american apathy
TRANSCRIPT
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Dan Graziano
Dr. Fairfield
Constructing the Public
November 12, 2010
American Apathy: The Decline of Civic Engagement
America’s present-day political landscape is diverse and expansive; both in the
range of ideological views held by the citizenry, and in the varying levels of political
intelligence and understanding. In the earlier days of our nation, participation in the
democratic process was far and away more popular than it is currently. Today, voter
turnout hovers around 50% of registered voters and the average citizen is tragically
uninformed about current events.
It may shock some that Americans would be considered “unintelligent” by any
means; yet there is ample survey data to support the statement that Americans have very
little understanding of how their system of governance works, the state of current affairs,
or the founding of the country. Rick Shenkman, history professor at George Mason
University and author of the book Just How Stupid Are We?, has studied and written
extensively on the subject of American ignorance. He asserts that there are five basic
forms of stupidity that plague America’s civic culture. The first is ignorance: a flat out
disregard for the facts of who runs our government and how its system functions,
followed by negligence which is the disinclination to actively seek out this information.
Third is wooden-headedness, which historian Barbara Tuchman describes as the habit to
believe only what we want to believe, regardless of opposing arguments, mitigating
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factors or factual evidence to the contrary. Fourth is short-sightedness: a lack of
understanding regarding the complexities of domestic and foreign policies that results in
a preference for policies and solutions that are mutually-contradictory or will prove
destructive in the long term at the risk of a here and now fix. Finally and possibly most
pervasively, is the broad category that Shenkman is unable to describe as anything but
bone-headedness, which he defines as “susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes,
irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears.”
To anyone who has ever worked on a campaign team during a major election, this is a far
too common occurrence.
1
But how bad could this ignorance possibly be? After all, America does continue
to be a leader in the global community in many respects. One such example would be the
2004 election, when gay marriage was a hot topic. A national poll attempted to gauge
public opinion regarding the issue, but the results were difficult to interpret. A majority of
those polled favored a constitutional amendment stipulating that marriage should be a
privilege reserved for a man and a woman; yet three questions later, the majority also
agreed that gay marriage was not a big enough issue to merit changing the Constitution.
The New York Times summed it up best, saying that “Americans clearly favor amending
the Constitution but not changing it2.”The most comprehensive surveys, the National
Election Studies (NES), were carried out by the University of Michigan beginning in the
late 1940s. What these studies currently show is that Americans fall into three categories
with regard to their political understanding. A tiny percentage know a lot about politics,
somewhere between 50% and 60% know enough to answer very simple questions, and
the rest know next to nothing, which is an incredibly dangerous amount of knowledge for
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a voter to have3. A study by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that one-
tenth of a percentage point of those surveyed, one in one-thousand, was able to correctly
identify the five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. While this is invaluable
information, it is technically not vital to the functionality of government. But NES data
shows that only 25% of citizens know that a Senator’s term is six years, and an anemic
20% know that there are 100 Senators in Congress, even though the number has stayed
constant for years and is an easy one to remember. On the plus side, 40% of Americans
are now able to identify the three branches of government and properly name them. But
perhaps these people simply judge candidates one election at a time and choose from
there. Many surveys show that up to 50% of citizens can identify and explain a difference
between the Republican and Democratic parties. But it has also been shown that many
are unable to explain a difference between liberals and conservatives, which in reality
means they have no sense of distinction between the two. Even worse, this means that
voters have been identifying and judging their politicians based not just on what party
they are a member of, but these conceptions of the parties may not even be accurate4.
In order for a representative democracy like America to function and survive, it
needs active, informed and intelligent citizens to participate in the democratic process
and continually foster the republic. However, many of our institutions have failed to play
their role in shaping America’s citizens, and so there are several agents who deserve
some blame. Many studies link higher education and political engagement, but no direct
connection or substantive reasoning has ever been established. However, it can be safely
said that more could be done in the area of education to promote civic engagement. The
media, which should be democracy’s watchdog, is in a sad state of affairs. News outlets
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should be striving to uncover the latest news and informing the public with facts and
intelligent discourse on relevant issues. But with most news sources being owned by
massive corporations, profit becomes the bottom line; entertainment becomes the priority
rather than information.
Perhaps there are none more blameworthy for this distaste with politics than the
politicians themselves. They realize that the average voter has minimal interest in
actually hearing positions and intelligent debates, so they reduce their platform to a
poignant platitude that can fit on a bumper sticker and turn their refined rhetoric into a
catchy chant.
The most pervasive and apparent symptom of the decline in political activism is
the dramatic shrinking of the American electorate. Since the Kennedy v. Nixon election
in 1960, which has since become the benchmark by which all subsequent elections are
measured with 63% of adults coming out to vote, voter-turnout has decreased in each
presidential election culminating in the 1996 election in which “96.3 million came out
and 100.2 million passed.” This decrease in voter turnout clashes with conventional
wisdom about politics. One such theory states that increased education would likewise
increase voting. Political scientist V.O. Key wrote that “education not only tends to
imbue persons with a sense of civic duty, it also propels them into political activity,” and
in 1960 citizens with a college degree were 50% more likely to vote than those who had
not finished high school. At that time, only half of American adults had finished high
school and less than one-tenth of them had graduated from college. Today, Americans are
definitively more educated with 25% of American adults having graduated college and
another 25% having at least some college experience5. Despite this rise in education,
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voter turnout has declined and Americans are still tragically uninformed. A 2007 survey
of Intercollegiate Studies Institute tested 40,000 students at 50 different universities on
their knowledge of basic American civics and history. The average score on the test was
about 55% and less than half of the participants were able to identify the Battle of
Yorktown as the last battle of the American Revolution6.
Declining voter turnout is not the only indication of the downhill slide in political
participation. In the past fifty years, the number of volunteers who work the polls or
elsewhere on political campaigns has decreased drastically; as has the number of people
who watch televised presidential debates
7
. “The United States had 100 million fewer
people in 1960 than it did in 2000 but, even so, more people tuned in to watch the
October presidential debates than did so in 20008.” This huge jump in our population
coupled with the decline of viewership brings the realities of our apathy into sharp relief.
It is very likely that the decrease in political participation is merely symptomatic
of a larger issue. That larger issue in this case is the marked downturn in civic
engagement and political intelligence. While it is arguably the responsibility of the voters
to keep them themselves informed, it is definitely an uphill battle. The media, campaigns,
and candidates themselves have been little to no help to any citizen trying to be a well-
informed and active participant in government.
At the advent of the nightly news broadcast, the American public could tune in
and expect a level-headed and neutral reporting of the events of the day. But in modern
society, one which is dominated by 24 hour news networks that must create and then fill
a 24 hour news cycle, viewers can choose from a multitude of channels and networks
from which to receive their news. But rather than driving competing media teams to
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uncover the truth and provide the most relevant information about important and
newsworthy stories, news corporations have embraced sensationalism and fringe opinions
in order to extract the most intrigue and drama out of each story as possible. This means
that providing the news is no longer a public service, but a business with competition
from rival businesses and whose ultimate goal is to make the greatest profit rather than to
fairly and faithfully report the news.
It has become obvious that the news media has discovered that biases appeal to
their viewers. However, their leanings are not always liberal or conservative. Turning on
Fox News today will almost assuredly yield criticisms of President Obama and the
Democratic agenda in general. On the other hand, during President George W. Bush’s
term, networks like MSNBC and CNN were just as critical of him and the Republicans.
What is conspicuously absent from both of these scenarios are media outlets that will do
the opposite, and only heap criticism onto their chosen side.
This illustrates that while many news providers can be decidedly partisan, they
will almost always do so in a negative fashion. The run-up to the 2000 presidential
election proves to be an exemplary illustration of this tendency in the media. News cycles
during this time would often insinuate that George W. Bush was not very intelligent;
there were nine such claims in the news for every one contrary claim. Likewise, Al Gore
was often portrayed as less-than-truthful; these claims outpaced their rebuttals by
seventeen to one during the election season. Such portrayals of the candidates had severe
repercussions on the voters’ opinions. One voter interviewed on NBC was quoted as
having said, “My biggest concern is that Al Gore will say anything he needs to say to get
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elected President of the United States.” Prior to the portrayal of Gore as notoriously
dishonest by the media, this concern may have never crossed her mind 9.
But where do news networks get off criticizing candidates and parties, offering
their opinions rather than impartially reporting the news? In the 1950s, a neutral and
impartial news report was the norm. The nightly news consisted mainly of headlines
collected throughout the day by reporters and wire services. But in 1963 when networks
launched the first thirty-minute newscast which launched visually appealing and picture-
centric news programs. They quickly discovered that classic, print style reporting was not
conducive to the visual medium that was a television broadcast. When viewers could read
the headlines on their screen, they didn’t need someone reading it to them as well.
Furthermore, straightforward descriptions of news events seemed dull when presented to
a television audience. NBC nightly news executive producer Reuven Frank famously told
all of his reporters, “Every news story should, without any sacrifice of probity or
responsibility, display the attributes of fiction, of drama. It should have structure and
conflict, problem and denouement, rising action and falling action, a beginning, middle
and an end.” Frank’s point was that these news stories must be gripping and engaging,
this marks the shift of the news from an impartial report to the events of the day into a
compelling narrative that required reporters to provide their own analysis and opinions to
create interest10.
With this new development in the presentation of the news, a new style of
reporting also arose. Traditionally, reporters were called upon to transport viewers to the
scene of the event, and relay the events of the story. But this new style, this interpretive
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style, called upon journalists to not only report the news, but also to provide analysis of
the events. News reports became news stories.
But what makes this development in the logistics of journalism noteworthy is that
it shifted the power of the media and news stories from the newsmaker to the journalist.
As faithful and neutral reporters of the news, journalists were subject to the facts of the
events they were covering; leaving the implications and consequences of the story in the
hands of those who were being reported. But with the innovation of interpretive
reporting, newsmakers now had to be wary of the spin or bias that could be applied to
their media event.
The free market style of news reporting, in which networks compete with one
another for the most viewers, combined with this new style of interpretive reporting
allows and even encourages media outlets to diversify their coverage from others to
create a unique perspective on the news which will attract the maximum amount of
viewers. Political scientist James E. Combs calls this media logic. He claims that
American mass media are businesses just like any other and must market and sell their
products to customers. The logic and methodology of those who sell the mass media
product is partially supplemented and shaped by the logic of the consumer. People are
attracted to the products of news outlets because they wish to be entertained by them.
“The creators of mass media stories are interested in how to use a medium to tell the
stories that will sell. The consumers of this medium are interested in selecting which tales
they want to be entertained by.” The confluence of these two trains of logic creates a
perfect storm of partisan media; viewers have a specific set of views that they wish to
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have validated, and there are plenty of news sources who are willing to fulfill those
wishes11.
Of course the media is not alone in their culpability for the decline of political
knowledge, campaigns and candidates themselves are equally to blame; but when the two
collude, such as they do on televised Presidential debates, the subversion of thoughtful
discourse and implementation of subtle trickery skyrockets.
Presidential debates have been built up as media events that can often be a turning
point in the election; the pressure for candidates to perform is absurdly high given the
amount of substance debates usually contain. To prepare themselves for this harrowing
ordeal, candidates rely on advisors and coaches to stuff them full of facts and figures,
slogans and tricks of the trade, anything that will give them the impression of “wide-
ranging, unflappable competence.” Under the cold scrutiny of dozens of cameras and
with even more journalists and pundits ready to leap at any sign of weakness, the
candidates must radiate confidence and leadership. But all the emphasis and amplification
of visual stimulation is not the worst subversion of the debate as a democratic instrument.
Because of the nature of the debates and the high amount importance placed on them,
candidates are required to “exaggerate the effectiveness of public policy, to give the
impression that the right programs and the right leadership can meet every challenge.”
This only builds up the public to be disappointed and underwhelmed by the legislation
and public policy that their elected-leaders can pass. It is no small wonder that Americans
have grown disillusioned with Washington and embittered at politics in general12.
The politicking began with deciding format for the very first debate, Nixon v.
Kennedy, which became the format that all subsequent debates would follow; a Meet the
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Press style forum was decided upon because it would be familiar and easy for viewers to
digest. The issue that was more relevant to the campaigns was that the moderators should
ask the questions as both camps feared that if they candidates interrogated each other they
would be too polite with one another; said one aide, “no one likes the prosecuting-
attorney type on television.” So the candidates happily forfeited this responsibility to the
journalists and let them do the heavy lifting13.
The pigeon-holing of a particular candidate like this may seem far-fetched and
alarmist, but studies show that viewers do form certain preconceptions or character types
that they then try to impose on candidates. The party responsible for forming these
archetypes is once again found in the media, but this time soap operas are the culprit.
Characters on these shows often run for public office and their political ambitions will be
directly tied to their personal lives and temperament. Viewers will develop attachments to
characters based on their personal actions on these shows, which is fine in a world where
the viewers are not meant to participate in the election of these characters. Unfortunately,
much of the prejudice towards the disposition and character of candidates that viewers
have is transferred to real-world politics and actual politicians so that they are now
judged less by the merits of their public policy and more by their private lives14.
Unfortunately, the debates were hardly the enlightening roundtable discussion that
many political theorists hoped. In fact Clinton Rossiter, writing for the President’s
Commission on National Goals, called television the “Circus Maximus rather than the
Forum of American Democracy.” He further concluded that television had sufficiently
supplanted democracy with entertainment and that “democratic dialogue was in real
danger of being smothered.” Historian Daniel Boorstin called Presidential debates
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“pseudo-events” or counterfeit events that drove spontaneous events and news out of the
realm of interest. He saw no redeeming qualities in the debates as he failed to make the
connection between the ability, while under hot lights, without notes, to answer in
approximately two minutes a question that had until recently been a secret.
Critics of the debates were disappointed by the results, and rightly so. There was
no enlightened discussion of issues, no rhetorical compromise to find middle ground or
seek solutions. Many believe that being broadcast on television inherently tainted the
debates by naturally drawing more attention to appearance and the individual combatants
rather than issues. Television seems to have failed as a political medium, “it is not a new
mode for expressing citizenship but a new barrier to expression, not the speakers’ corner
for a new virtual community but a trivialization of the potentially serious” says Robert
Putnam. The necessity for quick answers and an inability to allow dead airtime for
candidates to think doomed television as a medium of reason; neither candidate was
allowed the time for thoughtful deliberation or the opportunity to consider alternatives
which are the inner qualities of a good and wise leader.
Still others criticized the format of the debate for not allowing open discourse and
inhibiting the depth of discussions. Even still, many voters, supporters from both sides of
the aisle, said that they learned a great deal from the televised debates. The debate’s
transcript reveals that both candidates seemingly made serious and conscious efforts to
state substantively opposing positions. It would appear that both Nixon and Kennedy
succeeded in at least making voters feel informed15.
But maybe, some theorized, this is simply the nature of politics and public
debates. These candidates are trying to be popularly elected and every action is
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scrutinized to the minutest detail in an effort to glean relevant information. But history
tells us that this is not the case, the Lincoln-Douglas debates epitomize oratory and
rhetoric at their best. To wit, they debated boldly and without restraint. Breaking most
standards of modern politics, they would explore all issues and consequences in depth,
spoke candidly about their positions and made claims from which it was difficult to
retreat. Christopher Lasch summarizes it best, saying that “They conducted themselves as
if political leadership carried with it an obligation to clarify issues instead of merely
getting elected16.”
Savvy political machines that they are, politicians and their staffs quickly identify
the average voter’s attention span to the issues and will adjust accordingly if they hope to
win the election. This characteristic of the electorate not only authorizes pithy and catchy
slogans over substantive rhetoric and debate, but opens the door for precipitous amounts
of mudslinging and lies to curry public favor.
Efforts to restrain campaigning to the truthful realm have been laughable. Ideally,
lies and mistruths would be instantly identified by the target’s campaign and the liar
would pay for his dishonesty by losing votes. But in a world that is so saturated by
misinformation and where white lies and half-truths are commonplace, voters become
desensitized to the lies and disenchanted with the candidates themselves.
The health and well-being of a representative democracy depends on the citizens’
favorable view of their government. “But,” Congressman James Bayard asked in 1799,
“how is that good opinion to be preserved, if wicked and unprincipled men, men of
inordinate and desperate ambition, are allowed to state facts to the people which are not
true, which they know at the time to be false, and which are stated with the criminal
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intention of bringing the government into disrepute among the people? This is falsely and
deceitfully stealing the public opinion; it is a felony of the worst and most dangerous
nature17.” When deception and fraud become such a regular aspect of politicking, how
are the American people expected to hold any member of government in any sort of
esteem? Not only are the politicians themselves painted as dishonest cheats, but
unfortunately, this deceit is often effective. Take for example, the 2010 Congressional
race between Steve Chabot and Steve Driehaus. Critics attacked Driehaus for voting for
federally funded abortion through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Despite lack of factual backing, Driehaus’ repeated, vehement denials, and even his
prolonged explanation detailing the process by which he managed to circumvent federal
funding for abortions, he was continually implicated by pro-life groups and the Chabot
camp.
This spread of misinformation in the political arena is only made worse by the
Supreme Court’s most recent decision. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,
a case that was decided 5-4 in 2008, upheld that the FEC cannot limit corporate spending
for political ads during election season18. The Court’s ruling stipulates that corporations
have the same rights as citizens and therefore have the full freedom of expression
guaranteed under the First Amendment; in this situation, expression means money.
Writing for the affirmative, Justice Kennedy argues that “When government seeks to use
its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her
information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control
thought19.”
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The results of the case were evident in the 2010 midterm elections when the
number of “independent” ads spiked, particularly on the conservative side. Sporting non-
partisan and independent names like Americans for Job Security, Crossroads Grassroots
Policy Strategies, or the 60 Plus Association, these political action committees all give
the impression of being grassroots organized and dedicated to progress through
bipartisanship. However, all the organizations named above, and hundreds more which
have only sprung up very recently, are all located within 20 minutes of Capitol Hill, most
in fact, in just two office suites20.
So these “grassroots, independent” organizations are not as much so as they
would appear. The results of this case would be far more tolerable and less devastating on
the political sphere if only these newfound bastions of bipartisanship and concern were
obligated to disclose their sources of funding. Unfortunately, this is not the case. As it is,
corporations are able to set up dummy non-profit or grassroots organizations with the
intention of promoting their own personal agendas.
While these groups are forbidden by election law to collude with specific political
candidates or the Republican Party committees, they manage to stay fairly well-
organized. This is where companies like American Crossroads enter the picture. "If one
group puts an ad on television in a certain congressional district, they let everyone else
know that," says Jonathan Collegio with American Crossroads. "This way they don't
double up on the advertising." This level of organization and cooperation is not the sort
of thing that happens incidentally. But the amount of interconnectedness and
relationships between all of these organizations can be slightly mind-boggling21.
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22
The above chart details the intricate networking and connections between a
relatively small group of individuals and their respective front-organizations. It clearly
illustrates how these so-called independent and bipartisan organizations are not actually
individual groups, but merely part of the larger Republican political machine, working
entirely outside of the official party.
It is easy to see how disseminating lies and misinformation about opponents could
have disastrous effects on the individual candidate basis. But when these strategies are
implemented on the massive corporate level as is now legal, the ramifications are
magnified to epic proportions that are not only corrosive to the political atmosphere but
incredibly difficult to trace making it nearly impossible to attribute responsibility for the
ads we see during election season. With such structures in place that are so readily
available to circumvent the law, it becomes criminally easy for large corporations or
private interest groups to hijack the lines of communication and saturate them with half-
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truths and pseudo-facts in order to spin public opinion to their liking. It is no small
wonder that half the country is misinformed and the other half disillusioned.
With so much working against the cause, one begins to wonder if this idealized,
omnicompetent, and sovereign model of the citizen is even achievable. It certainly does
seem like a tall order, and many experts do believe it to be an unattainable goal. Doubters
of the ideal citizen first began appearing in the early 20th Century. The 1920 and 1924
elections showcased the lowest voter turnout since 1830 and would remain the lowest in
history until 1988. Journalists Arthur M. Schlesigner and Erik M. Erikson lamented the
lack of participation in The New Republic article “The Vanishing Voter,” they noted
wryly that voter turnout was declining shortly after more extensive and more
independently exercised suffrage had been achieved. This decline, they claimed, could be
attributed to both a lack of difference between the current parties and also to the
increasing complexity of modern life. “Ours is now a ‘frantic, over-organized,
spectacular, urbanized, machine-driven world’ they lamented.” If an overly-modernized
society filled with introspective and overly-stimulated citizenry was a considered the end
of democratic citizenship nearly 100 years ago, then today’s modern age must be the
post-apocalyptic wasteland of government and civic engagement.
The studies of Sigmund Freud, among other psychologists and behaviorists
attempted to offer a scientific explanation for why our lofty goals were unachievable.
They began questioning whether the ideal of democracy was even rationally possible
given all of the imperfections of the human psyche. Walter Lippmann took up this issue
directly in his writings. He found that “the citizens’ capacity to clearly see and judge the
world was blocked not so much by outside obstacles as by their own distortions of will
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and desire.” Even without the outside influences of campaign ads, political propaganda,
and the sway of other voters, citizens would be unable to vote objectively. Lippmann
claimed that alone in the voting booth voters were finally autonomous, except that
autonomy itself was a sham promulgated by political idealists. Freud now taught that
human beings are conflicted creatures, driven by desire; and “they are social creatures,
the sedimentary collecting points for the deposits of social forces.” Humans, it would
appear, are anything but rational and autonomous individuals23.
But if there is hope for the American public, hope that they may prove themselves
as intelligent, insightful, and independent agents, it is in education. Education is the
proverbial silver bullet of public policy; however it is also arguably the hardest public
program to effectively steer. Bad schools in many parts of the country continue to fail
despite excessive funding and programs like No Child Left Behind that attempt to
remedy the system have been fraught with more failings than successes. And none of
these solutions have been able to adequately address the issue of children who are
uninterested in learning. This is partially an economic program as the areas where this is
most prevalent are poorer inner cities where there is less of an educational presence in the
home and whose culture is dominated by the glorification of gangster life over formal
education and a respectable career.
The current model for American public schools today is based on Horace Mann’s
theories of the common school. Called the Father of American education, Mann’s
proposals and theories have shaped our current conception of what schooling is and
should be. Many of his measures were good ones that have positively impacted American
education; we rejected the European model which provided a liberal education only to the
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privileged and vocational training for the masses, abolished child labor and provided a
free education to all, trained and utilized professional educators, and enforced a strict
separation between church and state.
These innovations have been largely beneficial to the school system and are now
considered staples of American education and a quality education worldwide. But these
strict controls on how the system operates, though they themselves are laudable, came
with some that Mann misjudged. “His educational philosophy was hostile to imagination
as such. He preferred fact to fiction, science to mythology. He complained that young
people were given a mass of fictions, when they needed true stories and real examples of
real men.” It was his goal to eliminate all aspects of moral ambiguity in the materials and
lessons that children were taught in order to properly inculcate them with the mindset of
good, moral, and rational citizens. Mann wanted children to receive their impressions of
the world from those who were properly qualified to display it to them, rather than the
children picking up impressions haphazardly from both written and oral narratives that
were not necessarily intended for consumption by children. The flaw in this logic, and
the great weakness in Mann’s philosophy, is that he assumed that education took place
only in the classroom. This fatal assumption has persisted through many of today’s
educators; it is probably an occupational hazard of teaching, to view education and
schooling as synonymous terms.
But the aspect of Mann’s influence on education that has most drastically affected
civil engagement is his intense distaste for partisan politics. It did not occur to him that
politics, like war and love, was a subject that could be educational in it of itself. Though
he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1848, Mann had a strong aversion to
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polarizing and partisan politics which he believed served as a corroding agent on the
morality of all those involved. Mann describes how the fervor of election season gripped
the nation, “agitation pervaded the country. There was no stagnant mind; no stagnant
atmosphere… Wit, argument, eloquence, were in such demand, that they were sent for at
the distance of a thousand miles.” The election of 1848, as described by Mann, would
today be cause for a joyous celebration that the American people finally seemed to care
about the future of their nation. Yet all Mann is able to find in the excitement is
“violence… din… a Saturnalia of license, evil-speaking, and falsehood.” Elsewhere he
calls it a “conflagration” and a “poison,” wishing that the energy devoted to politics could
be redirected towards putting kids in school and properly educating them.
We can begin to see from Mann’s writings that he wanted politics out of the
school not only because he was afraid of his system being hijacked and used for partisan
purposes, but because he distrusted the entire business of politics in general. It produced
controversy, an inflammation of the passions, which Mann believed not to fuel education,
but to destroy it through dividing men rather than uniting them. Many today would argue
that controversy is a necessary part of education, which fuels and pushes forward debate
so that new levels of discourse can be reached. But Mann saw it only as divisive in
nature, destined to drive a stake between the educated and peaceful populace he was
trying to breed. Mann did realize however that if his schools taught nothing on the
subject, children would be destined to pick up on the fierce partisan rhetoric from some
other source and would adapt it as their only concept of politics. To avoid this, schools
taught only limited political history, “those articles in the creed of republicanism, which
are accepted by all, believed in by all, and which form the common basis for our political
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faith” and that anything controversial would be treated with silence or at best with the
admonition that “the schoolroom is neither the tribunal to adjudicate, nor the forum to
discuss it.” The fact that Mann never questioned whether his teachings on politics were
controversial or whether others would disagree with his views on the nature of
government itself is not the worst part of all this. What is worse is that his bland
teachings of the subject deprived the children of anything that might have appealed to
their passions or intrigued them. Political history as taught by the Mann method would be
sanitized and drained of excitement. It would become mild, boring, innocuous, and
“trivialized by a suffering didacticism.” And so for generations, millions of potentially
brilliant political minds have gone untapped; they lie still dormant in the child’s mind,
waiting to be awakened by a taste of the thrill of politics24.
But looking back on Lasch’s theories of the lost art of argument, there is yet a
light at the end of the tunnel. America’s educational systems are in drastic need of an
overhaul, as they have been for years, and none of our solutions have yet had substantial
effect. But, “if we insist on argument as the essence of education, we will defend
democracy not as the most efficient but as the most educational form of government, one
that extends the circle of debate as widely as possible and thus forces citizens to articulate
their views, to put their views at risk, and to cultivate the virtues of eloquence, clarity of
thought and expression, and sound judgment.” Lippmann notes that democracy seems to
work best in small communities, but this is not, as he claims, because they are self-
contained in nature. It is because they are small enough so that all members of the
community can join into the discussion.
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Lasch argues that rather than dismissing representative democracy as a broken
system not applicable to a nation our size, it should be re-created on a larger scale;
expanding the debate to the schoolyards and from there, every corner of the country. It is
by exposing our opinions to the criticisms of others that we are able to grow in them. In
this way we come to know what we have learned, and what we still need to learn; we
better understand our opponents’ arguments, sometimes at the risk of being persuaded,
but this is the nature of debate and the driving force of democracy. Argument is risky and
unpredictable, but it is this that makes it educational. Only by explaining and defending
our beliefs can we grow in them, develop them, until the point when we can effectively
express our experiences and hope that others will recognize themselves in them. Until we
are willing to subject ourselves to this, our opinions will remain opinions in Lippmann’s
derogatory sense of the word, as “half-formed convictions based on random impressions
and unexamined assumptions.” Argument and politics are not as Lippmann and Dewey
view them, as a shouting match between rival dogmas. Rather, it is the most crucial tool
democracy has to effectively move forward debates and ideas on the issues that
determine the course of our lives every day25.
Undoubtedly, America’s political landscape is in a bleak condition. Though its
faults are numerous, pervasive, and infectious, it is still functioning to its effect. But
improvements must be made; the American voter is at the mercy of the media and the
campaigns for information about the election. Citizens who wish to become truly
informed about the issues and then vote rationally must make the effort to find the truth
themselves, then, use it to combat the misinformation they encounter. But this is only a
stop-gap measure, the true reform must come in our education and how we are
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conditioned to treat politics. Educational institutions need to instill a passion for
argument and politics at an early age by properly exposing them to historical and current
events in order to create a new generation of politicos. Only through expanding the
debate and the decision-making power will citizens be empowered to take back the
control of their government and foster their republic.
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1 Rick Shenkman, “Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?” http://www.alternet.org/news/90161/?
page=entire (accessed November 7, 2010)2 Shenkman3 The American National Election Studies (www.electionstudies.org). THE ANES GUIDE TO PUBLIC OPINION
AND ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies4 Shenkman5Robert E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage,
2003), 776 Shenkman7 The American National Election Studies (www.electionstudies.org). THE ANES GUIDE TO PUBLIC OPINION
AND ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies8Patterson , 789Patterson, 8110Patterson, 84-8811James E. Combs, Polpop: Politics and Popular Culture in America (Bowling Green: Bowling Green Popular
Press, 1984), 8912 Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: Norton, 1996), 16513Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of American Civil Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998),
23514Combs, 9315Schudson, 236-240
16Lasch, 16417Schudson, 73-7418U.S. Supreme Court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Case # 08-205, January 21, 201019Adam Liptak, “Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit,” The New York Times, January 21, 201020Peter Overby and Andrea Seabrook, “’Independent’ Groups Behind Ads Not So Independent,”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130836771 (accessed December 2, 2010)21Overby and Seabrook 22 National Public Radio, Election 2010, “A Web of GOP Influence,” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=130845545 (Accessed December 2, 2010)23Schudson, 189-19124Lasch, 147-15425Lasch, 171-172