Monthly Archives: July 2007

polarization in American communities

At yesterday’s conference, someone in the audience raised a question: Why are public discussions so polarized and dominated by hot-button issues? The questioner came from Kansas, and she specifically mentioned local discussions of education. Thus I suspect she was thinking about the well-publicized evolution/creationism debates in her home state. Abortion would be another example of a “hot,” divisive issue.

Her question wasn’t directed at me, but this would be my tentative answer. First of all, we have actual disagreements that split us into groups, and we sometimes have to deal with these issues. But they seem over-represented in our public life.

This is partly because most of us lack practical experience in mobilizing people except when issues are polarized. From countless news stories and movies, we know the “script” for angry, adversarial politics. We know how to organize our allies when we are angry at another group: we can call for a march or a rally, put up flyers, alert the media. There are also techniques for organizing people around less contentious issues–ways literally to get citizens out to meetings and then to achieve social change without relying on polarization. These techniques include the “one-on-one” interviews popular in community organizing; Study Circles and other deliberative forums; and volunteering opportunities that are connected to discussion and reflection. But such techniques are not widely reported or described in fiction; even less are they taught in schools.

Another reason for polarization is the narrowness of the topics about which we invite public discussion. I believe that citizens have deep and diverse moral concerns about schools: how students treat teachers, how boys relate to girls, what topics are presented as especially important, and how competitive our schools’ teams are. We do not agree about these issues, but we aren’t necessarily polarized about them, either. For example, most of us want more orderly schools, although we may disagree about the means.

These issues are considered the province of professional educators–teachers, administrators, school psychologists, test-writers, and others. Communities aren’t invited to discuss them, let alone act on their discussions. But no one can stop activists from suing or organizing a political slate on a hot-button issue, such as prayer in school or evolution. These issues pay off for political partisans and organized ideological interests. Consequently, some citizens channel their political energies into fundamentally unproductive topics that serve as proxies for deeper discontents. (For instance, I’ll bet that most proponents of prayer in school would trade that objective for schools that were more orderly and less sexualized.) Most other citizens simply stand on the sidelines, unwilling to clash on the hot-button issues but not sure how else to engage.

the purposes of political philosophy

(In Philadelphia for the National Conference on Volunteering and Service) Why would a person sit down at a desk to write general and abstract thoughts about politics? This is a significant question, because people who think hard about politics are likely to be interested in social change. Yet it is not obvious that writing abstract thoughts about politics can change anything.

One might write political theory in order to persuade someone with the power to act on one’s recommendations: for instance, the sovereign. Machiavelli addressed his book The Prince “ad Magnificum Laurentium Medicem”–“to Lorenzo (the Magnificent) de’ Medici”–a man who surely had the capacity to govern.

Today, political theorists still occasionally write papers for the World Bank or a national government, preserving the tradition of philosophy as advice to the ruler. Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, et al. sent a brief to the Supreme Court whose first section was headed, “Interest of the Amici Curiae.” The authors explained their “interest” as follows: “Amici are six moral and political philosophers who differ on many issues of public morality and policy. They are united, however, in their conviction that respect for fundamental principles of liberty and justice, as well as for the American constitutional tradition, requires that the decisions of the Courts of Appeals be affirmed.”

Unfortunately, one rarely finds a sovereign willing to act on morally demanding principles. And if one’s principles happen to be republican, one may not wish to serve or help the sovereign at all. (It is a subtler question whether a powerful Supreme Court is compatible with republicanism.)

Rousseau, being a republican, thought that Machiavelli’s advice to Lorenzo had to be ironic. Machiavelli’s real audience was–or so Rousseau presumed–the Florentine people, who would realize that a prince, in order to be secure, must be ruthless and cruel. They would therefore rise up and overthrow Lorenzo, becoming what they should always have been: the sovereign. In this “theory of change,” the philosopher addresses the sovereign as an apparently loyal courtier, but his real effect is to sew popular discontent and rebellion.

Whether or not Rousseau’s reading of Machiavelli was correct, many philosophers have addressed themselves to the public as the sovereign. Rousseau himself dedicated his Discourse on Inequality “To the Republic of Geneva.” He began: “Magnificent, very honorable, and sovereign sirs, convinced that it is only fitting for a virtuous citizen to give to his nation the honors that it can accept, for thirty years I have labored to make myself worthy to offer you a public homage. …”

There is, I’m sure, some irony in Rousseau’s dedication. He didn’t expect the oligarchs of Geneva to whom he addressed his discourse to act in accord with his ideas. He understood that “la Republique” was not the same as the “souverains seigneurs” who might actually read his book.

Today, a dedication or appeal to the public would seem pretentious in a professional philosophy book–partly because it’s clear that “the public” won’t read such a work. John Rawls’ Theory of Justice is dedicated to his wife, a common (and most appropriate) opening. Still, I think we can assume that Rawls wanted to address the whole public indirectly. He believed that the public was sovereign. He knew, of course, that most citizens would not read his book, which was fairly hard going. Even if it had been an easier work, most people were not interested enough in abstract questions of politics to read any “theory of justice.” But Rawls perhaps hoped to persuade some, who would persuade others–not necessarily using his own words or techniques, but somehow fortified by his arguments.

This is a third “theory of change” that may be implicit in most modern academic political theory. The idea is: We must first understand the truth. Since it is complex and elusive, we need a sophisticated, professional discussion that draws on welfare economics, the history of political thought, and other disciplines not easy for a layperson to penetrate. But the ultimate purpose of all this discussion is to defuse diffuse true ideas into the public domain. We do that by lecturing to undergraduates, writing the occasional editorial, persuading political leaders, filing amici briefs, etc.

This theory is not foolish, but I don’t believe in it. I doubt that a significant number of people will ever have the intellectual interests or motivations to act differently because they are exposed to philosophical arguments.

I further doubt that one can develop an intellectually adequate understanding of politics unless one thinks through a theory of change. It is easy, for example, to propose that the state should empower people by giving them various political rights. But what if saying that has no effect on actual states? What if saying it actually gives states ideas for propaganda? (Real governments have sometimes used political theory as the inspiration for entirely hypocritical rhetoric.) What if talking about the value of particular legal rights misdirects activists into seeking those rights on paper, when the best route to real freedom lies elsewhere? In my view, an argument for political proposition P is an invalid argument if making it actually causes not-P. And if you argue for P in such a way that you can never have any impact on P, I am unimpressed.

Finally, I doubt that philosophical arguments about politics are all that persuasive, except as distillations and clarifications of experience. Too much about politics is contingent on empirical facts to be settled by pure argumentation. (In this sense, political philosophy is profoundly different from logic.) Thus I read The Theory of Justice as an abstract and brilliant rendition of mid-20th-century liberalism. But the liberalism of the New Deal and Great Society were not caused in the first place by political theory. They arose, instead, from practical experimentation and negotiation among social interests. Rawls’ major insights derived from his vicarious experience with the New Deal and the Great Society–which makes one wonder how much efficacy his work could possibly have. It was interesting analysis, no doubt; but could it matter?

A fourth “theory of change” is implicit in a work like John Gaventa’s Power and Powerlessness (1980). This book has no official dedication, but the preface ends, “Most of all, I am indebted in this study to the people of the Clear Fork Valley. Since that summer in 1971, they have continued to teach, in more ways than they know.” It’s not clear whether Gaventa expected the residents of an Appalachian valley to read his book, but he did move to the region to be a leader of the Highlander Folk School. Gaventa’s theory was: Join a community or movement of people who are motivated and organized to act politically. Learn from them and also give them useful analysis and arguments. Either expect them to read your work directly, or use your academic work to develop your analysis and then share it with them in easier formats.

I am the opposite of a Marxist in most respects, but I think we have something to learn from Marxists on the question of “praxis”: that is, how to make one’s theory consequential. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx wrote, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” That seems right to me, not only because we have a moral or civic obligation to work for social change, but also because wisdom about politics comes from serious reflection on practical experience.

Thus I will end with one more quote from a preface–the 1872 preface of the German edition of the Communist Manifesto. Here we see Marx addressing an organized social movement: “The Communist League, an international association of workers, which could of course be only a secret one, under conditions obtaining at the time, commissioned us, the undersigned, at the Congress held in London in November 1847, to write for publication a detailed theoretical and practical programme for the Party. Such was the origin of the following Manifesto, the manuscript of which travelled to London to be printed a few weeks before the February Revolution.”

Now that is political writing with a purpose.

global warming and citizen participation

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a leading environmentalist. On the basis of that conversation, I’m wondering whether many of his colleagues might be willing to endorse a statement that said something like this:

We believe that global warming is a profound challenge. Unless we reduce carbon emissions by two percent per year starting very soon, civilization is in danger. We trust scientists on this question, regardless of what democratically elected officials may say.

Yet we also believe that civic engagement and participation are crucial. Civic participation is not a luxury, something that you can worry about when life is going well and you face no fundamental threats. On the contrary, it is when threats are profound that we especially need the ideas and energies of all our citizens and institutions.

Despite our conviction that global warming is a serious problem caused by human action, we recognize that many aspects of the issue are unresolved and need public deliberation. In particular, the tools that should be used to mitigate the problem (such as cap-and-trade regulations) are by no means clear. A truly open, public discussion is needed.

Furthermore, we doubt that the government could solve this problem through command-and-control regulations, although regulation may play an important role. Other sectors, beyond the government, also need to change and innovate. Just as one example, colleges and universities can cut their own carbon emissions.

Not only big private institutions, but also individuals can and must address global warming. There are cultural and spiritual dimensions to the problem, which is profoundly connected to other social and human issues, such as poverty and over-consumption. Although we are confident about some facts (e.g., that human consumption of carbon causes global warming), no one has adequate solutions. Many perspectives are valid and useful; many people have the capacity to help.

an appetite for deliberation?

Several recent studies have argued that Americans are resistant to controversy. Therefore, we tend to avoid voluntary opportunities to exchange ideas with people who are different from ourselves. [See three Cambridge University Press books: Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life (1998); John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Beliefs About How Government Should Work (2002); and Diana C., Mutz, Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy (2006).]

Based on some quite ambitious current empirical work, I’d propose a different hypothesis. College students (at least) are hungry for a particular kind of conversation that is serious and authentic, involves diverse views, but is free of manipulation and “spin.” They want discussions that are open-ended in the sense that everyone is truly trying to decide what should be done.

Today’s young people are barraged with messages that have been designed to persuade them to do things that someone else wants. They experience an unprecedented amount of commercial advertising: companies spent $17 billion to advertise to children in 1992 (when our college student sample was entering grade school)–up from $100 million in 1983. Commercial advertisers use increasingly sophisticated techniques of persuasion, based on detailed public opinion research. The government, political candidates, parties, interest groups, and reporters and pundits also use such techniques. For example, political messages are now pre-tested in randomized experiments to measure their impact on specific demographic groups.

I believe that college students are aware that they are targets of manipulation; they resent it; and this is one reason that they are reluctant to engage in politics. They see such manipulation at work in several domains–the news media, political advertising, and their fellow students who are activists for social causes. However, a considerably proportion of college students can recall particular conversations that they’ve had that seemed open-ended. They seem grateful for those discussions, which took them out of what they call their “bubble.”

the Party for the Presidency

Mobilize.org is recruiting 435 young activists, one from each Congressional District, to attend The Party for the Presidency (P4P) in late December:

This conference will consist of a series of workshops and opportunities for the young leaders to learn from each other. Additionally, we will be hosting the Mobilize Awards and launching the Declaration of Our Generation at the P4P. The Declaration of Our Generation will focus on uniting values that are commonly held throughout our generation that we’d like our candidates to address.

The Declaration is being written in a highly interactive way, with face-to-face forums and an online discussion that has already begun–visit Mobilize.org to weigh in.