classes.

And I’ve always found that very, very fulfilling.

HATCH: Well, thank you. My time is up.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Hatch.

Senator Kennedy?

KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

That Street Law program is a marvelous program. I commend you for your involvement in that.

the effects of 9/11 on youth civic engagement

Over the weekend, both the New York Times and the Washington Post marked Sept. 11 with stories about a resurgence of civic engagement among American young people. The Post gave Harvard’s Thomas Sander and Robert Putnam space to argue that “a renewed commitment to civic engagement among a crucial segment of the population”–young people–“has resulted from the “horrible event” of 9/11. For evidence, the authors relied on the latest HERI surveys of incoming college freshmen, which reveal big increases in volunteering, plus the turnout surge in the 2004 election. Meanwhile, the Times ran a news story by Alex Williams entitled “Realistic Idealists” that described some super-volunteers–like 13-year-old Hazel, who created a 3,000-volume library for a homeless shelter. Williams writes, “Hazel is at the leading edge of a generation whose sense of community involvement was born four years ago on Sept. 11, 2001. The attacks spurred an unprecedented outpouring of donations and volunteerism from Americans.”

I never miss an opportunity to emphasize the idealism and civic creativity of today’s young people. There are reasons, however, to doubt that 9/11 had a meaningful effect. At CIRCLE, we tend to explain the turnout increase as a result of feverish efforts to mobilize youth–although, to be sure, younger citizens were following current events more closely than usual in 2004, and one reason could be that 9/11 had caught their attention. Our own surveys found that adolescents were “all dressed up with nowhere to go” in 2002-4. That is, they expressed a heightened commitment to volunteering and other forms of participation, but they had no more than the usual opportunities.

Which brings me to the difference between Robert Putnam and Jim Youniss, some of whose views I mentioned here last week. For Putnam, values (such as trust, connectedness, and responsibility) underlie actions. For Youniss and colleagues, values tend to arise from participation, and what causes participation is (mainly) the opportunity to do something. If Youniss is right, then any effect of 9/11 on youth civic engagement would be indirect. Perhaps young leaders and adults responded to the attacks by creating venues for other young people to serve.

Another controversy is buried in the article by Sander and Putnam. Many people argue that 9/11 increased people’s sense of connectedness (especially in New York City) but did little to enhance their capacity to solve public problems together. A national survey that CIRCLE released in 2002 found that many Americans of all ages volunteered, at least occasionally, but only 20 percent of the volunteers (and 10 percent of young volunteers) described their participation as a way to address a ?social or political problem.? Putnam’s own writing immediately after the 9/11 attacks was surprisingly apolitical; he seemed to be arguing that it would be good if people trusted one another more and cared more for others, but he said little about people’s capacity for collective problem-solving. (I have written before about such apolitical notions of “social capital.)

“expert” voices

I’m quoted in a recent story on Yahoo News (provided by Agence France Presse), entitled, “Katrina: US TV swings from deference to outrage towards government.” The lead is, “In the emotional aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, US television’s often deferential treatment of government officials has been replaced by fiercely combative interviews and scathing commentary.” Some examples follow, and then I am quoted near the end:

Media expert* Peter Levine, of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, said the shift in stance of American television was a return to normal following four years of toeing the government line following the September 11 attacks.

“After 9/11 those who publicly dissented from support of the president and the government were rounded on from all sides,” he told AFP.

“The political calculation of (opposition) Democratic politicans was that it was best to support the president and so no one wanted to be seen dissenting, giving the media little to base any criticism on,” he said.

But with local officials, including Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin openly slamming the government response to the New Orleans catastrophe, usually reserved media feel free to do the same, he said.

Added to that, the horror played out on live television belied the government’s claims that its preparations for the storm and subsequent rescue effort had been sufficient.

“(Television stations) have people on the ground and are seeing a huge difference between what they are being told by officials and what they are actually seeing,” Levine said.

None of this is profound or original, but it exemplifies the phenomenon I meant to describe. The reporter probably had the thoughts that he attributed to me before I said them. But he could not simply write those ideas down in his own words, because that would be editorializing, interpreting, or analyzing, and he couldn’t do that as a reporter. His assignment was to record facts, such as what a “media expert” had said. So he called around until he found someone who told him something that he wanted to say himself, and then he quoted that person–in this case, me.

Between Sept. 11, 2001 and the Iraq invasion, relatively few of the people whom reporters quote were willing to say anything bad about US foreign policy, and that is why critical perspectives were so rare.

*My media “expertise” comes solely from regular reading of The New York Times, including the news, arts, op-ed, NY region, and business sections and the obituaries, but rarely the sports and never the new “style” section, which I condemn unequivocally.

why it’s important for young people to have civic opportunities

James Youniss and Daniel Hart have summarized more than a dozen longitudinal studies that follow young people into adulthood and repeatedly ask questions about their civic engagement and values. The basic pattern is very consistent: those who participate in politics or community affairs or leadership roles at age 15 or 22 are much more likely to be involved at age 30 or 50. Probably the longest study is by Kent Jennings, which finds a relationship between participation in high school groups in the 1960s and participation in community groups by the same people in the 1990s.

One possible explanation is that some people have a personality trait, moral value, or other internal characteristic that predisposes them to participate when they are young and still applies when they are older. In that case, it would not matter much whether adolescents and young adults were given opportunities to participate civically. Assuming they had the right mental predispositions, they would participate whenever they had an opportunity, even if they had to wait for adulthood. Our goal, in that case, should be to change hearts and minds, to make people feel civically responsible.

If this theory applied, then we might also understand certain historical events as the result of shifts in values: for example, the Civil Rights Movement would be a product of new consciousness among African Americans (and to a lesser extent, among Whites). By the same token, we should be concerned about certain negative trends in values, like the big increase in materialistic values held by incoming college freshmen since 1966.

However, the evidence tends to suggest a very different view. Based on surveys of participants and non-participants, it does not appear that young people engage in service or politics because they have particular values beforehand. It seems to matter much more whether they are recruited to participate, and whether they have appropriate skills and knowledge. But if values do not determine participation, participation does change values and habits. When we compare participants who appeared similar before a civic opportunity, we often find that they behave quite different afterwards. This was true of comparable people who did and did not participate in the Freedom Summer campaigns of 1964. Such profoundly moving and terrifying work might be expected to leave a lasting mark (see Doug McAdam’s book, Freedom Summer). But the same is true to a lesser extent of young people who participate in student government or school newspapers. Even forty years later, they remain more civically engaged than other people who answered the same survey questions as they did.

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against “systematizing” in ethics

In a recent comment, Metta Spencer asks, “I?m … curious about your notion that systemizing ethical principles is not a good way to go. I would love to hear more about that. I suppose it?s more than just not being a Kantian, but i can’t fill in the blanks to guess what you mean, and there aren’t citations in these blog thingies.” I thought an answer would be worth a full post, so here goes. My position could be summarized as follows:

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