Civics Lesson 2

Intended for high school and college students.  

Adapt as needed.

 

INSTRUCTOR READS THE FOLLOWING: 

How much is a human life worth?  This is your task.  I am going to give the class ten minutes to decide how much a human life is worth.  In actual dollars. 

Now, I'm going to trust you not to go off on a disrespectful tangent.  I don't want you to ask if some lives are worth more than others, or speculate on why.  I just want you to put a dollar value on a human life; a human.  Any human being, anywhere on the planet. I reach into my magic portal and pull out any random human.  It's could be a friend; it could be a stranger.

How much is that person worth?  You have ten minutes… GO!

INSTRUCTOR STEPS ASIDE AND IS SILENT. 

NO QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED, AND NO ADDITIONAL RULES OR GUIDANCE ARE GIVEN. AFTER TEN MINUTES INSTRUCTOR CALLS TIME, AND ASKS FOR THE ANSWER.   

STUDENTS ARE TOLD THE ANSWER IS WRONG, REGARDLESS.

INSTRUCTOR READS THE FOLLOWING: 

You failed. 

Does that seem unfair?  It is.  It is unfair.  But you still failed.

So why would I ask you to do something so unfair?  Because this is the type of thing we expect our government to do every day.  Often with no set of rules; no playbook.  They have to write the rules as they go, since they're often dealing with problems or circumstances they've never seen before.

The Founders who wrote the Constitution had never seen an airplane; had never eaten frozen peas.  Only in their wildest imaginations could they think of something like a multi-state electrical grid, or a company like Amazon.

You may find it hard to imagine a time without the internet.  But there was such a time, and lawmakers had to decide how to handle it.  They had to invent the law for this brand new technology long before they understood it.  Is internet a utility, like water and power?  Is it a subscription service, like a magazine or a gym membership?  Do you have rights as users of the internet? 

They had no idea because it was new and untried.  They had to make it up as they went along, and as new problems appeared.     

There are lots of reasons why the questions they have to face are hard, or even impossible to answer.  Like your exercise today.   

There is no one perfect answer to the question of how much a life is worth. Period.

What makes a life valuable in the first place?   What does your life meant to you?  What does it mean to that your friends and family?  How do we measure that value? 

These are questions that have plagued philosophers for thousands of years.  They still can't agree.  So how are we to do any better? 

And yet, we ask our government to get questions like that right every day. 

For example, let's imagine a fire fighter who is hurt fighting a fire.  Imagine they have lots of hospital bills, and eventually die from their injuries.  When that happens, the government provides their families with death benefits. 

The government can't bring that person back.  It can never replace the person.  But it can control money.  So we provide their families with money to make up for the loss of salary that the fire fighter is no longer bringing home. 

It's impersonal.  It's distasteful.  It's unfair.  And there is no right answer to how much that person is worth.  No amount of money can ever make up for the loss of a friend or family member.

But it needs to be done.  A decision must be made.

There are hundreds of decisions like this that the government (and quasi-government groups like juries), have to make every day.  Decisions where there is no right answer.  Impossible tasks that need to be done.

And that's what your lawmakers in Congress and your state Legislature are doing.  Talking, arguing, studying, and then making decisions like the one you had to make today. 

But when you tried to make a decision today, it was a mess, right?  That's what they go through, too. 

Now, you're probably wondering: am I just telling you all this to drum up sympathy for your elected officials?  By pointing out how difficult the questions are, am I trying to tell you not to be frustrated with your government?  Or that you have to be happy with what they do?

Never.  But we can't hope to fix the system until we know what we're up against.  We can't demand better from our elected officials until we understand the challenges they're facing.  We can't understand their jobs until we walk a mile in their shoes, and see the very real, sometimes impossible challenges they face. 

We want them to rise to the challenges.  But we berate them when they don't. 

We need them to be courageous; to have integrity; to stand up for what is right rather than what will bring them profit or status.  But then we call them greedy cowards either way.

This needs to stop.  People tend to live up to your expectations for them.  We need to raise our expectations.

Civics isn't just about learning how government works.  That's what people often think, but no.  They think that civics is about learning what the government does to you.  Again, no. 

Civics is about building and empowering heroes.

It's a two-way street.  It starts by making our goals and expectations clear to our elected officials, and saying to them: 

"This is what we need from you."

But then we need to stop telling, and start asking:

"How can we help you accomplish those goals?"

Stop berating them.  Stop expecting them to always do things exactly the way you would do them.  Stop holding them to unreasonable standards. 

Help them to be heroes.  And speaking of which...

INSTRUCTOR ASKS EVERYONE TO STAND AND FORM A CIRCLE. 

Okay, now I want everyone to stand up, and form a circle.  Everyone face the inside of the circle.  Look around at your classmates.  Look closely.  Really see them.

I know, it's always a little awkward when someone makes you do something like this.  Give it a minute; let the awkwardness subside. 

Everyone you see has the potential to be a leader.  You all have the potential to be heroes. 

Now repeat after me: 

WE ARE THE HEROES WE'RE WAITING FOR.