CIRCLE has received more
than 250 letters of inquiry responding to our three Requests for Proposals,
which all had deadlines of last Friday. Today, reading letters, not
blogging, is my clear civic duty.
Author Archives: Peter Levine
patriotism and civic
Some people who talk or write about civic education insist that the
United States has the very best democracy (or society) in
the world. In my opinion, the US is one of a few dozen polities
that stand head-and-shoulders above the rest (due to good luck as
well as wise ancestors). I think it’s a goal of civic education to
help students understand how fortunate they are compared to people
who live in tyrannies or anarchy. I feel loyalty and gratitude toward
the United States and not toward any other nation, and I think this
is a good attitude for Americans to hold. However, it’s far from clear
to me that our polity is the single best in the world. We have low
voter participation; our crime and incarceration rates are amazingly
high; and we live shorter lives with more disease, compared to people
in some of the northern European nations. Nor do we compare favorably
with these countries if one thinks about the long term. Sweden, for
example, has been stable and at peace for 200 years, progressing steadily
toward liberty and democracy. These other democratic states are all
to our left politically. Thus I wonder whether some people want to
teach students that the United States is the best society
in order to head off discussions about whether we should move somewhat
leftward.
Congressional Conference on Civic Education
I spoke today at the first annual Congressional Conference on Civic
Education, which was attended by delegations from all fifty states,
including state legislators, educators, and executive branch officials.
I had served on the advisory committee for the conference, so I was
glad to see it come to pass. It was also my third opportunity in 10
days to make a speech about the Civic
Mission of Schools report. (The other two were the 50th anniversary
of the National Conference on Citizenship
and the Youth for
Justice state directors’ meeting.)
At all three events, there was discussion of the importance and difficulty
of teaching controversial issues in schools. Today,
I mentioned Gun Owners of America’s attack on the
civic education bill as evidence that there are people who do
not want such discussion in classrooms. After the session, a state
legislator from the West approached me and said that I had been un-civil
in treating the Gun Owners as "nuts"; I should have made
sure I understood and conveyed their position fairly. He said that
my incivility was an example of what is wrong with civic education.
I was taken aback, since I feel that much of my work is aimed at
promoting civil and respectful dialogue, and I strive to understand
opponents’ point of view. For example, I strongly disagree with the
National Rifle Association’s positions, yet I think its views are
sincerely held, based on principles, sometimes unfairly caricatured,
and conceivably correct. I suppose I would defend my criticism of
the Gun Owners by noting that I didn’t attribute a hidden agenda
to them; I simply paraphrased their public statement, which is a pretty
explicit attack on critical thinking in schools.
the many Bachs
For some reason, I was thinking about all the dramatically different
ways in which people have seen and admired J.S. Bach since his own day.
- There is Bach as a virtuouso improviser, the man who could sit
down at a keyboard and swiftly invent a multi-part fugue on any
theme. This is Bach as forerunner of a jazz musician, an exciting
live performer.
- There is Bach as pedagogue, the man who taught three sons who
were much more successful than himself and who wrote great instructional
works such as the "Well-Tempered Clavier." These musical
texts have been consistently consulted by composers even when Bach’s
other works were forgotten (for instance, in Mozart’s time).
- There is Bach the profound spiritual master, the Lutheran churchman,
the author of great narrative choral works such as the Passions,
which realistically depict human emotions in relation to God’s providence.
This is the Bach whom the Romantics admired most. They even disparaged
the "Christmas Oratorio" because it recycled music from
secular works—so it couldn’t be spiritually inspired.
- There is Bach as an anti-Romantic, an unpretentious musical worker.
Whereas Romantic musical geniuses were supposed to be free of all
worldly motives and inspired only by Art, Bach happily turned out
church music for every Sunday, often re-using material, borrowing
from other sources, and making do with amateur performers. For this,
he was admired by leftish anti-Romantics such as Paul Hindemith.
If I recall correctly, Bertold Brecht used to call himself a Schreiber,
not a Dichter—someone who makes his living by writing,
not a literary Artist. The same could be said of Bach.
- There is Bach as mathematical genius, author of technically and
formally complex instrumental works, especially the "Musical
Offering," that seem as other-wordly as mathematical proofs.
After writing a list like this, one is expected to say, "Of
course, Bach was all of these things, and that’s why he is
so great." I’m going to be a little less predictable and say
that Bach was all of these things, of course, but he was
at his greatest as the composer of narrative works that were grounded
in his understanding of human life and emotion.
the Net and participation
Right now, Hurricane Isabel is howling around us and most work has
ceased. The University has taken its server down, blessedly cutting
off my email. Yesterday afternoon, when the skies were still clear,
I met with Marty Kearns of Green
Media Toolshed, who is full of fascinating ideas about how the
Internet and other distributed technologies (including billboards
and buttons) can be used for political activism. Meanwhile, I was
reading reviews of Bruce Bimber and Richard Davis’ new book, Campaigning
Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections. Apparently, they argue
that the Internet is effective for mobilizing strongly committed partisans,
but it does not increase net participation in politics and elections.
This is consistent with CIRCLE research on young people, and also
with my predictions in a 2002 essay
on the Internet and politics.
Marty Kearns makes me optimistic about the political power of digital
technologies and their value for progressive organizations. But I
also worry about the chief barrier to participation. It’s not the
digital divide, or technological literacy, or the power of major media
companies to constrain the ways that the Internet is used. It’s rather
the lack of motivation to participate politically—the lack of
identity as citizens—among many marginalized people. In the
past, people developed that kind of identity and motivation by enrolling
in disciplined organizations with strong cultures: unions, political
parties, religious denominations. I’m not convinced that we’ve found
replacements for such organizations in the digital age.