a clearinghouse to make political contributions anonymous

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At the Institute H21 symposium last week in Prague, Stein Ringen described his proposal for a campaign finance clearinghouse. I gather Ringen also defends this idea in How Democracies Live: Power, Statecraft, and Freedom in Modern Societies (Chicago, 2022), which I have not yet read. My summary is based on his talk alone.

The idea is that you could give money (up to the legal limit) to candidates, but you would have to make your contributions through a clearinghouse that would transmit the funds to your chosen recipients without telling them who gave them the money.

Normatively, this proposal accepts that individuals have a right to support communications by their favored candidates. Like Ringen, I am unsure I agree with this premise, but it has been upheld by the US Supreme Court since 1971 (in Buckley v Valeo). Also, there are times when being able to support insurgent candidates with many smallish contributions increases competition and challenges incumbents.

At the same time, the proposal denies that candidates should be able to tell who gave them money, because contributions should never purchase access, goodwill, or influence.

Ringen said that he would allow contributors to inform candidates that they had given money. That’s a form of speech that would probably be protected by the US Supreme Court (and I am generally skeptical about banning speech and then policing the ban). However, the clearinghouse would make such communications quite noisy. Many donors would not take the trouble to inform candidates that they had given, and some would lie about having done so. They might even falsely tell both sides that they were financial supporters. As a result, candidates would have a much more ambiguous picture of who was supporting them financially. And that ambiguity would be good.

The secret ballot has a similar rationale. You can might want to bribe or coerce other voters, but you can never tell how they actually voted, because you cannot see their ballots. Privacy blocks the emergence of markets for votes. The same could happen to campaign finance if the money flowed through a clearinghouse.

sexual politics in Milan Kundera’s Laughter and Forgetting

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While on a quick but lovely trip to Prague–and since Milan Kundera had died recently–I decided to read a book that I had not read before, Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (translated from French by Aaron Asher).

It is a set of linked stories with some essay-like passages, “a novel in the form of variations” (p. 227). The stories constantly recombine leitmotifs: the acts of laughter and forgetting that are named in the title plus dancing (especially in circles), caches of letters, literary writing, and sex. I think the novel as a whole avoids any theory–any consistent and organized way of combining its major themes that might reflect a truth about the world. Instead, it plays with them. Perhaps the resistance to theory and the embrace of free play is itself a theory of both literature and politics, a kind of liberalism that emphasizes the right to have and to express a complex and individual inner life.

The gender binary is very evident, and there is a lot of sex as well as some rape. The most admirable characters are women; most of the men are pretty bad. But the women are mostly defined by their relationships to male lovers.

For instance, exiled in France, Tamina is surrounded by privileged bourgeois citizens of a free republic who want to express themselves in writing (for the sake of being writers), bend her ear with their concerns, or have sex with her, and none of them is willing to assist her at any personal cost. The narrator says:

[This] is a novel about Tamina, and whenever Tamina goes offstage, it is a novel for Tamina. She is its principal character and its principal audience, and all the other stories are variations on her own story and meet with her life as in a mirror (p. 227).

One of Tamina’s admirable features is her steadfast love for her late husband, an exiled Czech dissident/writer–someone who sounds rather like Milan Kundera, albeit with a shorter lifespan.

Tamina doesn’t have much of an agenda: cultural, political, or otherwise. That’s fine; she’s just trying to live her life. But one gets that sense that this is not really “a novel about Tamina.” It’s a novel about someone like Kundera, as seen by his devoted wife. Indeed, as a deceased Czech dissident, Tamina’s husband is now purely good–a figure worthy of grief who cannot possibly do any harm. Tamina strives to preserve his memory.

The narrator writes:

The gaze of a man has often been described. It seems to fasten coldly on the woman, as if it were measuring, weighing, evaluating, choosing her, as if, in other words, it were turning her into a thing.

Less well known is that a woman is not entirely defenseless against that gaze. If she is turned into a thing, then she watches the man with the gaze of a thing. It is as if a hammer suddenly had eyes and watched the carpenter grip it to drive in a nail. Seeing the hammer’s malicious gaze, the carpenter loses his self-confidence and hits his thumb.

The carpenter is the hammer’s master, yet it is the hammer that has the advantage over the carpenter, because a tool knows exactly how it should be handled, while the one who handles it can only know approximately how (pp. 285-286).

Could this be reversed, to talk about a woman’s gaze at a man? Could the hammer think about anything other than the carpenter?

I cannot address the whole of Kundera’s oeuvre, let alone his peers and influences, but I did find this general thesis in Matonoha (2014):

The reduction of women to objects, which are observed or used by male subjects, is a conspicuous feature of Czech prose. By the same token, this classic feminist critical topos (man in the position of a subject, woman reduced to the position of an object) is further internally structured in Czech prose. Generally speaking, the following model is more or less repeated: at first glance — objectification, reification, fetishization, trivialization; on a second plane — proving that the male character is misunderstood, reduction of the female character, and the uncovering of his existential dependence on a loving female character; however, it is the next, higher, plane that uncovers the real, unreflected patriarchal and androcentric groundwork of the whole epistemological and ethical complex. Therefore, the model does not only include banal sexism and scopophilia (although they are plentiful) but also, on the second plane, paradoxically flattering and therefore even more treacherous identities …

Matonoha discusses Lucie from Kundera’s The Joke (1967) as the novelist’s first example of a recurrent type, the “idealized silent woman.” This also seems to be Tamina’s role in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. And the narrator tells us that she is the center of that whole book.

Kundera is a political writer insofar as he sees state communism as hostile to individual flourishing. His female characters are among the victims of that system. But he seems to miss the possibility that they are also oppressed on account of their gender and that men like him can play a role analogous to the state’s.

Source: Matonoha, J., 2014. Dispositives of Silence: Gender, Feminism and Czech literature between 1948 and 1989. In The Politics of Gender Culture under State Socialism (pp. 162-187). Routledge. See also: Ivo Andric, Bosnian Chronicle, Or, The Days of the Consuls; The Dictionary of the Khazars, pro and con; Vaclav Havel

Meeting venue in Prague

visiting Prague

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I’m briefly in Prague for a valuable symposium on “Democracy in the 21st Century: Challenges for an Open Society” organized by the Czech political research and reform group called Institute H21. I will share substantive ideas from the conversation when I’m home. In lieu of new comments about this beautiful city, I’ll share a link to an introduction I wrote during a longer visit here in 2008. Sometimes, I find my own writing from that long ago cringe-worthy, but I think this mini-essay about how to “read” the city of Prague holds up OK and may have some value for other visitors.

the progress of the king (note #4 from the Levine library)

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Last week I wrote about my copy of the Rheims-Douai Bible, an English translation made by Catholics in 1582 and smuggled into Protestant England for Catholic laypeople to read. One of the translators, Edmund Campion, is now a saint, tortured to death for his secret work in England.

This Bible refutes the widespread myth that Catholics opposed translating and disseminating scripture. I think the myth sticks as a result of Protestant propaganda plus a desire to believe that religious bodies typically seek to control knowledge whereas technology (in this case, the printing press) liberates it.

I mentioned in passing that this Bible was printed in Douai, now a city in France, which then belonged to Philip II. I also inherited from my father a 1552 volume that describes some possessions of that monarch, who later became King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, officially the King of England and Ireland for a few years, Duke of Milan, Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands, and the colonial ruler of the Americas from New Mexico to Peru. In my translation from the Spanish, it’s entitled The Most Happy Journey of the Highest and Most Powerful Prince, Don Philip, Son of the Emperor Charles V the Great, Through Spain and His Lands in Lower Germany, With a Description of All the Estates of Brabant and Flanders.

Douay is presented on pp. 161-3. It is a “very good and well-favored [suerte] town of Gallic Flanders on the banks of the River Scarpe.” It is the site of a “good monastery” that has produced several saints. Its jurisdiction extends over many nearby villages. In mid-paragraph, the text then launches into a description of the visit by the young Philip with his father, Charles V, “who came to eat at Orchies [now in France], which was made very fresh and special with fruits and bouquets, strewn in the streets as a sign of welcome, and there the prince first ate before entering Douay. … Out of the town came the burgomasters, knights, and counselors, very well accompanied, and in the field beyond was a flag with [pisaros – ?] and drums, and there were three hundred soldiers very well ordered in colorful arms and clothing, yellow and white, and at the gate of the city the clergy processed …” — and so on for a couple more pages.

The aim is evidently propagandistic, which doesn’t imply that the authors were insincere. Perhaps they thought that Philip was a “most happy” prince of a happy empire. He did, however, face a massive uprising in his Low Country dominions.

This book was written three decades before the English Bible was printed in Douai/Rheims, but it gives a flavor of the times, which were still feudal and chivalric.

See also: A 1582 Catholic translation of the Bible into English (note #3 from the Levine library)

lessons from the Virginia social studies controversy

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In Politico, James Traub offers a deeply reported account of the recent conflict over standards in Virginia, entitled “Virginia Went to War Over History and Students Actually Came Out on Top.”

Standards are official guidelines about what must be taught in public schools. They may influence enforceable policies, such as which textbooks are purchased and what is covered on exams, and hence the experience of students and teachers. Standards for history and civics often provoke the most intense debates, because they address the nature of our society. Although I had no involvement in the Virginia episode, I have been deeply engaged in other efforts to write frameworks and model standards for social studies, and Traub’s account rings true to me.

A very brief summary: under former Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, the Virginia state department of education drafted new state social studies standards. Before these standards could be reviewed by the state board, Northam was succeeded by Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, whose campaign emphasized his opposition to “woke culture” and “critical race theory.” Youngkin named a new superintendent of public instruction and a majority of members of the school board. With those appointees in place, the state paused and then dramatically rewrote the draft standards, with input from strong conservatives.

Then the board, despite its Youngkin majority, rejected the new draft as biased and error-prone. It stepped in and painstakingly revised the document in ways that satisfied all of its members (including those who had been appointed by Northam) and drew support from outside groups viewed as both liberal and conservative. Traub writes, “The six-month debate was an absolutely terrible experience for everyone involved, yet the standards the board finally approved achieved something almost miraculous: something close to unity.”

As an example of the results, the state board coalesced around this language in the new standards document:

The standards provide an unflinching and fact-based coverage of world, United States, and Virginia history. Students will study the horrors of wars and genocide, including the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing campaigns that have occurred throughout history and continue today. They will better understand the abhorrent treatment of Indigenous peoples, the indelible stain of slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States and around the world, and the inhumanity and deprivations of totalitarian and communist regimes. Students also will study inspirational moments … 

For me, these are the most important general lessons from the controversy.

First, although people bring prior political views into debates about what should be taught, our opinions are highly diverse (not simply left or right), and most of us want students to encounter and assess ideas that we personally do not endorse. Philosophical diversity is valuable because even those of us who want students to encounter a wide range of views may have implicit biases that can be challenged in a discussion. When serious participants who are ideologically diverse try to write good standards or guidelines together, they need not polarize into two camps, or even take predictable positions as individuals.

Debates about content are nuanced and often involve the appropriate balance between social and political history, leaders and popular movements, compelling stories and complexities, and domestic and international affairs. These questions do not necessarily have liberal or conservative answers.

Second, the hot debates are not only about which topics and ideas should be “covered” but also about how to teach. Should all students be required to learn some information, whether it interests them or not? Or should students have a lot of choice about which topics to investigate? Should students encounter highly charged topics–at all ages, only as older teenagers, or at all? Specifically, should public schools confront students with ideas that challenge their sense that they belong and are valued in the school? Does it matter which students are so challenged? Should the emphasis be on skills or knowledge, on theory or practice, and on discourse or action?

Again, these debates do not line up so that there is a right and a left camp. For myself: I believe that all students should be required to confront some information about our past that many will find uncomfortable and that relatively few students would seek out if they could drive all the questions in their classrooms. This position would seem to align me with pedagogical conservatives, except that the same points are being made most forcefully by progressives. For example, The 1619 Project is all about conveying facts deemed essential.

As many have noted, the new Florida African American History Standards basically suggest that no one supported slavery. Florida students must learn “how the members of the Continental Congress made attempts to end or limit slavery” and “how slavery increased … in spite of the desire of the Continental Congress to end the importation of slaves.” Florida students will study white people who were abolitionists, but no one who actually defended slavery. John C. Calhoun is never mentioned, let alone assigned as an author to read. Florida students are supposed to “recognize” the title of Dred Scott as a “landmark Supreme Court case” but do not have to read that decision, which declared that people of African descent could never be US citizens.

I would require students to read racist texts (no “de-platforming” Sen. Calhoun or Chief Justice Taney) and learn specific information. Ron DeSantis defends omitting that information and has ordered that “A person should not be instructed that he or she must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.” In partial contrast, the new Virginia standards say: “Students should be exposed to the facts of our past in a content-rich and engaging way, even when those facts are uncomfortable.”

Since these issues have many dimensions and nuances, it should not be surprising to find views shared across political differences. The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is generally considered conservative. Commenting on the draft Virginia standards, their reviewers said, “The Dred Scott decision is not noted by name in any of the U.S. history course standards. Its enormous impact should at the least be mentioned here in what is (presumably) the high school course.” Likewise, they criticized the omission of McCarthyism, which “led to the violation of Americans’ rights.” I find myself perfectly aligned with this feedback despite being generally quite liberal as a voter.

Third, even when people’s views are diverse, nuanced, and unpredictable, there can be political advantages to presenting differences as polarized and defining the stakes so that a majority will agree with your own side. Glenn Youngkin waged a campaign against “woke” ideology in public schools. From the opposite end of the spectrum, someone went to a lot of trouble to create a popular meme about innocuous books that the DeSantis administration had allegedly banned, when the state had banned no books.

Actual misinformation is unacceptable, but I’ll mention a closer case. Florida did not pass a bill labeled “Don’t Say Gay.” That name was affixed by Democrats and liberals who criticized the law. The relevant provision says, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”

I am not sure that the label “Don’t Say Gay” is false, but it simplifies the law in order to drive opposition to it. This mode of political debate is not necessarily wrong or bad. I oppose the actual Florida law and understand why liberals would mobilize people against it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and his colleagues chose Birmingham, AL as their target in 1963 because they knew they could draw a clear contrast with the racist outgoing police commissioner. King wrote that a nonviolent campaign

seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. … I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’ I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

In short, dramatizing differences with one’s political opponent is a legitimate move in a free society. However, onlookers should be aware when this strategy is being used and should assess whether the goals are appropriate, and whether any collateral damage is necessary to accomplish the goals. They should also ask whether rhetoric has strayed from divisiveness into downright falsehood.

Ron DeSantis does not have to wage a rhetorical war against liberal educators; he could choose to deliberate with them, as the Virginia board did. Voters should recognize the choice to polarize an issue for what it is. They should not assume that it is inevitable. The Virginia case shows that another outcome is possible (although not automatically preferable) — people with diverse opinions can come to agreement.

Although politicians can be tempted to polarize, official bodies such as state boards can be equally inclined to present consensus even when they have not quite accomplished it. Above, I quoted the Virginia standards’ aspiration to “provide an unflinching and fact-based coverage” of history, but anyone may each assess whether they offer that. In my personal opinion, the list of “principles” on p. 4 is mildly problematic, presenting the debate between socialism and market economies as closed when I would ask students to think about it for themselves. But I don’t believe that this list matters much. In my view, the presentation of slavery and Black American “accomplishments” in the body of the Virginia standards is appropriate. Overall, the standards seem to take a both/and approach, genuinely including both the crimes and the successes of US history.

The whole document is quite short and general, which is itself a choice, leaving a lot for teachers to decide (for better and worse). Any major commercial textbook series would be compatible with these standards, which means that in many classrooms, the textbook will determine the content. In fact, the most important policy question may be who should decide what is taught–students, teachers, parents, local authorities, state authorities, or publishers? Because of its generality, the Virginia document may actually represent a delegation to the publishers.

See also: two dimensions of debate about civics; “Teaching Honest History:” a conversation with Randi Weingarten and Marcia Chatelain; the relevance of American civil religion to K-12 education; what Americans think about teaching controversy in schools; a conversation with Danielle Allen about civic education; etc.