Monthly Archives: September 2003

John Bridgeland

I spoke this morning at the 50th anniversary of the National

Conference on Citizenship. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) spoke

later, as did John Bridgeland, Executive Director of USA Freedom Corps

and advisor to President Bush. After Mr. Bridgeland spoke, someone

in the audience rose to say that he had just seen a car blatantly

stolen outside the hotel, and no one (except himself) had done anything

to try to stop it. His implication: We need to teach young people

good values, just like in the good old days. The standard politician

would take the bait and say that morals have declined, it’s a terrible

thing, but this administration is committed to character education.

John Bridgeland, however, is a thoughtful and sophisticated

guy, and he immediately recalled the game-theoretical explanation

of cases like this. For each person who witnesses the crime, the worst

outcome is that no one does anything to stop it. But the second-worst

outcome for each person is that he or she is the one who intervenes.

Chart the situation on a game-theorist’s grid, and you’ll see that

no one is likely to do anything. Mr. Bridgeland revealed that he was

thinking about game theory when he called the situation outside the

hotel a "chicken game." I found it appealing that he gave

an answer that was interesting, probably true, and that didn’t score

him any political points. (By the way, chicken games offer the most

useful advice ever generated by game theory. If you need immediate

assistance, don’t shout "help," to a crowd. Pick an individual

arbitrarily and say, "You, please help me.")

Public participation and the war on terror

Influenced

by Harry Boyte, I believe

that opportunities for people to contribute public goods have shrunk

over the last century. Government is increasingly "rational"

(in Weber’s sense): this means that important functions are divided

into specialized tasks and assigned to experts, who are given minimal

discretion. The government as a whole does good, but relatively few

people can gain deep personal satisfaction from their own public service.

Meanwhile, the private sector grows ever more efficient and competitive.

As a result, there are few niches for people who want to work in business

for partly public purposes. (An example would be the demise of the

old publishing houses, which were "for profit," but not

very efficient about it; editors saw themselves mainly as friends

of literature.)

The loss of opportunities for public work is unfortunate, because

we waste the talents and energies of millions of citizens. It also

means that people lose the very special satisfaction that comes from

creating public goods. And I believe that it partly explains the decline

of other forms of citizenship, such as voting and reading the newspaper.

People who don’t make public goods are less likely to participate

in other ways.

Now we face a national crisis, terrorism, and it seems worthwhile

to look for opportunities to involve many citizens in significant

public work. Only an expert on national security could tell us what

jobs people are equipped to do. Spying on our fellow citizens is not

a good idea (the damage to privacy and due process is too great).

Thus I offer some very ill-informed ideas about some other roles that

citizens might play. My main goal here is to provoke others to think

of better ideas:

  • The military personnel who are doing peace-keeping and nation-building

    work in Iraq are creating public goods. They are creative and improvisational,

    in the best tradition of public work. We should celebrate them as

    good citizens, and recognize the (non-martial) virtues that they are

    displaying—virtues that we also need in civilian life. Everyone

    wants Iraqis to play a larger role; but for the time being, let’s

    recognize that Americans are exemplifying citizenship in Iraq. (This

    is true even if the invasion was ill-advised or even illegal.) We

    also need ways to help veterans of Iraq to use their skills back home.

  • Citizens could deliberately learn strategic languages, such as Pashto

    or Malay; read newspapers and websites in those languages; and then

    post their own translations of key excerpts online. Their audience

    would be US experts in foreign affairs, and also fellow citizens who

    are trying to understand a complex world. Clearly, volunteers would

    have to learn these languages from someone. This suggests

    a great opportunity to employ immigrants as language teachers.

  • Citizens could assist in planning the emergency evacuation of major

    cities. Big highways would be quickly jammed after a catastophe, so

    we need to figure out how to move large numbers of people through

    side streets. Citizens could collect data on the capacity of each

    street segment to carry heavy traffic. Fed into GIS software, these

    data would show alternative evacuation routes.

  • There are many ways for citizens to work together to conserve oil,

    thereby reducing our dependence on middle eastern sources.

    I’m sure there are better ideas than these. It’s a shame that our

    creativity and dedication were not tapped soon after 9/11, when

    people were desperate to serve. But it’s not too late.

gun owners against civic ed

Yesterday, I reported on the progress of HR

1078, the bill written by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) that would

fund summer programs for civics teachers. Gun

Owners of America opposes the bill on the amazing grounds

that it is "anti-gun." They are asking their members

to send the following form letter to Congress:

Dear Representative ________________,

If H.R. 1078 is enacted, educators will be encouraged to teach

that I do not have an individual right to keep and bear arms. It

will establish Presidential Academies on teaching civics and history

which will use anti-gun texts like We the People — the

textbook that conforms to the federal guidelines on teaching civics

and history.

This book encourages students to start questioning the

wisdom of the Second Amendment, asking the student whether the right

to keep and bear arms is still as "important today" as

it was in the eighteenth century and to decide what "limitations"

should be placed on the right. This kind of discussion treats the

Second Amendment as though it were not protecting a God-given, individual

right.

But the individual rights view is exactly what our Founders intended

and what the American public still believes today. An ABC News Poll

in 2002 found that almost three-fourths of all Americans believe

that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the

rights of "individuals" to own guns.

We already have too much Federal involvement in education, and

the results have not been good. As control over education becomes

more and more federalized, it seems that the ideas which children

are learning become more and more radical. Please vote against H.R.

1078, a bill which is decidedly anti-gun.

The We the People

curriculum and textbook are widely supported by conservatives

(as well as liberals) because they provide rigorous and balanced materials

on American institutions. This letter reflects a fear of open and

balanced discussion that should be deeply embarrassing to all proponents

of the Second Amendment and of freedom. I would hope that some would

come to the defense of We the People.

PS. The

Maple River Education Coalition says that HR 1078 "is in

clear violation of the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

(This is a bill, remember, that provides very modest federal support

for voluntary summer classes for teachers. It’s also a bill that invites

students to read and debate the 10th Amendment, which might cause

some to gain appreciation for states’ rights.)

the Alexander civics bill

Some time ago, the Senate passed The American History and

Civics Education Act of 2003, which I’ve summarized earlier.

Identical legislation has now been introduced in the House as H.R.

1078. The House leadership apparently regards this legislation as

well-intentioned, bipartisan, Mom-and-apple-pie stuff, and they would

like to get it out of the House as quickly as possible. They don’t

want to take time for hearings and amendments, because they face battles

over appropriations, Iraq, and health care this fall. They intend

to put the bill on the “Suspension Calendar,” which permits no amendments

and requires a 2/3 vote to pass (thus requiring Democratic support).

Many people in the civic education business believe that the bill

would be better if amended. In particular, there is some concern that

it will be funded at the expense of other history programs in the

National Endowment for the Humanities. Thus it would be desirable

to hold hearings and allow amendments in the House.

youth and the history of desegregation

School desegregation is a public issue that involves

and affects youth. It’s a vital contemporary matter that requires

historical background to understand. It continues to provoke debates

among reasonable and well-intentioned people, who disagree about both

goals and solutions. In all these respects, it is an ideal topic for

sustained work in schools as a key component of civic education.

Last fall, we worked with students at a local high school in Maryland

to create an interactive, deliberative website

about the epic history of desegregation in their own district. ("We"

means the Democracy

Collaborative and the Institute

for Philosophy & Public Policy, both at the University of

Maryland.) We have now collaborated with NABRE, the Network of Alliances

Bridging Race and Ethnicity (pronounced “neighbor”), to

develop a plan for a replicating the same project in many school districts.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education,

the first of a series of 50th anniversaries of events in the Civil

Rights Era. Coming to understand the difficult choices made in one’s

own community seems both a good way to commemorate this history and

an excellent foundation for making choices today.