Detroit‘s population is about half what it was in 1950, the exodus compelled by a permanent closing of factories. Its official unemployment rate is currently 14%, highest of any large city. Its high school dropout rate is 75%. Michigan incarcerates five times as many people as it did in 1973 and spends 20% of its state’s general fund revenue on prisons.

But Detroit Declaration seizes the highest ground: “Cities are the greatest expression of civilization. Great cities are filled with people who exercise their talent and creativity as the catalytic risk-takers, doers, and leaders who forge the dynamic marketplace of ideas that grow places into prosperity. We are the people who believe in cities and pledge to align our energies for the benefit of Michigan’s largest and most storied city, Detroit.” The declaration proceeds to list 12 principles that are general and abstract, yet carefully constructed to acknowledge Detroit’s assets and uniqueness as well as the need to move forward. According to USA Today, 20,000 people have visited the website and 8,000 people have become “friends” of the Declaration’s Facebook page.

Providence, RI is a handsome and sophisticated city, but it has experienced deep corruption; its unemployment rate is the highest in New England; and its local news media–badly hit by budget cuts–can no longer create a common space for discussion and debate or hold politicians accountable.

Enter the UNCaucus, a group of Providence residents who aim to “hire” the next mayor by creating a new unofficial job description, stimulating debate and discussion, covering the candidates, and promoting civic engagement. Like the Detroit Declaration, UNCaucus makes heavy use of Facebook.

The Tea Party consists of fellow citizens whose participation is welcome. I reject treating them as dupes of shadowy corporate lobbies or as racists. (Since racism is intermingled with ideology and economics in the United States, no movement is simply innocent–but I would need a lot more evidence before I would uniquely indict the Tea Partiers on that score.) All that said, their brand of politics seems the opposite of what we need. They interpret standard economic policies–like a stimulus during a recession–as signs of immanent tyranny, thus turning our mainstream debate into a struggle for our national survival. That creates a very difficult environment for governance and problem-solving–even if one happens to favor a smaller role for government.

The Coffee Party responds in just the right way, it seems to me. Their manifesto starts: “The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.”

According to Katie Zernike in today’s Times, the “organizers said they would invite Tea Party members to join their Coffee counterparts in discussions. ‘We need to roll up our sleeves, put our heads together and work it out,’ [a leader said]. ‘That’s, to me, an American way of doing this.'” Thanks to Facebook, the Coffee Party is now 40,000 strong and growing fast.

Tufts President Larry Bacow holds an annual symposium for Tufts faculty, students, and staff and various nonprofit leaders, government officials, and residents of the communities in which we work (Somerville and Medford, Massachusetts, plus Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood). Today’s symposium attracted more than 100 participants and was focused on research.

I like Bacow’s framing: The University has two “products”: educated graduates and knowledge. Some of the knowledge we can and should produce can be generated privately: he mentioned pure philosophy. as an example. But some faculty must create knowledge in partnerships with communities, because of the nature of their research. For example, one cannot envision, develop, and implement an experimental “treatment” to address a social problem without serious input from people in the communities affected.

Mixed groups worked at small tables to discuss fictional scenarios involving research. (For full disclosure: I had written those scenarios.) At our table, the fictional story began with a nonprofit service agency that had done no evaluation before it approached Tufts for help. Colleagues at my table rejected this premise. They argued that community organizations inevitably evaluate; it’s just that their evaluations may not be formal or explicit. That was interesting feedback for me, because we are approached at least once a month by nonprofits that say, “We have never done any evaluation; can CIRCLE help us?” I’m thinking that a good response may often be, “You have evaluated, and we should start with what you have learned already.”

Two important practical challenges emerged. 1) Universities tend to capture the lion’s share of funds, especially overhead, from joint grants. And 2) it is very hard to get tenure for the kind of patient work that community partnerships require.

On that second point, I think the best advice comes from Imagining America’s report, Scholarship in Public. These are some key points in that report: 1) There is a huge range of quality in community research, and by no means all of it should be rewarded; we need standards of excellence. 2) Community research often takes the form of multi-part projects or programs. Tenure committees should evaluate whole projects, not publications. 3) The issue of promotion is especially sensitive because faculty from minority backgrounds are the most likely to do community-based research.

According to the folks at complaintchoir.org,

In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression “Valituskuoro”. It means “Complaints Choir” and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. [Talervo] Kalleinen and [Oliver] Kochta-Kalleinen thought: “Wouldn’t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir!”

Thanks to their work, there have been complaint choirs around the world. Here’s an example from Chicago:

In a serious mode, I would complain about these complaints–where are the solutions? But I’m happy to lighten up and enjoy the show, in particular the natural juxtaposition of the merely personal with the grandly political: “Our president is a cowboy / I hate my homeowners association.” It’s the lifeworld and the public sphere all mashed together and set to music. A democratic art.

In the humanities today, a pervasive rhetorical style is to raise questions or “problematize.” A humanist will describe his or her work as “putting into question” technology, or marriage, or Jane Austen. I think this style is problematic (irony intended) for the following reasons …

It’s usually a way of expressing an opinion. You put technology in question (for instance) because you’re against some aspect of it. But vague question-raising allows you to duck accountability for your own views. If you said, “Technology is harmful,” people would be able to test your thesis, cite difficult examples, and put alternative opinions on the table. If all you say is that you want to raise questions about technology, the accountability falls on your interlocutors and you avoid having to defend your position (even to yourself).

This style also allows you to avoid specifying the degree of certainty or generality of your views. Are you just vaguely uncomfortable about a popular enthusiasm, or do you have reasons and evidence in favor of a critical view? If all you do is “problematize,” you don’t have to say.

Perhaps scholars adopt this style in modesty, but it comes across as insufferably arrogant. Picture a literary critic or a philosopher who is talking to students or other citizens who have marriages in their families. The humanist says that he or she wishes to “problematize” marriage. Well, marriage is subject to criticism. But the style of simply raising questions implies that you’re smart and sophisticated because you see problems with other people’s deep commitments. Yet you don’t have solutions or alternatives. The clear implication is that other people are stupid. In contrast, if you said that there were reasons to scrap marriage in favor of free contracts between consenting adults, you’d be putting your own views on the line, subjecting them to debate. That would come across as much less arrogant, because you would risk losing the argument. (If all you do is raise questions, you can’t lose.)

As a pedagogy or as a way of intervening in public debates, merely raising questions seems to imply that our problem is credulity, or prejudice, or a failure to grasp difficulties. In fact, when it comes to moral matters, I think skepticism comes all too quickly and conveniently, justifying self-interest and complacency. As Bernard Williams wrote, “Theory typically uses the assumption that we probably have too many ethical ideas, some of which may well turn out to be mere prejudices. Our major problem now is actually that we have not too many but too few, and we need to cherish as many as we can.” (More on that here.)

I suspect that the questioning style reflects a deep skepticism about normative judgments. The reasons for this skepticism include cultural relativism and a cult of expertise (which implies that scholars should only address what they are trained to address; and no one but a moral philosopher is trained to make moral claims.) If such skepticism is appropriate, then there really isn’t much social value to the humanities, and it’s not surprising that those disciplines are under-funded and under-appreciated. But if we can make valid ethical/normative statements, we should do so.

Note that you can make an explicit moral claim with due humility. You can propose it for argument, noting that there are valid alternatives and that even you aren’t sold on it. But I think responsible participation in the public sphere requires making explicit statements about what you value, and why. As long as the prevailing style is to problematize, the humanities will continue to hold a marginal role in public life.

We are leaving today for Madrid and Toledo, Spain. That’s pure vacation. Next Thursday, I will be in Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin, for a mix of business and fun. I am looking forward to a rest from the Internet and its constant flow of news and information, so I won’t be writing or reading blogs for a week.