As two of the three branches of government become more and more politicized, the posture of the third will play a crucial role in how our federal government works.
The two politicized branches, of course, are the executive and legislative. The third, and supposed to always rise above politics, is the judicial branch.
Last week, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts spoke on behalf of the judicial branch.
"We have come to take democracy for granted," he wrote in his year-end report, "and civic education has fallen by the wayside.
"In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital."
Many among the highly politicized deemed Roberts' comments a swipe at President Donald Trump and other highly visible politicians and blatantly biased media.
Maybe, but what Roberts appeared to truly mean is we as a nation are not preparing citizens with the proper knowledge and orientation to decipher truth from political propaganda.
"Civic education, like all education, is a continuing enterprise and conversation," he wrote. "Each generation has an obligation to pass on to the next, not only a fully functioning government responsive to the needs of the people, but the tools to understand and improve it."
In plain terms, he means social media is not an honest source for civic education.
The intended source is public education – schools, colleges, and universities. Indeed, that is why free public education was promoted by our founding fathers.
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people," wrote Thomas Jefferson. "Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
(Personal note: the late Mary Brooks of Jackson taught me this in high school. As one who believed passionately in civic education and responsibility, she would be aghast at today's civic illiteracy.)
Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels believes universities hold the key to civic education in modern times.
"Alarming numbers of young people struggle to distinguish reliable information from misinformation online," he wrote last week, "and the public’s faith in core democratic institutions — and fellow citizens — is eroding more by the day."
Calling for higher education to provide a "truly robust civic education," he said such must include "a grasp of the history and theory of democracy to bring a nuanced understanding of the past to public life, and critical reasoning skills that help to distinguish true information from false." He also included, "a commitment to values such as tolerance and equality that provide standards against which to hold policymakers and policies to account, and a disposition directed toward cooperation and action."
Roberts and Daniels, like Jefferson, propound a clarion call to reason in the face of growing unreason. Amidst today's politicized cacophony, who will hear their call, much less heed it?
"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." – 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Meridian.
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Bill Crawford: Can Civic Education Save Democracy from Social Media?
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8 comments:
Most of Bill's columns are just mindless blather.
Today, this is a reasonable and somewhat thought provoking writing.
Before we can begin to remedy the situation we must first understand that our political leadership has no interest in the common people becoming well-informed or even astute. In fact they would much rather see us all in absolute ignorance if possible, totally dependent on their guidance in all matters economic and political. As long as we are competent enough to make money and to support them while they fleece us everything is just fine. We cannot and will not make progress towards true democracy until we understand the reality of professional "leadership" and all it entails.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people”. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” - John Adams
Hate to agree, but 11:49am is correct. Those in "government" positions have created a Leviathan of power and personal benefit that ordinary citizens do not have.
The public school system has become an indoctrination system that does not instill moral or religious principles in its children, and the press has abused its privileged status of keeping citizens informed about too much government overreach and involvement. There is only one inevitable outcome if this continues......America will cease to exist.
Unless a critical mass of moral and factually informed citizens begins to dismantle this government creature, then the eventuality will come to pass.
I doubt it, looking at what is going on in y'all's prisons
Bill was a former IHL Board Member so of course he's going to agree with the Johns Hopkins President that they are part of the solution. The only issue is that they are a very large part of the problem. They are 90% controlled by progressives and will define civility as being woke or a racist.
Our form of government has a short shelf life.
It doesn't fall in war or invasion but in the citizen's failures to be vigilant and informed.
It falls in pieces with changes in rules, structure, and laws designed to shift power and wealth into the hands of a few that go largely unnoticed but not without warnings from the few.
Somebody get Trump's phone away from him!
A family member who is one of the president's strongest supporters keeps his Facebook account hot with links to pro-Trump and anti-Democrat videos and news reports but I notice that the links are being trashed and a fact check notice that the info is phony fills the emptied space. How long has that been happening? Is the 'thought police" a non partisan organization? If so I congratulate them for fairly keeping the trash swept up.
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