Dan Graziano Dr.

Fairfield Constructing the Public November 12, 2010 American Apathy: The Decline of Civic Engagement Americas 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 Americas 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

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

a voter to have3. A study by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that onetenth 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 Senators 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 Americas 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 democracys watchdog, is in a sad state of affairs. News outlets

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,

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 debates7. 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 wellinformed 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

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. Bushs 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

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 mind9. 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 picturecentric 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 didnt 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. Franks 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

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

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 wideranging, 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

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 prosecutingattorney 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 Presidents 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

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 debates 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

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 voters 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 targets 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

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 Courts 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 Courts 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.

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 nonpartisan 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 wellorganized. 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.

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-

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 todays 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

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 Manns theories of the common school. Called the Father of American education, Manns 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

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 Manns philosophy, is that he assumed that education took place only in the classroom. This fatal assumption has persisted through many of todays educators; it is probably an occupational hazard of teaching, to view education and schooling as synonymous terms. But the aspect of Manns 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

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 Manns 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

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 childs mind, waiting to be awakened by a taste of the thrill of politics24. But looking back on Laschs theories of the lost art of argument, there is yet a light at the end of the tunnel. Americas 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 selfcontained in nature. It is because they are small enough so that all members of the community can join into the discussion.

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 Lippmanns 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, Americas 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

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.

Rick Shenkman, Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We? http://www.alternet.org/news/90161/? page=entire (accessed November 7, 2010) 2 Shenkman 3 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 Studies 4 Shenkman 5 Robert E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage, 2003), 77 6 Shenkman 7 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 Studies 8 Patterson , 78 9 Patterson, 81 10 Patterson, 84-88 11 James E. Combs, Polpop: Politics and Popular Culture in America (Bowling Green: Bowling Green Popular Press, 1984), 89 12 Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: Norton, 1996), 165 13 Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of American Civil Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 235 14 Combs, 93 15 Schudson, 236-240 16 Lasch, 164 17 Schudson, 73-74 18 U.S. Supreme Court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Case # 08-205, January 21, 2010 19 Adam Liptak, Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit, The New York Times, January 21, 2010 20 Peter 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) 21 Overby 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) 23 Schudson, 189-191 24 Lasch, 147-154 25 Lasch, 171-172