Democracy and Faith in Humanity

Without faith in humanity, cynicism grows and democracy becomes mob-rule

Fresno Bee, June 4, 2016

Faith in democracy is faith in morality and human freedom
American philosophers worry about cynicism
Irrationality, rudeness, vulgarity undermine democracy

We seem to have lost faith in our democracy. A recent Associated Press Poll indicates that 70 percent of Americans are “frustrated with the 2016 presidential election.” Only “10 percent say they have a great deal of confidence in the political system overall.”

Most Americans say that the country’s morality is getting worse. According to a recent Gallup Poll, nearly 75 percent of us think we are heading in the wrong moral direction. Almost half of Americans rate our morality as “poor.”

The San Jose Mercury News printed a tongue-in-cheek article about moving to Canada, for those who are not happy with this year’s election. If we are not careful, our cynicism will undermine our democracy. A healthy democracy depends upon trust. It requires faith in human decency and a commitment to the common good.

In 1939, as Europe was exploding, American philosopher John Dewey said that democracy rests upon “faith in the possibilities of human nature” and “faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action.”

Democratic faith is a central idea for John Dewey, one of America’s most important political philosophers. In 1939, as Europe was exploding, Dewey explained that democracy rests upon “faith in the possibilities of human nature” and “faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action.”

Without faith in humanity, cynicism grows and democracy becomes mob rule. Another great American philosopher, John Rawls, explained, “Distrust and resentment corrode the ties of civility, and suspicion and hostility tempt men to act in ways they would otherwise avoid.”

When we don’t trust each other, cooperation becomes impossible. Instead of working for the common good, we work to maximize our own self-interest. Instead of pursuing our hopes, we are motivated by our fears.

Faith in rationality is a key tenet of the democratic faith. Democratic citizens respect each other as rational beings. We give reasons and support them with rational arguments. We expect others to respond in kind. We express our disagreements with civility and restraint, believing that our civility will be reciprocated.

In a healthy democracy, we seek to understand each other. We aim to reach consensus. We listen as much as we talk. We avoid insulting and disrespecting each other. And we believe that each of us is committed to the common good in our own way.

Democratic societies fail when they are plagued by irrationality, rudeness, vulgarity, cruelty and violence. These social maladies cause further distrust and dysfunction, creating a vicious circle of cynicism.

Irrationality breeds mistrust. Instead of deliberating, we connive and cajole. Soon rudeness appears as a strategy and defense mechanism in a world of irrational manipulation. We yell rather than talk. We exchange insults instead of ideas.

The slippery slope of social dysfunction soon leads to vulgarity. In a manipulative power struggle, quick points are scored by playing dirty. Outrageous and obscene remarks soon become normal.

Once vulgarity is on the table, we are one step away from outright cruelty. Vulgar rudeness quickly morphs into nastiness and spite. Soon enough racist, sexist and bigoted comments appear on the scene.

WE HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO SOLVE OUR OWN PROBLEMS.

The step from verbal cruelty to outright violence is lubricated by the irrationality and obscenity that came before. Violent words quickly lead to violent deeds, when we have given up on reason and civility. And soon enough democracy becomes mob rule.

All of this was understood and predicted by Dewey in 1939 as a betrayal of the democratic faith. He explained, “Intolerance, abuse, calling of names because of differences of opinion about religion or politics or business, as well as because of differences of race, color, wealth or degree of culture are treason to the democratic way of life.”

Dewey’s solution is more and better education, aimed at creating civility and rationality. Education for and about democracy is needed to renew our faith in democracy.

Democratic education relies upon moral education. The basics of moral education have been understood since the time of Plato. Plato said we need four main virtues: moderation, courage, justice and wisdom. We certainly need more of each.

But beyond those basic moral virtues, democracy relies upon faith – in human freedom and in our capacity for self-governance. We have to believe that human beings are good enough to solve our own problems. The democratic faith is a commitment to make a world in which intelligent cooperation produces humane outcomes. Without that faith, we might as well move to Canada – or build a bunker and ride out the storm.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article81572897.html#storylink=cpy

March 5, 2016March 6, 2016

Civic Education

Teachers are the core of our union

Fresno Bee, March 5, 2016

Character and civic education is essential for our democracy
American schools are unique
Character education conference will be held Thursday

Caring and creative educators cultivate the next generation of democratic citizens. It is not easy to transform a child into a compassionate and engaged citizen. But no task is more important. The future of our democracy depends upon the work done in our schools.

Teachers are charged with providing instruction in academic subjects. Moral and civic education seems different. Morality appears to be both more pervasive and more personal than reading, writing or arithmetic. Perhaps we think that morality and citizenship will somehow take care of themselves.

Morality and civic engagement lie in the background of every other educational endeavor. Cheating and dishonesty make learning impossible. Poor citizenship undermines discipline. And bullies destroy trust in community.

I spoke about character and civic education with my colleague, Dr. Jacques Benninga, the director of Fresno State’s Bonner Center. Benninga is a nationally recognized leader in the field of character education. His vision of character and civic education is informed by decades of research and experience – and a great passion for American democracy.

Benninga maintains that American schools have a unique obligation to prepare children to become democratic citizens. He explains that schools have a “fundamental role to play in a constitutional, democratic republic.” He believes that teachers are guides and role models for civic life.

Benninga points to occasional headlines about bad teachers to make his point. We hold teachers to a higher standard. We are rightly appalled when a teacher makes a moral mistake or breaks the law.

The good news is that most educators live up to a high moral standard. Benninga is forthright in his praise for teachers. He says, “most teachers are outstanding individuals who are caring, fair and respect kids. They do the hard work of making schools wonderful.”

Benninga has a lot of data to support this generalization. Since 1988, he has been giving awards to schools that have outstanding programs in civic and character education. Benninga has evaluated hundreds of schools in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties.

Exemplary schools receive an award at the Bonner Center’s annual character education conference for teaching credential students from Fresno State and Fresno Pacific University. This year the conference will be held Thursday at the Fresno Convention Center.

The conference will feature Renee Gomez, Fresno County’s teacher of the year, and Lisa Butts, Kings County’s teacher of the year. The keynote address will be given by Michelle Herczog, former president of the National Council for the Social Studies. Herczog’s speech is titled “Why We Must Prepare Students for College, Career, AND Civic Life.”

IF YOU KNOW A TEACHER, THANK THEM FOR THEIR EFFORTS.

The need for such preparation is obvious. We are not born ready for college, prepared for a career or ready to participate in democratic society. Good education imparts academic and vocational skills and encourages moral development and citizenship.

Educators know what works in terms of character and civic education. Moral and character lessons should be infused within the curriculum, across subject matter. Students should be provided with opportunities for moral action – through service projects on campus and in the community.

Benninga points out that schools provide laboratories for democratic action, in the simple act of voting for student council. Benninga suggests that this is a unique aspect of American schools. It is hard to imagine, for example, democratically elected student councils in North Korea.

We take our democratic and morally engaged schools for granted. Americans have grown up practicing democracy at school. We learned honesty, integrity, fairness and care from our teachers and other significant adults. We practiced tolerance, respect, patience and hospitality in school. Our moral and democratic habits are the result of the diligent work of the previous generation of educators.

Through my collaborations with the Bonner Center, I have visited a number of exemplary schools. I have been impressed by caring teachers who are hard at work in the classroom. I’m hopeful that our democracy will flourish as a result of their labor.

If you know a teacher, thank them for their efforts. And ask them what they are doing to educate the next generation of citizens. You’ll be inspired to learn about the unheralded service that teachers perform daily in support of our democracy.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article64025332.html#storylink=cpy

December 9, 2015February 11, 2016

Morality and the drought

Moral lessons from the drought

Fresno Bee, December 9, 2015

Special Report: From drought to El Niño
Columnist Andrew Fiala says drought exposes conflicting ideas

Scarcity prompts moral reflection. Imagine a group of hikers lost in the desert with limited water. How do they share the water? Perhaps you should share the water equally. Or maybe the thirstier person should get more water, or the person who owns the bottle – or the youngest or weakest.

There are conflicting intuitions about such cases. Drought exposes conflicting ideas about property rights, liberty, justice and communal good. Here are some moral insights that can guide our thinking about droughts and other conditions of scarcity.

1. Droughts challenge civilization. The oldest written code of law in the world – Hammurabi’s Code – contained rules and punishments for maintaining a system of irrigation. Agricultural civilizations require a complex division of labor, bureaucratic control and obedient citizens. Droughts challenge this system. Droughts have caused civilizations – such as the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico – to collapse. Drought prompts reflection on the fragility of civilization and the importance of stable, resilient social systems.

2. Environmental justice matters. Droughts create suffering, poverty, unemployment and homelessness. Successful responses must be fair. We owe special care for the weak and vulnerable. Resentment grows when some go thirsty while others thrive. Drought reminds us to focus questions of fairness and justice.

3. Egoism is immoral. A thirsty egoist may feel resentful or envious. Those with money and water may feel a similar sense of entitlement. But egoism is immoral. A selfish desert hiker who sneaks a drink is stealing water from the mouths of others. It is immoral when selfish owners of water refuse to share – or engage in price-gouging or wasteful water use. Drought shows the insufficiency of egoism.

4. Collective action limits liberty. A world of egoists left alone to pursue their own self-interests could end up destroying shared resources or creating resource wars. That is why law and regulation are needed. However, in a free country and a capitalist economy, we value liberty. Regulation limits liberty, including imposing limits on what we can do with our own property. Free people resent such limitations. Others suspect that regulation is manipulated by the rich and powerful. Drought exposes the conflict between individual liberty and collective action.

5. Cooperation is important. The optimal solution is cooperative self-regulation. People must limit their own liberty out of concern for others. Sharing and cooperation may sound naive. But the thirsty desert hikers will each do better if they cooperate and share. Sharing and caring are taken for granted within stable communities – and they help sustain community spirit. Drought demonstrates the importance of building and maintaining community spirit.

6. Consumption can be reduced. There is more to share when we each consume less. The lost desert hikers quickly learn that it is wrong to squander water. Scarcity causes us to reassess about how we use – and waste – things. We’ve discovered that we don’t need green lawns and long showers. We’ve learned to wash dishes, brush teeth, and flush toilets in new ways. Drought forces us to conserve water and to understand the difference between a need and a luxury.

7. Democracy is the key. When our needs are considered and our voices heard, we find it easier to cooperate – and we feel that justice prevails. Whatever way our thirsty desert hikers decide to share their water, they should each be consulted. Democratic deliberation creates cooperation and community spirit. Democratic values are tested in times of crisis, when leaders are tempted to revert to authoritarian policies. Drought should strengthen our commitment to democracy and inclusion.

8. There are reasons to hope. The good news is that 40 million Californians survived another arid summer. Moral action depends upon hope. To be inspired to do the right thing, you have to hope that others will do the right thing – and that doing the right thing will lead to good outcomes. To survive drought, you need moral hope.

So far, so good. We have limited egoism. We have developed community spirit. We have reduced consumption. We have attended to justice. And we have kept true to principles of democracy. There is always more work to be done. The rainy season provides a chance to hone our moral intuitions as we plan for the future of our hot, crowded state.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article48833525.html#storylink=cpy

May 2, 2014June 19, 2014

Kid Brother Surveillance

Be aware of your actions in this age of surveillance

Fresno Bee, May 2, 2014

We live in an age of constant surveillance, where our words and actions can be made public by anyone with a cellphone and an Internet connection. In the old days, morality was enforced with the thought that God was watching. In the era of totalitarian states, God was replaced by Big Brother.

Today, surveillance has become democratic, as each of us has the power to record and publicize the misdeeds of anyone we meet. Big Brother has been replaced by a billion kid brothers who keep sticking their cameras into other people’s business.

Secret recordings have exposed some egregious stuff. The racist comments of L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling were exposed in this way. A few weeks earlier, a Golden State Warriors assistant coach was fired for making secret recordings of his team.

In 2011, an NPR employee was caught saying that tea party activists are xenophobic racists. Also in 2011, President Obama and former French President Sarkozy were caught speaking privately about their dislike for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2012, a secret recording of Mitt Romney caught him saying that 47% of the public were dependent on the government.

The law provides some protection against clandestine recording. But once the cat is out of the bag, the law won’t fix a damaged reputation. It is hard to hide anything in the era of crowd-sourced, pocket-sized surveillance. Racists, sexists, adulterers, and crooks should know that in the Facebook era, your bad deeds are only a click away.

While we might question the motives of the kid brother snoops, there is no denying their power and the serious loss of privacy this creates. But prying eyes can force us to behave ourselves. Whatever you say or do — in a business meeting, on the golf course, or online — can end up being made public.

One solution is simply to avoid saying or doing dumb and immoral stuff; and don’t be a hypocrite. We ought to behave — even in private — in ways that we are proud to affirm. We ought to avoid saying and doing those sorts of things that get the gossips talking and the cameras recording. If you wouldn’t say it in public, then don’t say it at all.

Hypocrites change their speech and behavior to fit their audience. Hypocrisy rests upon a tangled web of lies, masks, secret alliances, inside jokes, winks, and nods. Hypocrites say and do things in private that they condemn in public and vice versa. Gossipy snoops love to expose hypocrisy.

Justice Louis Brandeis once suggested that publicity is the remedy for social diseases. He said, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” While this idea is often used to call for greater transparency in government, we forget that sunlight is an equal opportunity enlightener. We are all being observed and recorded all the time.

This is a bit scary. But kid brother surveillance does make it harder to keep immoral behavior and vicious ideas hidden. Some citizens are even turning the cameras on Big Brother himself. Earlier this year, someone smuggled a video recorder into the U.S. Supreme Court, which was the first time the court had ever been recorded. And camera phones have been used to record police brutality.

The prying eyes of a kid brother with a microphone can be irritating to those who value privacy. Sometimes we just want to be left alone. And liberty seems to require zones of privacy. Unfortunately, while it might be nice to imagine retreating to a world of pre-electronic privacy, the cell-cam Rubicon has already been crossed. One consolation is to recall that the good old days were also full of racism, sexism and other hypocritical diseases that fester in private places.

Kid brother surveillance means that privacy is a lost dream. Everyone you meet is armed with a camera. The constant threat of public exposure makes it harder for the hypocrites and racists to hide. The downside is that we each have to confront our own hypocrisies. Each of us now has the capacity to act as our brother’s moral keeper. But we ought to first take a selfie, before we turn the camera on someone else.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/05/02/3907055/ethics-be-aware-of-your-actions.html#storylink=cpy

August 23, 2013September 21, 2013

Education and Democratic Citizenship

Education should encourage us to ask critical question

August 23, 2013

Teachers and students return to school anticipating the discovery of new ideas and the creation of new relationships. Empty gradebooks and notebooks promise transformation. But what should we hope for, as we send our kids back to school?

I heard at least one speech this week that emphasized that education is a way to make money. We celebrate the cash value of staying in school and going on to college. But emphasizing the money is a fairly superficial way to sell school to kids and their parents.

The focus on money ignores a key lesson of a good education, which is that money is not the most important thing in life. Sure, some money is needed for a decent life. But a good education should encourage us to ask critical questions about what we value. How much money is enough? How should resources be distributed? What’s an honorable way to make a living? And what’s the value of a culture that worships the almighty dollar?

Another idea about the value of education focuses on teaching kids to use tools and master the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. Mastery of those skills is essential for people who live in a culture that requires basic literacy and numeracy. Computer technology skills are also becoming essential for life in our culture.

But it’s not enough to teach kids how to use tools. We also have to encourage them to think about what those tools should be used for. Ethical tool use begins with understanding the difference between the tool and its uses. A hammer can build. But it can also destroy. Words and ideas can uplift and empower. But they can also fuel violence and hate.

Our culture is often confused about tools. We fetishize our tools, imbuing them with mysterious power, allowing them to control us and the way we think. The emphasis on computers and online technology is a sign of this problem. Technology is not a panacea. It can be misused and backfire. Reading on computer screens is often more superficial than reading on the printed page. Computers make it easier to cheat and plagiarize. And electronic communication often lacks the depth and care of face-to-face conversations.

A good education helps us sort out the difference between those things that have value in themselves (love, beauty, truth, other people, etc.) and those things that do not (money, tools, computers, etc.). A good education helps us understand the relative value of different technologies and methods of communication. A good education empowers us to use these technologies for appropriate ends.

This process of understanding, assessing and prioritizing values is centrally important for citizens in a democracy. Democratic government is another tool that must be judiciously employed. Democracy can be abused by unscrupulous politicians who take advantage of a gullible citizenry. Democracy becomes dangerous when citizens are unethical and uncritical.

Human beings are not born knowing how to govern themselves. We are dependent for much of our childhoods. Our passions and instincts often rule over us, leaving us unable to properly govern ourselves. We are easily seduced and distracted. It takes long practice to learn how to pay attention, get your work done and do the right thing. A good education teaches us how to free our minds and control our behaviors so that we might govern ourselves.

Democratic citizens must learn to question authority, evaluate conventional wisdom, discuss values and deliberate about ideas. Citizens need to understand their rights. They also need to develop the wisdom and virtue so that they might exercise their rights responsibly.

Human beings are not born understanding ethics or politics. Most children do have an innate capacity for truth-telling, compassion and love. But children can also be selfish, close-minded and mean. They can bully others and show undue respect for authority and power. Ethical judgment and democratic values must be taught.

Every fall we entrust our educators with the awesome job of cultivating the next generation. I wish them luck on this difficult and crucial task. We hope that our kids end up with fruitful careers and that they learn to read, write and compute. But mostly I hope that they learn to be critical and virtuous democratic citizens.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/08/23/3458110/education-should-encourage-us.html#storylink=cpy