Rethinking Civics
1. It's all civics.
Anything that furthers society and brings us together on the path toward harmony is civics. Medicine is civics. Technology we design to help each other is civics. Responsibly-run businesses are civics. Liberal arts classes don't just support civics; they are civics. Specifically, civics distilled down to some core components.
Case in point: Sesame Street. And the Sesame Workshop, who you probably know is responsible for the beloved Sesame Street
show, has a program to teach kids what to do if their parents are addicted to
drugs. That's civics too.
Conversely, anything that pulls us apart is non-civics. Like technology that only exists to service corporate interests. Mega corporations that exist to devour money are non-civics.[1]
Stealing a line from antiquity, make your everyday life your civic life, and your civic life your everyday life.
So, what do we do about traditional civics classes? Just rename them. Call them something like "Mechanisms of US Government", and teach them alongside US History.
Those are mechanisms. Safeguards. Tools in the toolbox. They're no more (or less) important than having a republic-style government in the first place.
The real principles of successful self-government have always been much more basic, and apply to literally all forms of democratic government:
a) Good faithb) Empathy
c) Education
d) Involvement/participation
Point being, traditional civics classes would be able to teach the methods currently in place critically, and do so without lionization of our current system or fetishization of any particular piece of that system.
Imagine a teacher saying, "Our system of government has some good and some bad, but it's arguably done a better job than most of furthering it's ostensible goals. Can you think of ways to make it better align with those goals?"
Assuming you teach those goals in any number of places (see #4 below), then you don't have to worry if your eggs are in too few baskets.
2. "Freddish".
If you don't know, click here. It's the collection of lessons Mr. Rogers created for his staff for how to communicate to kids.
Use those lessons for everyone.
For example, it's fine to use words like "deontic" or "ratiocinative" amongst academics, but if you're wondering how to teach Little Johnny to care about Congress, the true master of the medium already gave us a road map, and I suggest we use it.
But it's about far more than using simpler words. Seriously, look into it. He tells us exactly how to craft a message to be empathetic and honest, without talking down to folks or dismissing their fears.
For example, the “Helpers” speech was about far more than the helpers or looking for them. It was a step-by-step guide for talking children through a crisis. In a crisis:
- Ask your kids what they know about what’s going on.
- Be honest and direct; show you respect them enough to tell them the truth.
- Give them something to do.
- In that case, look for the helpers.
There was a deeper method to what he was doing, and we need to look for more than the sound bites.
Likewise, the heroes at the Sesame
Workshop should be consulted directly.
Hire them for your political party. The GOP wants them out of work anyway, so bring them into the fold!
They know how to talk to people effectively. LISTEN TO THEM.
3. Talk about the 'why' of civics. CONSTANTLY.
It doesn't matter if you can name your senators if you don't have at least some sense of why we have a Senate.
And no, I don't mean more dry facts about the Magna Carta. Start with the basics.
Talk about cooperation and sharing our resources. Talk about how two can build more than one. How groups can support individuals; you carry me, and I carry you.
Why do soldiers have someone keeping watch while the others sleep? Because we are vulnerable alone, and we all need to lay down our burdens sometimes.
Talk about how freedom in our modern world requires transportation, and large-scale transportation only works when we share the costs and follow the rules. For example, if everyone was free to choose which direction they wanted to drive on the freeway, the whole system would collapse. And you only have a freeway because of taxes.
So, you can sit at home broke and alone and isolated with no duty to others, or you can pay your taxes, follow the rules, and take a city bus on a freeway to the airport to fly to Disneyland any time you damned well please.
Pick one type of freedom; you can't have both.
The other side likes to look at freedom as choosing between being a sheep or a wolf.
That's not the dichotomy. The real dichotomy of freedom is victim or investor.
A victim says I don't want to be killed, so I'll give up as little freedom as possible in order to keep that from happening.
An investor says that by caring about each other, working together for the common good, and adhering to rules we've chosen for ourselves as a group, we can go to the friggin' moon.
4. Before we reform education, we must reform our perspective on education.
a) Change the narrative: Education was NEVER about jobs.
Convincing people of this may be the hardest task on the list, but probably the most important.
Education is about autonomy. Full stop.
Just like students must learn the alphabet before they can read, students need to be primed to be ready for and receptive to civics education.
Like sex education, age-appropriate civics education should be a constant from the earliest ages. Basic concepts like rights and responsibilities can be in the background of many types of lessons.
For example, kids understand bullies. The playground is a chance to teach them how your right to something only extends as far as your power to enforce it. Together, we have more power, and the opportunity to design rules that let everyone participate, feel safe, and be included.
Further, if the entire point of school really was to prepare someone for a job, then you've already lost, and all traditional civics education is rendered pointless anyway.
Corporations and the economy must serve us; not the other way around.
The quest to eliminate all classes that aren't directly and measurably tied to greater earning potential (mainly STEM) means we're skimping more and more on the good stuff that builds free and effective citizens.
Or perhaps more accurately, students are learning the civics lesson we're teaching very well, but it’s the wrong lesson. They're learning a version of civics solely dedicated to serving corporations and the almighty economy.
Plus, if you've been taught to value education for its role in fostering autonomy, then you'll value the bringer of that education (i.e. better teacher pay/benefits and working conditions.)
Remember: If we
had an educated populace, the jobs would take care of themselves. It's just like dating - don't spend your time
trying to get someone to go out with you.
Spend your time making yourself into someone people WANT to go out with.
Q: What do you call a plumber with a master’s degree in history?
A: An educated voter.
b) Rethink academic assumptions with an eye on the greater lesson.
Many of our ideological fights stem from lay interpretations of notorious classic works.
For our American story, it tends to be works like Thoreau's Walden (a rugged individualist thriving in a "state of nature"), Rousseau's Social Contract (rugged individualists thriving in a "state of nature"), or Smith's Wealth of Nations (greed and selfishness are necessary).
But the more we dig into these authors and ACTUALLY READ THOSE BOOKS, the more we can see the overarching themes of empathy and interconnectedness. (To be clear, if you're reading this, you probably already know this part. The bulk of American voters haven't the slightest clue.)
Take Walden, for example.
If you asked most people, they'd tell you that Walden is the true story of a man who went to live alone in the woods. There, away from society, away from taxes, and away from that meddlin' government and people telling him what to do, he lived by the work of his own two hands, and the sweat of his own brow. He became one with nature, and showed what a single individual can accomplish without anyone's help.
Neat story, right?
But at the beginning of the book, he goes shopping.
Seriously, Thoreau literally gives us his shopping list in the book.
Let's think about that for a second. Before going into the woods to be alone and live his ruggedly individualist life entirely on his own...
He relied on a shopkeeper to sell the products he needed. He didn't have to make his own bricks and nails; he just bought them
And he didn't barter; he didn't have to raise crops or livestock that he could trade for the bricks and nails; he paid for them with money
The shopkeeper accepted the money because it had value
And why did the money have value? Because it was backed by the US government
The store didn't make the bricks and the nails either; the store relied on someone else to do that
And when the nail maker wanted to have his nails sold in the store, he and the storekeeper made their exchange relying on contracts. Contracts they could trust because they were enforceable by government courts
And how did the nails get to the store in the first place? On roads mostly built by the government, right? Maybe they even relied on the good old US Postal Service to get the products there.
So where is this rugged individual living alone entirely off the land? I've read that book twice and haven't found him yet.
"Even Thoreau bought groceries" and similar sentences have been my mantra for years.
Similarly, Adam Smith is largely misunderstood. He may have talked a bit about the role of greed and selfishness in one book (which I haven't read), but in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (which I have read), Smith opines on our need to act in the interests of others, whether we benefit or not. That includes levying taxes to help the poor.
For Rousseau, it's even easier. People get sidetracked debating whether Cro Magnon man living in a "state of nature" was happy or not. Fuck all that.
Just reread The Social Contract while interchanging these terms every time you see them:
Trade "general will" for "good faith".
Trade "state of nature" for "community with far less emphasis on social media".
Seriously, try it. PLEASE.[2]
This stuff is already there. We just need to look for it and call it out.
The answers are in the books we don’t read.
More importantly, we shouldn't revere books we haven't read, let alone base our understanding of government on them.
5. Fight for fair wages.
If I had more time, I could show you how fixing nearly every problem in America starts with wages. In the interest of time, I'll keep it short.
Wages are important in at least three main areas: Education, infrastructure, and mental health. Together, all three point back to a fourth area: time.
a) Education.
Higher wages mean a higher tax base. This both directly and indirectly impacts school quality and equality, as well as other key infrastructure. Education breeds free and effective citizens.
b) Infrastructure.
The higher tax base means more opportunity to improve roads, bridges, and public transportation. That, along with high-speed internet, means less commute time, which equals more time with your family, and less time on roads. It can mean less money spent on childcare, less wear and tear on your car, and less money spent on gas. You can extrapolate on this idea for days.
c) Mental health.
Do the prior two, and watch people feel better. Add to this the ability to afford things like an occasional vacation and regular trips to the dentist, and it's a whole lot of weight off our backs.
d) Time.
With more free time, we can spend it with family, playing games, making art, and PARTICIPATING IN GOVERNMENT.
We'll have more mental bandwidth to keep up with the current goings on, or participating in city council meetings. And maybe we won't have to turn the news off to spare our last vestige of peace after work. In fact, maybe we can purposely keep it on so we know what problems to solve next.
And we did all that without changing the 40-hr workweek at all.
But also, the 40-hr workweek is simply not conducive to democratic government, and I think we all know that was a feature and not a bug. (Though corporate profits were a higher priority as features go. Either way, thank a union it's not an 80+-hr work week.)
6. Change the narrative: Treat politicians like heroes.
No, not these politicians. I mean honor the job, and the folks who are willing to stand up and lead.
Treat them like leaders even if they haven't fixed that pothole yet.
Read that last sentence as many times as you need to.
It can't always be about what they can directly do for you. When society benefits, you do too.
If you keep screaming that all politicians are bad, you shouldn't be surprised that young people have little desire to vote for those evil people, let alone learn about the system or want to participate.
In my own voter's pamphlets, I've made a game of automatically crossing out all the folks who brag, "I'm not a career politician!" Some years, it's nearly every candidate.
If all politicians are evil, and all politics is shameful, then WHAT IS THERE TO ASPIRE TO?
All that's left is to win;
principles be damned. (See my essay on Good Faith.)
Conversely, if politicians are generally good and sometimes heroic people, but these particular politicians are garbage, then we have a simple method to fix it: recruit better politicians (I'll come back to this in a minute.)
But if we give in to the knee-jerk impulse to vote them all out or lock them up... then what? Who's going to run things? Is it Thunderdome? Or do we elect a new batch of people who we'll immediately decide are crooks too?
Anyone who's volunteered in an election knows how quickly candidates go from being a sweet, kindly humanitarian with extensive expertise to being a monstrous career politician and parasite who hates babies and wants to steal everything you own.
The candidates don't even have to do anything. Sometimes that shift happens before they take office. We have to change that narrative. Something like JFK's "Profiles in Courage" is a great start, but the concept behind that book needs to be translated for folks in all walks of life and at all educational levels.
Remember: no one really hates lawyers. They hate the other side's lawyer. And they hate their own lawyer when they lose. But they never hesitate to call one when they need help. Same basic idea, but for politicians. Same basic fix, too.
7. Pay politicians more.
It's counter-intuitive, but it makes sense.
Congressional salaries may seem high to someone making minimum wage, but when you figure in the cost of living in two different parts of the country, it's clear why it's usually only the rich who can afford to run for Congress.
Consider, also, that state legislatures pay an exceptionally wide range, and some even pay less than minimum wage.
If you're reading this, you probably make more per hour than some legislators make per day or even per week.
Patriotism only carries us so far. A single parent of four who is already struggling can't afford to take a 50% pay cut to declare themselves a candidate only to get berated constantly by their neighbor. Nor can they "volunteer" three months of their time two or more years in a row only to be derided as a "career" politician.
That's why so many politicians are rich people who don’t give a flying fuck what you think. They're completely immune to your power, and often seem to relish being the bad guy. Think you can threaten a multimillionaire with a $30k salary cut?
We can't take away that immunity, but we can create our own heroes and empower them to fight back.
If you want better, and more diverse candidates, we need to pay for them. No matter how you feel about AOC as a person or as an individual, she represents the type of person we need to enable in this political environment. Ask her what it's like trying to live in New York and DC at the same time.
8. "And we moved forward, trying to do better next time."
We've all seen that viral clip from The Newsroom where the dude talks about how the US isn't the best country in the world. It's a great clip, and makes some solid points.
But if you keep watching that episode, a different character makes a better point.
She explains why we are the best country in the world: because no other country has done a better job of dreaming bigger and always believing we can do better.
It used to be a fact that humans can't fly. Americans put a man on the moon.
We used to be a country that embraced slavery. We stopped.
Whether we're talking about good things, bad things, or the downright horrific parts of our history, the thread for students needs to be that our better angels eventually prevailed.
Often through painful, bloody, and heroic sacrifice from the most vulnerable among us, but they prevailed.
In other words, we can learn all the shameful details of our history, face it head on, and still have reason to hope.
It wasn't some sort of mystical fate that got us through. It was good people risking everything to stand up, and sparking our consciences into demanding change.
US History is more a list of those people than it is about events or systems. People trying and failing and trying again; not infallible mechanisms.
Imagine teachers approaching it like this:
"Here's what happens when we don't live up to our ideals: [insert Wounded Knee, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, and about a million other atrocities.]"
"But here's a story of how good people fought and struggled, and eventually succeeded: [insert the Civil Rights Movement, the Suffragettes, and many others.]"
Slavery, for example, wasn't some cosmic accident. It was people purposely putting aside their consciences and values (that they would eventually enshrine in the Constitution) in favor of money. This inhuman horror is just one of many that can take place when we turn away from our ideals.
That doesn't undercut the Constitution at all. Bad people sometimes make good decisions. And while the Framers may have meant "We the people" to only apply to a small subset, we don't have to be so limited. The idea is worth fighting for no matter who wrote it down or why they did it. The idea endures.
I'll defer to y'all to decide details, like how much to focus on the US Constitution as the source, guarantor, or mere documentation of those ideals.
But keep the students' eyes on the prize: the goals of the American experiment. The methods and mechanisms only matter to the extent they move us toward those goals.
Or in simpler terms, the flag is
just a cloth. It's the higher values the
flag represents that matter. Teach that hope and resilience can help us put those values in action.
That's what you should stand up for. That's what you should salute.
Before you derisively say, "No duh", let me ask - DO YOUR KIDS KNOW THAT?
9. Remove the "isms" and "ists" from your vocabulary.
Don't use them, and don't engage when others do.
If you can name all the types of "liberalism" without an encyclopedia and a score card, congratulations - you're in the 0.00000005% of the entire world.
"Isms" and "ists" make people feel smarter than they actually are. Hell, the dumbest person I've ever known tried to lecture me on Neo-Marxism and Fabianism and why VP Harris was definitely using them to undermine America. The dude can barely tie his own shoes, but he thinks he's an accomplished academic because he read some blog posts (not this one, obvi) and memorized the big words. Oh, and one time he listened to an entire live stream of SCOTUS, so there.
You can't fight fire with fire. Not in your home, anyway.
Don't waste time fighting this pointless battle. Honestly, the meaning of those words never really mattered to most people anyway.
Focus on what we mean. Go back and read item #2 on "Freddish".
Do you really want to explain the different types of socialism for two hours to someone who decided twenty minutes ago to hate you and everything you say?
Keep it simple:
· Sometimes it’s better to compete.
· Sometimes it’s better to cooperate.
Keep it clear. Keep it simple. Don't let people fall back into the "Freedom vs. Communism" crap.
The message I've been seeing from young people is that we're stuck choosing between capitalism or communism; if one has failed then the other must be the correct answer.
But it was never a dichotomy. We can smartly choose a little from columns A, B C, D, and E wherever each of those pieces make sense.
10. WHEN we tell a story is often more important than the story itself
There's an old saw about JFK going to visit one of the companies that was building parts for the Apollo program.
He's going around meeting everybody and asking what they were working on. Then JFK encounters a janitor, and asks the janitor what he's doing.
The janitor replies, "Sir, I'm putting a man on the moon!"
I've heard this story more than once in corporate training sessions when it's all about working together to earn a profit.
I've never heard anyone tell it at tax time.
[1] Remember when business licenses required a specific purpose for the business that wasn't just a generic desire to make money? There was a reason for that.
[2] Note for geeks: Just because Rousseau was partly inspired by Hobbes does NOT mean they shared a vocabulary. We shouldn't assume "state of nature" meant the same thing to both of them.