The Democratic Challenge

The Republican Party has falsely claim ownership of Patriotism (by defining it as America First), Freedom (by defining it as deregulation of essential constraints) and Universal Public Services (by defining efficiency as its standard).

The Democratic Challenge 

Edward Renner

The distinction between a conservative Republican and a liberal Democratic Party is no longer useful. The takeover of the Republican Party by Trump and the right-wing MAGA movement has left the nation without a clear positive alternative. The stakes are totally different now. There is a choice before us – either create a functional democracy that is relevant to life in the 21^st Century or default into an alternative authoritarian style of government.

We as a nation, as individuals, and our essential institutions – education, science, and technology – need to move forward into a new and challenging future by focusing our beliefs, values, and actions on true Patriotism, Freedom, and Public Services. There is no viable future if we anchor our beliefs, values, and actions on Nationalism, Prohibitions and Censorship, and Privatization as the Republican Party is now doing; those policies are not compatible with living successfully in the globalized modern world.

True Patriotism Not Extreme Nationalism

True American patriotism dictates policies based on national values and beliefs – such as democratic processes --to achieve political, economic, and social ends. In contrast, extreme Nationalism seeks power, economic advantage, and social influence by any means; my country right or wrong is false patriotism. It is the difference between character and integrity verses self-serving indifference. Extreme Nationalism is incompatible with the patriotic values that make America a good neighbor and the envy of the world. Patriotic citizens take pride when the United States provides leadership in maintaining a global world order in which all countries can thrive cooperatively together.

Democracies are supposed to reflect the character and values of their citizens. In contrast, authoritarian countries typically reflect the personal character of their leader – such as Putin’s Russia. In the world’s view, the United States is becoming more like Russia, than the Uncle Sam they used to know. It is time to turn our back on the self-serving character of Trump and reclaim the national character of the best of us.

As a simple example, Trump’s tariffs, which targeted Canada, stimulated Canadian proposals to open a seaport on the Hudson Bay’s western shores, extend an oil pipeline to it, and mine rare minerals in the Ring of Fire north of Thunder Bay, all aimed at an Asian alternative to the US market. Economically, this would be disruptively expensive for Canada, but in the long-term feed a transition from the US being their good neighbor to the south to those people next door.

The isolation that results from extreme nationalism undermines the political, economic, and social beliefs and values that define America’s character.

Freedom, Not Prohibitions and Censorship, Based Government

Personal freedoms require a transparent democratic process to establish regulations that protect the freedom of everyone. We are not free to drive our car at any speed, anytime, in any place, because we may harm others. Freedom carries with it many limitations and responsibilities. Political freedom ensures the ability to criticize elected officials but also requires absolute restrictions against retribution. Economic freedom allows for corporations to determine production conditions but also includes constraints – like speed limits – such as a minimum wage standard and the right for workers to form a union for collective bargaining. Social freedom permits the right to practice whatever religion you wish, or none, but also requires the complete separation of church and state. The call for “deregulation” is often a form of “unfreedom” when it results in the elimination of essential constraints for protecting freedom.

 Prohibitions and censorship reverse the order by telling you what you cannot or must do, and freedom becomes a residual without reference to whether the prohibitions and orders needlessly infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Prohibitions and censorships reflect authoritarian power to do as I say, not as you wish within transparent responsible constraints.

Universal Public Services Not Privatization

The revenue to make the government work comes largely from taxes. Tax cuts benefit the wealthy at the expense of ordinary people who rely daily on access to many public services to function within their own resources – roads, airports, communication, commerce, schools, science, education, healthcare – to name some of the most essential. The loss of free school lunches or Medicaid for their children does not have an impact on the wealthy whose children go to a private school and whose employer provides premium healthcare benefits. Tax-cuts return comparatively small amounts of money to the average person – not enough to cover the additional costs of privatization of essential universal public services, from National Parks to old age security. Tax cuts do return large amounts of money to the wealthy who are using their political power to increase their own wealth at the expense of others.

Over the course of our modern history, our government has accounted for about 20% of the GDP to keep all the moving parts in synchrony. Although the constitution had nothing to say about air traffic controllers or the regulation of radio waves, as the world became more complex, so did governmental responsibilities at a parallel rate. We are now in the emerging era of artificial Intelligence which discards human roles and occupations, and with them, the personal identity of individuals. Our security, freedom and identity now require our government to provide a coherent new system in which to function, and the means for individuals to thrive in a new era, free of the costs of privatization of the blooming benefits of modern scientific and technological progress.

A Positive Agenda for Going Forward

As a Nation we need to put Nationalism, Prohibitions and Censorship, and Privatization in the rearview mirror, and create a new day of true Patriotism, Freedom, and Public Service as the means to meet the new urgent challenges of the modern world. There is a clear positive legislative and policy alternative for creating a functional democracy that is relevant to life in the 21^st Century, rather than defaulting into an alternative authoritarian style of government.

 Can a functional democracy emerge from the current chaos; can education survive the direct attacks on the very foundations of a democratic society; and will the relinquishment by the Democratic Party of true patriotism, freedom, and public service mark the day American Democracy died?

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Also see the “Disruptions of Change” and the process of “Forums for a Future” by Edward Renner for meeting the challenges of life in the 2st Century.

 

Embracing Difficult Issues

Should Reading My Syllabus Carry a Trigger Warning?

Edward Renner

The American University Senate adopted a resolution that discourages instructors from granting student request to be shielded from certain readings or discussion by trigger warnings and course exceptions. The resolution was in part a consequence of a request by the library for guidance on how to handle student requests to flag books for controversial content, and a pledge by the student government president to push for trigger warnings on course syllabi.

Now days, most course syllabi are available on-line. My syllabus includes a graphic icon for every class – a picture that is more memorable than any 1,000 word summary.

  

One of those is a Pulitzer-prize winning photo taken by Kevin Carter in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling toward a United Nations food camp located a kilometer away. The picture shocked the whole world.  No one knows what happened to the child. The photographer was widely criticized for not having saved the child. Three months later he committed suicide due to depression

The topic for that class is not famine, but an exercise in critical thinking: How many different perspectives and implicit assumptions can be brought to bear on how to think about the picture and its context, including the shift in attention from the world letting millions die to the specific fate of that child, and the individual ethical responsibilities of Kevin Carter.

I have had many students tell me they did not sleep well that night. However, that exercise on thinking about how to think haunts the course. References to “Class 03 Cognitive Tools for Thinking” come up frequently throughout the term in the context of actually thinking about the academic content of IDH3400: “The Social and Behavioral Sciences.”

Another image was the picture of caskets returning from Iraq. The picture prompted the US government to close the area to the press, prohibiting any future such pictures to be show to the public as too sensitive and disrespectful to those who serve. A brother of a woman in my class was on active duty in Iraq. Road side bombs were a frequent danger.

This picture is a context for some of the most difficult conceptual issues of political science. It is why political science is no less important than computer science. It is not just abstract theory. The discipline has very direct implications for determining the limits of censorship in a democracy and for the impact of political decisions on individual people. Yes, a woman in the class was in tears, but we did not avoid the power of this moment for an intense lesson in civics. We were all meaningfully disrupted; as we should be, often.

Should my syllabus carry the trigger warning: “Reading this Syllabus May Be Disruptive.” Would that warning be sufficient, or should such potentially disruptive material be a necessary, or at least expected, element of every course syllabus? Perhaps we have it backwards. Maybe there should be a trigger warning for any course that is not disruptive; then, students could consider not taking it and we could question why it was even offered.

The icons I use are intended to be disruptive, as is the course. I want my students to respect the behavioral and social science to be as intellectually demanding as their math, chemistry and physical science courses. The question of our time is how to live peacefully and sustainably on a crowded planet in the 21^st Century. In my mind this question trumps STEM in importance. This is the challenge of the behavioral and social sciences; the risk of labeling any topic essential for meeting this challenge as disruptive is the danger to be avoided.
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Edward Renner is a retired university professor who writes on the modern human challenge of how to live sustainably and peacefully on a crowded planet in the 21st Century. A prepublication draft copy of his most recent book is available at www.livinnginthefuturetense.org. He may be reached at erenner@livinginthefuturetense.org.