Monthly Archives: April 2012

the cost of neglecting journalism

Last year, reporters from the LA Times, including Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, won the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering a staggering scandal in the small city of Bell, which is within Los Angeles County. The LA Times learned from public records that several Bell officials were paying themselves exorbitant salaries. The City Manager was taking home $1.5 million, including salary and benefits. They were paying themselves more for serving a poor community of about 35,000 people than their counterparts would earn in big cities.

The story led to federal prosecutions and a recall election that replaced the city’s whole power structure. The basic facts had been on the public record, but someone had to look for the information and then spread the word. That is a traditional job of the press, and the LA Times did its job for Bell, CA.

But, as Mary Lou Fulton and Fiona Morgan have both noted, this story has a sadly ironic aspect. How could a basic fact like the City Manager’s salary go unknown for many years? The major metropolitan daily newspaper, the LA Times, had cut its newsroom staff so deeply that they were no longer covering small municipalities like Bell. Meanwhile, the suburban weeklies and outlets for citizen journalists (such as community blogs) don’t do “enterprise reporting”: collecting new information on public issues. So, in a sense, the LA Times got a Pulitzer for addressing a gap in its own coverage.

I do not mean to rain on the parade of the LA Times. The problem is systemic and industry-wide. See also this post on the media ecosystem in Baltimore, and this one on media reform, broadly.

global citizenship and justice

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Oxfam provides some excellent resources for civic education. Among its products is a guide for schools on “global citizenship” (pdf). This document says:

Oxfam sees the Global Citizen as someone who:

is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen

respects and values diversity

has an understanding of how the world works

is outraged by social injustice

participates in the community at a range of levels, from the local to
the global

is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable
place

takes responsibility for their actions.

By the way, a Global Citizen (so defined) can also be a good national citizen. But what interests me is the mix of principles on this list, many of which are logically separable. You could value diversity, be outraged by injustice, and take responsibility for your actions, but not think of yourself as a “world citizen” or operate at the global level. Or, if you run a multinational oil company, you could very much take a global perspective, understand how the world works–and even value diversity–but not care a fig for injustice.

In the 1800s, progressive nationalists, like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Dickens, were concerned with profound injustices–slavery and urban poverty–and saw advantages to a strong national consciousness. As I argue here, Dickens thought that British nationalism was a means of enlarging human sympathies, and Lincoln argued that preserving the Union as a democracy would serve human-kind. But other nationalists of the 1800s tried to develop nation-states as a means to wipe out hated minorities and dominate their regions.

Nationalism was a means, not an end. I am inclined to think the same of globalism today.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, political thinkers often romanticized “the people” as a homogeneous and progressive force. Marxists assumed that working people were beginning to share class-consciousness that would prevail in a revolution. Democratic populists assumed that the people would vote for justice if they achieved genuinely equal political power. In fact, the working people of Europe supported slaughtering other working people on the battlefields of World War I and then splintered into left and right.

I fear we risk romanticizing the people of the world in the early 2000s. If they all saw themselves as global citizens and wielded equal power in global forums, that does not mean that they would unite. In Canada, for example, climate change may mean an improved standard of living as the extent of arable land expands and oil and gas reserves become even more valuable. If Canadians (who are already quite cosmopolitan) become more active and influential at the global level, that’s not necessarily good news for Bangladeshis.

All of which is to say that fighting injustice is the important part. Being a global citizen is only desirable to the extent that it promotes justice.

under the Wikipedia hood

the changes in voting laws

unhappiness and injustice are different problems

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The ancient sources do not specify which specific miseries flew out of Pandora’s box, but I would suggest they came in three groups.

Some forms of suffering happen to human beings because of the kinds of creatures we are. We can postpone death, aging, disease, pain, and fear, but they are inevitable. These are the natural woes. Our very existence requires the death of other people, or else the earth would be too crowded for the living.

Injustices are miseries for which we rightly blame our fellow human beings. What counts as an injustice (as opposed to a natural phenomenon), is a matter of dispute. I would include sins of omission, such as my own failure to help people even though I own superfluous resources. I would include both unjust actions and inequitable states of affairs. Those are controversial claims, but no one doubts that some kinds of injustice exist.

The third category, unhappiness, is a failure to flourish, thrive, enjoy, and achieve equanimity or satisfaction.

These three categories of woe are empirically related. For example, even though death is inevitable, injustice causes millions to die early. It is difficult to be happy if one is suffering from disease and pain, or if one is a victim.

Yet the connections are loose, not logical or inevitable. In a wealthy suburban subdivision where injustice is absent and natural afflictions are normally remote, people may still be miserable to the point of suicide. In a poor village under a repressive government, people may be happier.

Even if injustice does not necessitate unhappiness, it is still an evil, not to be excused. But unhappiness is evidently a separate problem.

We pay far more attention to mitigating or postponing natural afflictions than to fighting injustice–and even less to unhappiness. Also, European and American philosophy since 1800 has much more to say about injustice than about unhappiness.

A just society harnesses science to reduce suffering. Science is also beginning to give attention to positive states of mind, like flourishing and equanimity. That opens the possibility that we could develop new methods of enhancing happiness. But if freedom is also valuable, or is a component or aspect of happiness, then the idea of engineering happiness is disturbing.

Politics is a tool for mitigating natural afflictions and preventing injustice. In liberal democracies, happiness is not seen as a political objective. A government cannot make people happy and may threaten their freedom if it tries.

Some authors (Nietzsche, Emerson) have said something like this: My duty is limited to avoiding injustice. I cannot make other people happy. At best, I can contribute to the happiness of children or partners in intimate relationships. Thus I should concern myself with achieving equanimity for myself and perhaps serve as a model for others.

I can’t accept that such a high degree of self-involvement is either ethically acceptable or compatible with happiness, properly understood. So then the question becomes how to achieve happiness while helping other people to be happy without abridging their freedom.

Peter Levine

A Blog for Civic Renewal