Divided We Fall: Unity Without Tragedy

I'm be fortunate to be part of the efforts to bring this wonderful show together. The National Institute for Civil Discourse and New Voice Strategies have brought this together! Learn more by visiting Divided We Fall TV. 

DIVIDED WE FALL: UNITY WITHOUT TRAGEDY brings ordinary citizens together to wrestle with the complex issues that divide our nation. Breaking out of partisan echo chambers to listen to one another, the participants - equal numbers of whom strongly approve and disapprove of President Donald Trump - explore what it means to be an American.

K-State, distance learning, and a global health crisis: Then and now

We are now weeks into the new experience of social distancing, teaching remotely, and finding ways to continue our mission as a land-grant university with respect to teaching, research, and engagement because of a novel coronavirus, COVID-19. For many, it feels utterly foreign to not be able to interact with students, fellow researchers, or youth through 4-H programming. This has caused a rapid response to technologies that create the experience of being present as much as possible.

When we think about the radical nature of where we are today, it’s a helpful reminder that Kansas State University, generations ago, took many steps to provide remote instruction as part of a forgotten movement that helped define the public mission of land-grant universities at the turn of the 20^th century and beyond.

In America’s Forgotten Epidemic, Alfred Crosby detailed the great influenza known as the “Spanish Flu” that emerged in Haskell County and at Fort Riley in 1918 and impacted the world over. Recent estimates range from 50 to 100 million dead, considerably more than the 10 million military casualties. Crosby published his book’s second edition in 2003 on the heels of concern about then-contemporary outbreaks such as SARS. As he put it, “As I write this, SARS has spread …. It is well on its way to circling the globe in a matter of weeks.” He highlighted the importance taking seriously these health concerns. For an institution such as K-State as the future home of the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, it is important to recognize, as Crosby put it, “The medical optimism circa 1976 is receding. America’s Forgotten Pandemic has at last attained contemporary relevancy.” We continue to confront challenges that some saw as belonging to the dustbin of history. We can learn from what took place a century ago.

So what did K-State do during the 1918 influenza? Land-grant institutions such as K-State were fulfilling their tripartite mission by educating students on campus and across the state. But how? One of the ways was through distance learning to engage diverse citizens. It’s easy to think of distance education as a relatively new experience, but it, in fact, has deep roots at K-State and at other land-grant universities. “Study by correspondence was promoted with vigor, and the staff of the department enlarged,” noted Julius Willard’s 1940 history about K-State during the late 1910s. The idea of asynchronous learning from people geographically dispersed and unable to pursue a degree on campus had gained traction during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. At K-State, the origins of providing education through correspondence study were in 1910 when the Board of Regents authorized Extension to establish such courses in various departments related to farm life. This work was increasingly broadened to include “reading courses, study centers, courses giving credit on college entrance, courses giving credit toward graduation from college, and special services.”

In July 1918, the Kansas State Agricultural College Bulletin published the announcement of courses and information for the Home-Study Service. As the Home-Study Bulletin noted,

“The Department of Home-study Service of the Division of College Extension was organized to form a close connecting link between the work of the resident classes and those who are doing extra-mural work. The instructors employed in this department were selected not only because of their technical preparation, but also because they have made a careful study of the methods of correspondence teaching.”

A visual on the cover of the 1918 and 1919 

Kansas State Agricultural College Bulletin highlighting

the way in which the state was the campus for the institution.

K-State had a commitment to providing education to Kansans beyond those who could be on campus in Manhattan. The following year, the Bulletin announcing courses for 1919 stated its work this way: “The Home-study Service is a part of the Extension Division of the Kansas State Agricultural College, designed to make the state its campus—to enable the College to come to those who cannot come to it.”

This sense of the State of Kansas as the campus was captured by the image found on the cover of both the 1918 and 1919 publications. Embodying similar principles to the famous “Wisconsin Idea” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, K-State saw its role through education in all parts of the state touching boys and girls, men and women alike. Through correspondence courses and other forms of learning managed by K-State, education was not limited to academic halls or research fields on campus. In a 1923 report on the state of higher education in Kansas, this sentiment was confirmed: “The whole State has thus become the campus of the institutions, and the people have been made to feel that, if they cannot go to the institutions, the institutions will go to them with a variety of courses….” Correspondence and home-study offerings were a popular way for Kansans to access education when they weren’t able to experience in-person education on campus. These alternative forms became opportunities for “odd hours of spare time” to “be made to count.”

It’s helpful to note this history because of the similarities of the 1918 influenza and COVID-19 today. Currently, during this time of the K-State community dispersed from the Manhattan campus and now returned home across the state and beyond, there is a valuable reminder that K-State has provided education during a global health crisis in its past.

While many of us spend considerable time utilizing modern technologies such as Zoom and Canvas, the useful technology of the day then for communicating over long distances—the postal service—was important but was not the defining characteristic. As a 1920 report on correspondence courses highlighted, “It is not, then, the intervention of the postal system which gives the correspondence study its virtue. The method of instruction is the essential thing.” It’s not simply that we’re teaching online, but how we’re doing it. After this period of time passes and we return to campus, there will be new technologies and resources that we’ve utilized today that will serve us in the future. While faculty have learned new ways of engaging students because of this current crisis, we might bring some of our newfound knowledge to courses when we finally meet again in Nichols, Waters, and Justin Halls because of the educational benefits to doing so.  

Finally, as we look back to the period of that two-year global pandemic more than a century ago, it’s important to recognize that life continued. K-State continued to grow, especially as it related to what the institution was doing when it educated citizens, especially in such challenging times. A helpful reminder of that larger mission and purpose was stated by then President William Jardine. In his inaugural address in February 1919, President Jardine noted:

“In the realm of the college proper, it shall be the aim of our teaching in the future, as in the past, to give training of the highest professional type in the fundamental sciences and liberalizing subjects, as well as thorough training in the several technical curricula. Emphasis will be placed also on the practical viewpoint. We want students to know the problems that are to be solved and to be able to meet men and women of the work-a-day world on a common ground of understanding. In a larger way the aim of our teaching and training will be to produce not only the practical agriculturist, engineer and housekeeper, but also young men and women trained for leadership, young men and women who have been led, through a study of the social relations combined with professional and practical training, to have a larger vision of the duty of college trained men and women as leaders in community development.”

This commitment to helping students gain technical knowledge and expertise, a commitment to practical application, and a “larger vision” of duty is a theme that shaped K-State in 1919 and continues today. The “new education,” to use Jardine’s phrase, “must embody in it the larger, broader aim of training for citizenship.” In today’s terminology, we would refer to those with technical knowledge and a commitment to a larger purpose as civic professionals. As we engage one another using Zoom during COVID-19, we would do well to remember previous generations of K-State faculty and students who dealt with their own serious challenges. A century ago, faculty were encouraged to educate students to have a “larger vision” and to see them as “leaders.” While it might be in the backs of our minds, we do well to remember our role in furthering K-State’s mission of helping to develop a highly skilled and educated citizenry necessary to advancing the well-being of Kansas, the nation, and the international community.

When 20,000 American Nazis Descended Upon New York City

For the full story, check out this story at The Atlantic. 

"He was a Democrat and I was a Republican so we didn’t have too much to talk about.”

The Belleville-News Democrat, the local paper from the community in which James T. Hodgkinson lived, provides a perspective that I think we need to attend to in the midst of this highly publicized act of violence towards members of Congress and their staff with a gun.

The paper quotes a neighbor of Hodgkinson:

Aaron Meurer is a neighbor of the Hodgkinsons and said he noticed in the last two months James had been gone. The alleged shooter’s wife Suzanne told him her husband was travelling. 

“She said that he went on a trip. She wasn’t real specific,” said Meurer, unclear whether the couple had split up recently.”He’s been gone for the last two months, so I haven’t seen him around too often.” 

Meurer said he occasionally cut his neighbor’s grass to help out. He didn’t know the neighbors well, just socialized from the lawn, and said his neighbor would fire guns on his rural property, commonplace in the open area outside of Belleville. 

“I knew he was a Democrat, a pretty hardcore one. I know he wasn’t happy when Trump got elected but he seemed like a nice enough guy,” recalled Meurer, who said the couple lived across the street for about six years. 

“He seemed like he was sem-retired, he was home a lot. He used to garden a couple of years ago,”said Meurer, who runs his own trimming and removal service. “I didn’t really talk to him too much. He was a Democrat and I was a Republican so we didn’t have too much to talk about.” 

Meurer said during the campaign Hodgkinson had a lone Bernie Sanders sign near the road in his front yard. He thought that Hodgkinson had raised foster kids who had grown up. He also thought there were grandchildren who visited occasionally. 

“We were neighbors but we didn’t talk every day. When we saw them in the yard we’d say 'hi' and go on our way,” said Meurer. “He seemed like a normal guy, a regular guy.” 

Meurer suggested that perhaps “this Democratic rhetoric made him snap. I know he was a pretty hardcore Democrat.”

What is most concerning to me right now, aside from the vast availability of high capacity firearms and this being the 154th mass shooting in 165 days, is the rhetoric we use to speak of our fellow citizens and how we identify so strongly with/against political parties. As Meurer said, “I didn’t really talk to him too much. He was a Democrat and I was a Republican so we didn’t have too much to talk about.” Have we come to a point that we can't share our humanity with someone if they don't share our political affiliation? Disagree passionately. Debate policies. And consider that your view might not be as airtight as you maybe thought. When we demonize the other, we create a space that, with the wrong ingredients, makes members of Congress become targets rather than fellow citizens with differing views.

Art from my mother's college days hanging in my home office. 

The National Institute for Civil Discourse is leading the Revive Civility and Respect campaign and it seems we need to figure out how to engage one another about the significant issues and challenges we face--even when we disagree deeply. We can do this locally. Here in Kansas we organized Kitchen Table Conversations about what it means to be a citizens and a member of a community. A dear friend and colleague in Kentucky inspired me to do this. The point is, we need to be able to talk with neighbors, colleagues, and coworkers about the issues that matter to us. Retreating into enclaves or disconnecting all together can lead people to take detrimental and sometimes deadly action. 

I'm sure I share many of Hodkinsons' frustrations with the current administration, but I know that actions like today only hurt us, not help. After listening to the Speaker of the House and Minority Leader today speak about the day's events, I would love to see a bit of a reset in how we approach our national politics. A serious challenge is that we have made everything partisan. Republican Senate leadership left a seat vacant on the Supreme Court because of partisan politics. We are on the verge of having millions lose health coverage, in part, because the oft-demonized President Obama's name is connected with the otherwise conservative healthcare model we have in the United States. We need better ways to engage, disagree, and deliberate. 

People across the country and the world are watching and listening, taking in the rhetoric and being shaped by the discourse that immerses them. We can do better. We must. We need to have things to talk about with neighbors regardless of which box they marked at the last election.

Speech by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on monuments to Confederate leaders

Bubbles

It has been nearly four years since I've done anything with this blog. In many regards, it feels like a vestige tail from a digital animal long gone. Yet, here it is. And it is particularly because it is something that feels out of place that I would like to start using this more.

Since I last did anything here, I've become more active via Facebook and Twitter. I've written academic articles and am working on a number of projects that get at the heart of the types of questions I want to explore professionally. I hope to outline some of that work here in the future. So this is a reintroduction of sorts. While I will continue to write, post, and engage through various media, it seems like a step back from the always immediate and ever-present cycle of news.

I realize that, in my own little way, I contribute to the constant process of refreshing of News Feeds and the like. It makes me think of one of my favorite lines from a writer that I should turn to more often than I have in recent years. This is the first of two points I want to make.

In an essay published in Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice, Thomas Merton has an amazingly timely and insightful remark that I often think of when I'm finding myself consumed by "news," particularly the immediate and round-the-clock process we now see through uncritical eyes. Here is Merton's quote:

What was on TV? I have watched TV twice in my life. I am frankly not terribly interested in TV anyway. Certainly I do not pretend that by simply refusing to keep up with the latest news I am therefore unaffected by what goes on, or free of it all. Certainly events happen and they affect me as they do other people. It is important for me to know about them too: but I refrain from trying to know them in their fresh condition as “news.” When they reach me they have become slightly stale. I eat the same tragedies as others, but in the form of tasteless crusts. The news reaches me in the long run through books and magazines, and no longer as a stimulant. Living without news is like living without cigarettes (another peculiarity of the monastic life). The need for this habitual indulgence quickly disappears. So, when you hear news without the “need” to hear it, it treats you differently. And you treat it differently too. 

This leads to my second point: not only might we be well-served to step back a bit, but we would also seemingly benefit from speaking and engaging with others unlike ourselves. As we know from the "blue" and "red" feeds that shape our lives, and this great SNL skit below, we largely live in our own bubbles and (mostly) like it that way.

John Oliver has also done a great job pointing out, in more detail, our bubbles.

I argue that we can and should engage with those around us, particularly those who don't share our political views. A recent story in the Manhattan Mercury about my work spells this out a bit more. I made a similar point in a USA Today interview: we can't scapegoat or honestly clump everyone who doesn't agree with me into some category, as easy or as comforting as that might be.

“This racial stuff to me is BS and I’m tired of hearing it. I have it made because I’m a white male? I’m prejudiced? That shit is long ago." pic.twitter.com/s6X6imuKfQ

— Brandon Stanton (@humansofny) November 20, 2016

So what is to be done? Here are some interesting/thoughtful/provocative links to help us see beyond our bubbles.

• http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html 
• https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/two-bubbles-unrealism-learning-tragedy-trump/#!
• http://thefederalist.com/2016/11/18/liberals-should-stop-ranting-and-seek-out-silent-trump-voters-like-me/

I hope to, with some regularity, write here rather than always posting and sharing via Twitter and Facebook. You're welcome and encouraged to follow here. You can sign up for RSS, but I will also make these posts available through other media. But as Merton helpfully reminds me, there is a benefit to stepping back. I am easily consumed by information, but I'm not always sure it's helpful. I'm going to try to do my part make sense of our work, not only through the algorithm Facebook thinks I want but through a more critical perspective and one that is open to others.

Philosophies for and against FEMA

The continued devastation from Hurricane (and later categorically downgraded) Sandy raises a number of concerns about how and where we live. Amazingly, media outlets have raised the possibility that the extreme weather we've been experiencing globally is connected to changes in our climate. There is still great hesitancy on the part of pundits and politicians (and even the people at The Weather Channel), but it's an improvement. But that's not what this post is about.

Something else has been striking to me the last few days. Jonathan Chait wrote, in New York Magazine, a piece entitled, "Why Democrats Are Right to Politicize Sandy." He began the article this way:

Disasters are inherently political, because government is political, and preventing and responding to disasters is a primary role of the state. But there is an innate tension in overtly politicizing a disaster. At the moment of greatest urgency, emotions run so hot that it’s hard to fairly assess the costs and benefits of disaster response. On the other hand, moments of normality are too cool, and it is far too easy to minimize the costs of preparing for an eventuality that is far from the horizon.
What you are going to see over the next week is an overt effort by Democrats to politicize the issue of disaster response. They’re right to do it. Conservatives are already complaining about this, but the attempt to wall disaster response off from politics in the aftermath of a disaster is an attempt to insulate Republicans from the consequences of their policies.

Regardless of one's politics, it's difficult to argue that such disasters are apolitical happenings. Built into any response to such situations is an inherently political dimension. As I'll briefly note below, these instances bright attention the the tensions and divisions that exist across the political spectrum about how we are to live as citizens in a society. It is because of this reality that praise from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican who has stumped for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for President Obama is particularly noteworthy in a political realm so committed to attacking the other party. You can read more about an appreciative Christie here. A striking contrast is Michael Brown, President George W. Bush's FEMA director who is widely seen as mismanaging the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. He spoke of Obama's administration responding too quickly.

Scott Horsely of NPR adds to the growing discussion about what Sandy brings to light. Romney and Obama embody fundamentally different public philosophies about who we are as a people and what role institutions have in our society. They usually speak of their different visions for America. I guess "visions" are more digestible than speaking about one's public philosophy. Horsely writes,

For Obama, the federal government is a critical vehicle for that kind of help. Republicans put more faith in local government, and even voluntary efforts.

This tension is debated on the New York Times Opinion Page which further illuminates just how differently we view the role of government or the role of citizens self-organizing to respond to such crises. As this debate will surely continue, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that this question about the role of government isn't something new. We have long questioned how large and powerful a government to have. But as Paul Krugman asked just a few short years ago, what do we do when the private market isn't interested in think like monitoring the threat of natural disasters? And what do we do when there's not profit to be made in helping citizens, communities, and regions come back from complete devastation? It is difficult to make the case for a strong government response when a political party so unabashedly attacked government's role in keeping our society just that: a society.

Technocracy, democracy, and what it means

Today, print media has published articles exploring an emerging trend in governance--the role of the technocracy. The first article comes from the The New York Times.  It focuses primarily on the recent changes that have taken place in the post-Berlusconi Italy. Elisabetta Povoledo, writing for The Times noted that

Mr. Monti said he hoped the new government could restore market confidence and soothe a tense political climate. “We worked seriously and paid close attention to the quality of the choices,” he said at a news conference. He added that he had been encouraged by Italy’s European partners and the international community and that the rapid formation of the government would relieve the pressure of markets on Italy.

The ministers are drawn mostly from Italy’s academic world, some with strong ties to the Catholic Church, but also banking and the upper echelons of civil service.

Because of the seriousness of the challenges facing Italy, there is little hope outside of turning to experts. The long-term prospects for this apolitical group of academics and business leaders are questionable, primarily because such an approach to governance stands in contrast to the electoral realities for a democracy and its political parties. But for the time being, these leaders are viewed as saviors from a system fraught with political jockeying that, in many ways, has led to this precipice. The Telegraph's Christopher Booker writes that the EU's plan all along was not democracy but rather technocracy. He writes

One of the few pleasures of watching this self-inflicted shambles unfolding day by day has been to see the panjandrums of the Today programme, James Naughtie and John Humphrys, at last beginning to ask whether the EU is a democratic institution. Had they studied the history of the object of their admiration, they might long ago have realised that the “European project” was never intended to be a democratic institution.

The idea first conceived back in the 1920s by two senior officials of the League of Nations – Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter, a British civil servant – was a United States of Europe, ruled by a government of unelected technocrats like themselves. Two things were anathema to them: nation states with the power of veto (which they had seen destroy the League of Nations) and any need to consult the wishes of the people in elections.

As Richard North and I showed in our book The Great Deception, this was the idea that Monnet put at the heart of the “project” from 1950 onwards, modelling his “government of Europe” on precisely the same four institutions that made up the League of Nations – a commission, a council of ministers, a parliament and a court. Thus, step by step over decades, Monnet’s technocratic dream has come to pass. 

Phillip Oltermann of The Guardian collects a good number of articles that point towards a technocracy model of governance in the EU.  


Another article comes from The Economist with the appropriate title, "Have PhD, will govern," touching on the appointment of academic economists in Italy and Greece and the shift in contemporary politics to think about new approaches to paralytic stalemates in national political systems. The articles goes on to talk about the unique nature of the "super committee" currently facing a looming deadline here in the United States. The author put it this way:

Perhaps the best example of this is the so-called “super committee” in the United States. Normally, all fiscal decisions are made by Congress, with the approval of the president. But by November 23rd, a special committee made up of three Democrats and three Republicans from each house of Congress, has to slice a mammoth $1.5 trillion off the budget deficit over ten years. Congress must then vote on whatever the super committee proposes—but may only accept or reject the plan as a whole. It may not amend the plan or vote on individual items, as is usual. And if Congress rejects the package, or the super-committee fails to come up with one, then the $1.5 trillion of cuts will be imposed automatically. American politicians, despairing of their inability to reduce the deficit in normal ways, have put a gun to their own heads. There have been partial precedents in American history but nothing quite like this.

In Europe, meanwhile, technocratic prime ministers are only the highest-ranking experts being recruited to help balance budgets and reform economies. Italy not only has an economics professor as prime minister (Mario Monti), it has also agreed that the IMF should scrutinise its reform programme. Greece has accepted that a troika of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission (the European Union’s glorified civil service) should supervise its austerity measures. So have Ireland and Portugal. Spain is an especially revealing case. On the face of it, its democracy is working as usual. The country is due to hold an election on November 20th and, if the polls are correct, the conservative Popular Party will unseat the ruling Socialists. Yet at the same time, the current government has agreed upon a series of economic targets with the European Commission, and in practice the PP’s leader, Mariano Rajoy, will have to take these targets as a guide to policy, even if he dislikes them (which, admittedly, he doesn’t).

The political environment here in the United States, has seen a long-growing problem with the use of the filibuster (you can check out one article on this increase here). 

To quote from The Economist:

The special factor in America is the dysfunctionality of the political system. The past decade or so has seen a growing use of delaying tactics in Congress—such as the filibuster and so-called “hold” on appointments, so that decisions that were once largely formal or administrative have become mired in politicised controversy. This is the opposite of the problem in Europe, where the emergence of technocrats is supposed to make decision-making less partisan. But it is still a problem, as was seen in the disastrous wrangle over raising the national debt ceiling—an argument which ended in the downgrade of American sovereign debt. House Republicans have said they will not compromise with the president. But since the American political system requires a measure of compromise to work (and since the Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives), parts of the legislative processes have almost seized up. This is likely to get worse during election year.

America and Europe share a common problem: the economic and financial crisis has discredited mainstream politicians. The right is popularly seen as the party of the rich, too close to unpopular bankers, and responsible for the financial deregulation of the 1980s which, on some accounts, was the source of all the trouble. But the left, which might have expected to have benefited from a capitalist meltdown, is no better off. Centre-left governments, at least in Britain and America, are also compromised by their earlier friendliness to finance and the left is seen as having been profligate, running up the debts that austerity is now needed to rein in. The result is that whereas in the early years of the crisis, the left was doing better in America and the right better in Europe (an echo of the 1930s), now there seems no pattern, except growing opposition to incumbents. 

This brief reference back to the 1930s is an important nod because technocracy and technocratic approaches to governance helped to shape much of the thinking during that period. John Jordan's Machine-Age Ideology provides a glimpse into that period. The positive view of technocracy faded in the United States, but, as Oltermann of The Guardian noted 

In many European countries, the word technocrat still has positive connotations. In the 1950s, Jean Monnet envisioned growth as something that required expertise rather than party politics. Smaller democracies, such as Holland, often rely on technocrats as negotiators between unruly coalition governments, or between employers and employees. Belgium, without a government for 17 months and counting,is a technocrat's paradise and has weathered the crisis fairly well so far. In the former communist states of central and eastern Europe, technocrats played a key role in negotiating the transition from authoritarian regime to democracy.

Today, we can see nations wrestling with daunting challenges. We are included in this list. But what are we to think of an embrace of "apolitical" political actors. I realize technocrats aren't popularly elected like our democratic leaders, but we would be wrong to think they exist outside of the political world in which they live and work. It seems to me that maybe we need to look at this issue in this way.

1. We need to explain what we mean when we say "political" or "politicians." We are political animals, and I think we do a injustice to the term when we only use it as a derogatory term about elected officials. Being political can (and I would argue, should) be a positive characteristic of citizens.
2. The role of the expert needs to be understood in a way that positions them as political actors in relationship with elected officials as well as ordinary citizens. There is a benefit to sidestepping the debacle that is the Congress, but democracy doesn't have to mean impasse or partisanship. 

These two points are not simple. Changing such large issues isn't even feasible. But if we just ignore them, then I would submit that we're only going to find ourselves facing issues much like we are today. And while we may think we're living through a very extreme time, I would venture a guess that having elected officials so closely aligned with bug business and big money will continue to block an honest discussion and debate about how we might, collectively, work through some of these very serious and pressing issues. There is a role for the citizen in all of this, as well as the elected official and the technocrat. Finding that balance, however, requires considerably more work.