Fearing Democracy in the Hands of a Consumerist Electorate
On Florida’s ballot next week is a measure which would give citizens the power to vote on any development which would impact a region in a substantial way. Currently, such decision making takes place on county commissions which are increasingly dominated by developers with the result that Paradise is being paved to put up a parking lot.
The state teacher’s union has recommended its members vote no on this amendment. As a colleague revealed last week, this recommendation arises out of support for the AFLCIO who sees the amendment as potentially detrimental to the construction industry where many of its members work in Florida.
It’s a bit ironic that a union whose business it is, in part, to create thinking socially responsible citizens would recommend against the right of citizens to determine their own futures in terms of development. At some level that doesn’t evince much confidence in the job their own members – here, public school teachers – are doing.
This revelation has led to a discussion on our faculty list which has thus far been relegated to myself and the colleague who provided the explanation for the FEA recommendation against Amendment Four. But it has also prompted some serious concerns regarding my own vote on this amendment.
In theory I favor citizen oversight. But increasingly I see few actual citizens and an awful lot of consumers, as this exchange from the faculty list reveals:
Harry, it seems to me that the fear you express here is a general fear of democracy itself, in the hands of a largely uneducated electorate, ignorant of where their interests really lie. And I share that fear--it seems to me the problem we're facing, the problem of a largely ignorant citizenry, is precisely THE challenge for us as "educators." And since those who have been in that role for the last several decades have apparently done a pretty bad job of it overall, we seem to be facing the threat of our government being placed in the hands of people who, for example, don't even understand what the First Amendment says. Pretty scary, all right.
I wish I felt ignorance was the only problem. Ignorance is curable. But I observe this to be something much more pernicious.
What I observe is that many Americans see themselves as consumers, not citizens. Consumers are passive recipients of entertainment and consumer goods. We pride ourselves on making choices even as the choices we make fall within a limited set provided by consumer goods and services providers. Increasingly, that includes our candidates for office. Our choices are corporate lite and corporate right. And the corporate media insures that the emperor will never be informed by any little boys that he has no clothes. Whatever else results from consumption of corporate media, it is rarely critical consciousness.
But this ongoing lobotomization is consensual, ultimately. It's a lot easier to be a consumer than a citizen because the latter actually requires something of the individual beyond mere passivity. Citizenship requires becoming educated, remaining informed, being willing to commit to critical reflection on issues and candidates. It requires the capacity and the will to see the larger picture - how one's vote affects "we, the people" and not a mere simplistic inquiry into whether one is
"better off than you were four years ago." In short, it requires a commitment that
consumerism rejects - "Talk all the time! Obey your thirst! Just Do It!". As my honors student explained it to me earlier this term, "We're not informed, we don't want to become informed and so our choice is not to vote."
To paraphrase the Gospel of John, Jefferson wept.
It is my observation that our public schools have largely failed to inculcate any sense of citizenship and its demand for commitment in our students. I attribute that in part to the perhaps well intentioned but ultimately high misguided approach of high stakes testing driven pedagogy of the past decade. This approach has neglected the subject matter of history and government on the tests themselves suggesting their lack of ultimate importance to students. Ask yourself how many times you've had your students inquire as to whether something was going to be on the test before reading, listening in class, much less taking notes.
High stakes testing pedagogy also has inculcated a bottom line mentality in our students which plays well into consumerism where the inquiry "What's in it for me?" becomes the ultimate criterion as to one's engagement of anything. It lends itself to reductionism in thought and minimalism in engagement. Such does not bode well for a democracy which depends upon socially responsible citizens.
I do agree that awareness of the provisions of our Constitution and Bill of Rights is minimal and usually deficient if not distorted. This is true of our larger public and not just our students. What never ceases to amaze me is observing the same literalist/fundamentalist approach that one sees in religion being applied to the Constitution. Students argue that "separation of church and state is not in the First Amendment" which is true if one only looks at the letter of the law but is simplistic when considering the interpretation - and thus application - of the law over time by the courts. Many aspects of constitutional law that our citizenry take for granted from the freedom of expression to the right to privacy are not in the US Constitution verbatim but have resulted from interpretation of the civil liberties which are delineated there.
Of course, a standardized test driven approach to education would readily anticipate such a result. Answers must fit into one of four possibilities offered the consumer/student who then chooses from among them. The notion that one would have to read, critically reflect upon the language of the text and then apply it to a factual scenario is beyond the scope of what the average consumer is willing to engage.
It's little wonder then that you hear frightening polemics from folks who in the past would have been considered crackpots or simpletons but today become the primary focus of infotainment. You hear an awful lot of ignorance - much of it perhaps willful - in this rhetoric. But you also hear
an awful lot of self-focus and tribal thinking. And, increasingly, you hear an awful lot of rage and irrationality. I wonder what the breaking point of a country is when the self-focused thinking of children and tribal group think of junior high kids is elevated to the primary basis for decision making in a nation-state.
While I clearly do not like what I see when I look around me in America today, I do think we must take this reality seriously. As I used to tell my juvie clients, "We don't get to choose our facts today but we must deal with them when we go into that courtroom." At heart I am completely conflicted on Amdt. 4. I want to give citizens a check on unregulated development that has turned the state in which my family has resided now six generations into a giant strip mall. I think they have a right to make such decisions. On the other hand, when I look around me, I see few citizens and an awful lot of consumers easily swayed by distorted advertising and disinformation. I'm not sure why they would be any better judges of developmental questions than the status quo.
There's a bit of a cynical Catch 22 here - the status quo is dominated by corporate interests who act in a manner adverse to the interests of many if not most residents. The alternative is to commit such decisions to a public which is largely dominated by corporate interests capable of distorting the issues and disinforming the public who is largely disengaged and disinterested in responsible citizenship.
I seem to remember this is precisely the situation predicted by the scholars of the Frankfurt School back 60 years ago. Weber’s Iron Cage of unregulated capitalism snaps shut.
OK. Enough rambling for a Saturday morning. My yard is calling, my very parched jungle demanding some attention in this day 29 of October drought in this third hottest year on record.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Inside the Circled Wagons
Last week Pew Research Center announced the results of a survey it had conducted among American residents regarding their familiarity with world religions. The talking heads have been abuzz ever since over the results, most of them offering sound bites of sensationalism rather than anything of substance.
The survey found that most Americans are largely unaware of world religions including their own. On a 32 question survey which was largely focused on Christianity but included questions about other world religions, the average survey respondent scored about 50%. I have to say that’s better than I would have predicted. But in a country with as much religious diversity as our own, it’s also pretty scary.
The buzz was generated by the fact that respondents identifying themselves as agnostic or atheist scored the highest on the survey with an average score of about 2 out of 3 correct answers. They were followed closely by Jews. Of Christian groups Mormons scored by far the highest with 63% correct. That number drops to just over half of the questions correct among evangelical Protestants and by the time one gets to African-American Protestants and Hispanic Catholics those numbers drop to 42% and 36% respectively.
It seems that Christians don’t like being seen as more ignorant than Jews and particularly resent being portrayed as more ignorant than atheists/agnostics. Even more troubling are the numbers about self-awareness of their own traditions. On average Christians scored just over 50% on the questions about the Bible and Christianity. That’s a rather shocking lack of awareness of religions that are generally held devoutly and proffered fervently to others.
Mormons scored the highest here with nearly 2/3 correct answers while evangelicals scored 61% correct here. The remainder of the Christian groups got less than half of the questions correct about their own tradition. On world religions, only Mormons got more than half correct with Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics scoring less than 1/3 correct. Similarly, regarding religion and public life, none of the Christian groups score higher than slightly more than 50% correct.
A number of concerns emerge from this data. First, while Americans pride themselves on being a religious people, for most of us that religion is largely uninformed. That lack of information includes awareness of one’s own tradition but is particularly notable regarding other religions as well as religion’s role in our public life. The problem with a religious population simultaneously marked by its fervor as well as its ignorance would seem self-evident.
That is particularly true when the data for ethnically and racially defined religious groups are examined. Black churches historically have been centers of refuge for African-Americans in a largely hostile racist culture. More recently, Hispanic Protestant churches have proven refuges for immigrants to America as well as for the many who have moved to the barrios ringing Latin America’s great cities, refugees from economic devastation in the countryside.
But when does the refuge become an intellectual prison? One of the striking aspects of the Pew data is that while racially and ethnically defined churches with their circled wagons mentalities do provide support for those within the circle and defense against the hostile elements outside, they also tend to foster low levels of awareness of religion both inside and outside the circle.
In much the same way gated communities serve as the locus for intellectual incest, where the like-minded and like-situated talk only among themselves and screen out any potential disaffirming other, circled wagons religious bodies become hothouses where one’s biases are both affirmed and protected against any possible challenge. The high levels of support for the anti-gay Proposition 8 in 2008 among these very communities speak to the effectiveness of the circled wagons in screening out any arguments or evidence contrary to the approved group think within.
But perhaps the more serious concern that emerges from the Pew data is how it illuminates high profile inter-religious conflicts such as the proposed Islamic center in Manhattan which has been consistently and deliberately mischaracterized as “the Ground Zero mosque.” Much like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither Roman nor an Empire and rarely anything remotely holy, the center is neither a mosque nor is it particularly close to the 9-11 site. But such facts have not deterred its antagonists who would paint all Muslims as terrorists, blaming an entire world religion for the acts of a handful of extremists. Imagine if Christianity were summed up by the work of Torquemada or the Puritans of Salem.
Not surprisingly, the Pew data found that religious awareness rises with educational attainment. It’s pretty hard to attend anything other than a circled wagons religious college and not be exposed to some of the ideas about religion that Pew was testing here. More importantly, it’s pretty difficult in most urban centers in the country to attend a college or university where one does not actually encounter a person with religious understandings and practices which are different from one’s own. Hence, while college graduates get about 2/3 of the Pew questions correct, that number plunges to four out of 10 among those with a high school diploma or less.
In a multicultural and religiously diverse country like the United States, ignorance about religions is not bliss. It’s dangerous. A lack of understanding about the role of religion and public life can lead to the homophobia confused for religiosity observable in California and the vote on Proposition 8 which centered largely in religious communities, most notably in the insular ethnic and racially defined religious communities there. A lack of understanding of other world religions (and perhaps educational attainment as well) can fuel high profile confrontations with other world religions such as the gun-totin’ pastor in Gainesville, FL and his plans to burn the mountain of Qurans he had received from fellow Islamaphobics around the country on the anniversary of 9-11.
In all fairness, it is important to note that awareness of religions does not necessarily translate to a propensity to treat the other with respect. The antics of atheist proselytizers Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris readily demonstrate the willingness to engage in a crude stereotyping which sums up entire religious traditions by their worst case scenarios for purposes of dismissing if not demonizing them. And the role of the Mormons in the funding of dehumanizing and disingenuous advertising in the Prop. 8 campaign demonstrates that awareness alone is not the silver bullet for misanthropy and the willingness to engage in discriminatory public policy.
Over the past two weeks I have given the abbreviated version of Pew’s survey (which you can take at their website) to my students, a number of whom are honors students. They are generally scoring between 75-85% on the survey. I then show them the data on how they compare to other Americans and the difference educational attainment makes (thus explaining, to some degree, their higher scores). And I ask them to consider what difference that makes.
These are students who tend to be dismayed by the religious antics of Quran burning pastors and uncritical, passionate sound bite arguments swirling around Ground Zero. It is important that they realize how the college education they take for granted will change the way they see the world and potentially put them at odds with those they left behind back home. It is even more important that they see how awareness of the other almost always makes a significant difference in the way we see and treat them.
Quran burnings and Ground Zero mosque debates are no doubt the harbingers of things to come in a nation where the fastest growing religious self-identification is “none of the above.” In a very short time, this will be their concern. I wish them well in meeting these challenges. I think they’ve clearly got their work cut out for them.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Last week Pew Research Center announced the results of a survey it had conducted among American residents regarding their familiarity with world religions. The talking heads have been abuzz ever since over the results, most of them offering sound bites of sensationalism rather than anything of substance.
The survey found that most Americans are largely unaware of world religions including their own. On a 32 question survey which was largely focused on Christianity but included questions about other world religions, the average survey respondent scored about 50%. I have to say that’s better than I would have predicted. But in a country with as much religious diversity as our own, it’s also pretty scary.
The buzz was generated by the fact that respondents identifying themselves as agnostic or atheist scored the highest on the survey with an average score of about 2 out of 3 correct answers. They were followed closely by Jews. Of Christian groups Mormons scored by far the highest with 63% correct. That number drops to just over half of the questions correct among evangelical Protestants and by the time one gets to African-American Protestants and Hispanic Catholics those numbers drop to 42% and 36% respectively.
It seems that Christians don’t like being seen as more ignorant than Jews and particularly resent being portrayed as more ignorant than atheists/agnostics. Even more troubling are the numbers about self-awareness of their own traditions. On average Christians scored just over 50% on the questions about the Bible and Christianity. That’s a rather shocking lack of awareness of religions that are generally held devoutly and proffered fervently to others.
Mormons scored the highest here with nearly 2/3 correct answers while evangelicals scored 61% correct here. The remainder of the Christian groups got less than half of the questions correct about their own tradition. On world religions, only Mormons got more than half correct with Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics scoring less than 1/3 correct. Similarly, regarding religion and public life, none of the Christian groups score higher than slightly more than 50% correct.
A number of concerns emerge from this data. First, while Americans pride themselves on being a religious people, for most of us that religion is largely uninformed. That lack of information includes awareness of one’s own tradition but is particularly notable regarding other religions as well as religion’s role in our public life. The problem with a religious population simultaneously marked by its fervor as well as its ignorance would seem self-evident.
That is particularly true when the data for ethnically and racially defined religious groups are examined. Black churches historically have been centers of refuge for African-Americans in a largely hostile racist culture. More recently, Hispanic Protestant churches have proven refuges for immigrants to America as well as for the many who have moved to the barrios ringing Latin America’s great cities, refugees from economic devastation in the countryside.
But when does the refuge become an intellectual prison? One of the striking aspects of the Pew data is that while racially and ethnically defined churches with their circled wagons mentalities do provide support for those within the circle and defense against the hostile elements outside, they also tend to foster low levels of awareness of religion both inside and outside the circle.
In much the same way gated communities serve as the locus for intellectual incest, where the like-minded and like-situated talk only among themselves and screen out any potential disaffirming other, circled wagons religious bodies become hothouses where one’s biases are both affirmed and protected against any possible challenge. The high levels of support for the anti-gay Proposition 8 in 2008 among these very communities speak to the effectiveness of the circled wagons in screening out any arguments or evidence contrary to the approved group think within.
But perhaps the more serious concern that emerges from the Pew data is how it illuminates high profile inter-religious conflicts such as the proposed Islamic center in Manhattan which has been consistently and deliberately mischaracterized as “the Ground Zero mosque.” Much like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither Roman nor an Empire and rarely anything remotely holy, the center is neither a mosque nor is it particularly close to the 9-11 site. But such facts have not deterred its antagonists who would paint all Muslims as terrorists, blaming an entire world religion for the acts of a handful of extremists. Imagine if Christianity were summed up by the work of Torquemada or the Puritans of Salem.
Not surprisingly, the Pew data found that religious awareness rises with educational attainment. It’s pretty hard to attend anything other than a circled wagons religious college and not be exposed to some of the ideas about religion that Pew was testing here. More importantly, it’s pretty difficult in most urban centers in the country to attend a college or university where one does not actually encounter a person with religious understandings and practices which are different from one’s own. Hence, while college graduates get about 2/3 of the Pew questions correct, that number plunges to four out of 10 among those with a high school diploma or less.
In a multicultural and religiously diverse country like the United States, ignorance about religions is not bliss. It’s dangerous. A lack of understanding about the role of religion and public life can lead to the homophobia confused for religiosity observable in California and the vote on Proposition 8 which centered largely in religious communities, most notably in the insular ethnic and racially defined religious communities there. A lack of understanding of other world religions (and perhaps educational attainment as well) can fuel high profile confrontations with other world religions such as the gun-totin’ pastor in Gainesville, FL and his plans to burn the mountain of Qurans he had received from fellow Islamaphobics around the country on the anniversary of 9-11.
In all fairness, it is important to note that awareness of religions does not necessarily translate to a propensity to treat the other with respect. The antics of atheist proselytizers Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris readily demonstrate the willingness to engage in a crude stereotyping which sums up entire religious traditions by their worst case scenarios for purposes of dismissing if not demonizing them. And the role of the Mormons in the funding of dehumanizing and disingenuous advertising in the Prop. 8 campaign demonstrates that awareness alone is not the silver bullet for misanthropy and the willingness to engage in discriminatory public policy.
Over the past two weeks I have given the abbreviated version of Pew’s survey (which you can take at their website) to my students, a number of whom are honors students. They are generally scoring between 75-85% on the survey. I then show them the data on how they compare to other Americans and the difference educational attainment makes (thus explaining, to some degree, their higher scores). And I ask them to consider what difference that makes.
These are students who tend to be dismayed by the religious antics of Quran burning pastors and uncritical, passionate sound bite arguments swirling around Ground Zero. It is important that they realize how the college education they take for granted will change the way they see the world and potentially put them at odds with those they left behind back home. It is even more important that they see how awareness of the other almost always makes a significant difference in the way we see and treat them.
Quran burnings and Ground Zero mosque debates are no doubt the harbingers of things to come in a nation where the fastest growing religious self-identification is “none of the above.” In a very short time, this will be their concern. I wish them well in meeting these challenges. I think they’ve clearly got their work cut out for them.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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