While civic education often takes a top-down approach to teaching patriotism, other formative influences operate in local communities from the bottom up and reflect their strengths or weaknesses. How do communities foster the “habits of heart and mind” behind reflective patriotism? Where does civic education fit in the project of revitalizing towns and regions facing other problems?
Moderator: Colleen Sheehan, Professor, SCETL, ASU
Speaker: Elizabeth Corey, Honors Program, Director and Professor, Honors College, Baylor University
Speaker: Tunku Varadarajan, Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Speaker: Aaron M. Renn, Principal, Urbanophile LLC, Cofounder and Senior Fellow, American Reformer
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I am delighted to uh introduce our next
panel on Civic culture and civic
education uh Colleen shien our colleague
a professor of politics in scattle uh is
uh panel chair and she will introduce
the panelists uh she has not only served
uh been a distinguished professor at
both Villanova University and a visiting
distinguished professor at the
University of Colorado at Boulder but
she’s also served in the Pennsylvania
House of Representatives and on the
Pennsylvania State Board of Education
she’s a recipient of numerous
fellowships from the airheart and
Bradley foundations and the National
Endowment for the Humanities and the
author of a range of books including uh
most recently or an editor of the
Cambridge companion to the Federalist so
I welcome Colleen Shen to introduce our
[Applause]
panel yes indeed I served on a um the
Pennsylvania School Board the very thing
that Katherine zuker said if you want to
be bored about politics go to a school
board meeting so um it’s a pleasure to
be here um and it’s especially a
pleasure to have Harvey Mansfield here
and Anna thank you so much for making
the
trip um this panel believe it or not is
on civic
education uh this one on Civic culture
and C civic education and we have three
wonderful panelists first of all
Elizabeth
Corey uh Elizabeth is an associate
professor of political science and
director of the honors program at Bor
University uh she writes uh in various
uh venues including first things
National Affairs The Wall Street Journal
and The Chronicle of Higher Education
she received her Bachelor’s in Classics
from Oberland college and her Master’s
in PhD in art history and political
science from
LSU uh Elizabeth serves on the board of
directors of The Institute of Religion
and public life uh and is and as
publisher of first
things tanu
verin is a fellow at AI
uh he focuses on American politics
political economy political
ideologies society and culture
immigration and
integration and also the
Constitution he is also a fellow at the
classical liberal Institute at
NYU uh NYU School of Law and um uh
writes for the editorial page and book
section uh and a contributing uh writer
at the Wall Street
Journal he is also a fellow at the
center of capitalism and Society at
Columbia University and a contributing
editor for political
Europe before joining AEI he was the
executive editor at the Hoover Institute
and editor of defining ideas Hoover’s
in-house uh publication
he’s taught at various places including
Columbia University’s Graduate School of
Journalism nyu’s uh School of Journalism
and Stern School of Business and the
University of
Oxford Aaron
Ren is a consultant and writer in
Indianapolis his work focuses on culture
and public policy he’s a colon columnist
for governing magazine and his work has
appeared in the Wall Street Journal a
theme I’m hearing here
today um also the New York Times and the
Atlantic he was formerly a senior fellow
at the Manhattan Institute and managing
director at
Accenture please join me in welcoming
all three
panelists we’ll start with Elizabeth
Corey
thank you Colleen and thanks to Will hey
and Paul
KES uh I wanted to restate the question
or the The Prompt that was put before us
for this panel uh just so we have it in
mind uh it goes as follows uh while
civic education often takes a top- down
approach to teaching patriotism other
formative influences operate in local
communities from the bottom up and re
reflect their strengths or
weaknesses so our question uh is how do
communities Foster the habits of heart
and mind behind reflective patriotism
and where does civic education fit in
the pro project of revitalizing towns
and regions facing other problems I
don’t know that I answer this but I I I
want to make three points uh in in
getting at some of the uh some of the
things that I think might begin to
answer that question nothing I’m going
to say today is original or new it is
I’m drawing on the thought of Robert
nisbit Michael oakshott teville and many
others and I’m going to rest restate
things that I think we all know to be
true uh but which are often not not
stated explicitly enough so the so point
one I’ll just tell you the points then
I’ll talk about the points and then I’ll
tell you I’ve I’ve done it point one I
think the realm of the political has
been overemphasized in our age I think
we all probably know this very well we
think about this often but it’s it’s
true and worth
stating point two a fuller political
realm that is of Politics as a certain
kind of communal action has at the same
time been devalued and is also often
considered
unimportant far more of our lives than
the so-called merely political might be
rightly understood as cont contributing
to our communal and political
good and point three we are
fundamentally social beings and we must
recognize and cultivate cultivate that
sociality as I’ll call it if we want to
find long lasting happiness and
fulfillment
and although we don’t engage in our
local social projects and organizations
associations for the purpose of
fostering a healthy po that’s not why we
do them we do them for a variety of
other intermediate ends all these things
do have the effect of promoting what I
think is a healthy Civic culture where
people are invested and feel that their
activity actually has consequences this
was raised at the into the last panel so
I think it it follows well here so to
point
one politics has been overemphasized in
our age what do I mean when I say
politics is overemphasized I mean that
all of us are now prone to think in
political terms in the ordinary sense of
democrat Republican conservative
Progressive we love the Battle of
politics and we even tend to love
Politics as
entertainment we also increasingly judge
others even our family and friends by
their stances on contentious issues and
on The Virtue signaling they do or don’t
do about particular
issues I also think we unreflectively
tend to think ofl Politics as only the
kind of activity that consists in
electoral jockeying the things that go
on in legislatures and in Washington DC
and on TV news channels blogs and
websites political activity here is
understood as something that has to do
with big issues and with power with
friends and
enemies in groups and out groups and
certainly that’s true but I would say
that engaging in this kind of politics
is really not where most of us ought to
be spending our
time so to point two I think there’s
another way of thinking about politics
that can include and Encompass a very
different kind of
activity many people might call this or
be inclined to call this the private
realm but I want to say that activities
are that we typically think of as
private are far more connected to our
communal life than we often
think I am not saying of course that all
of life is political in the sense that
we must begin to indoctrinate our
children into ideologies when they’re
toddlers or that we must put into
practice some kind of egalitarian Utopia
in our married marriage and family lives
what I am saying in a weird sort of way
is that the personal is political and is
more than that social and I mean that in
a way directly opposed to the normal
meaning of the personal is political we
all know that phrase from second wave
feminism where it conveys the idea that
women are oppressed all the way down and
even the family ought to be reconfigured
to uh to promote some Progressive notion
of gender equality but I mean by
contrast that the personal is political
because nothing we do is unconnected
with the communal life of a society I
think our lives are potentially
constructive all the way up from the
smallest and most private actions to
those that are public and
visible the things that are dearest to
me personally raising children
relationships with neighbors and family
cooking for other people teaching
students writing cultivating family
relationships and being married all
these things preserve and recreate
culture
and I would say these humble activities
are no less important because they’re
unseen by other people they’re often
more important than what we do in public
because they have concrete impacts on
particular
persons and they’re also political in
the broadest sense because we are
forming the characters of those who live
around us and who will go on to form
others in turn and we do this by
engaging in various human practices of
friendship of neighborliness study
worship Commerce and work and of course
also politics as we normally think of it
but all these activities I would say are
essentially
recreative in that they create and
recreate the values and goods
institutions of our
society sometimes of course we find
ourselves needing to protect and defend
these goods and of course there are
times we need to fight for them but the
fighting part is not the essence of the
activity more important is the building
up as youve all has so eloquently said
in in his uh not his current book but
his last book I think we are building
when we address ourselves toward good
things and especially toward the goods
that Foster sociality socialness when we
act in our roles as parents teachers
vestri members churchgoers even
Schoolboard members colleagues to those
we work with Children of our parents
sisters and brothers
friends in all these relationships we
are essentially acting socially and
politically to promote a common good
that actually touches the lives of
people far more directly and deeply than
the politics of Washington DC ever
does oakshott puts it this
way on occasion a society may be may be
preserved and may Survive by means of
political action but to make it live
requires a social activity of a
different sort of a different and more
radical character and its life is as
often threatened by polit political
success as it is by political
failure and this requires all the
activities I’ve been
describing even the philosopher the
artist the
musician and again to quote OT The
Genius of the poet the artist and to a
lesser extent the philosopher is to
create and recreate the values of their
society in them a society becomes
conscious and critical of itself of its
whole
self point three which is really to
emphasize something I’ve already been
saying and and this is something we all
know we are fundamentally social beings
and we must consciously cultivate that
sociality if we want to find Long ha
longlasting happiness and
fulfillment as I’ve already said
although we don’t engage in these kinds
of associations and friendships and
relationships for the purpose of a
healthy polity we do them for the other
immediate ends they do have the effect
of promoting a healthy Civic culture
where people are invested and feel their
activity actually has real consequences
if Co taught us nothing else it
certainly showed us how absolutely vital
contact with other people is in the
pursuit of human happiness this is
something we all knew but we didn’t seem
to know it quite so well as we do
now the British philosopher FH Bradley
describes the Human Condition like this
I think it’s
interesting man is a social being he is
real only because he is social and he
can realize himself only because it is
as social that he realizes
himself the mere individual is a
delusion of theory and the attempt to
realize it in practice is the starvation
and mutilation of human nature with
total sterility or the production of
monstrosities it’s the old argument that
there is something in Civic associations
that makes us happy I’m restating
arguments of Robert nisbit as I said
before and if to fell before him here’s
Nisbet the Quest for Community will not
be denied for its Springs from some of
the most powerful needs of human nature
needs for a clear sense of cultural
purpose
membership status and
continuity without these Goods Nisbet
continues no amount of mere material
welfare will serve to arrest the
developing sense of alienation in our
society so to build meaningful
institutions from the ground up as this
panel description phrases it ask us to
cultivate personal qualities
that are less critical and adversarial
more admiring and attention paying to do
this would be a truly countercultural
stance and a comment about liberal
learning too as Jen fry said this
morning we might cultivate also habits
of submitting to refutation humility Etc
this would probably positively impact
our friendships as well it is all part
of pursuing common goods together as is
liberal education as
well it is all to C cultivate the gr
gratitude ude that also was talked about
this morning by danad Mahoney this the
the availability or
disposability uh that Gabriel Marcel
talks about the affirmation of human
life uh that conservatives are tend to
be so good at and I think this is
precisely the kind of work we should be
doing I’m sure we’ll talk more about
this in the questions
thanks good afternoon everyone I’m tunar
the rajin I was born in India moved to
Britain as a teenager and came to live
in the United States in my 30s so as
such my life is been a case of constant
Civic
upgrades um I’m I’m foremost a
journalist and so my paper is really
going to partake more of the flavor of
an arpad than of a scholarly paper so I
hope you’ll forgive me that uh lapse
into uh demotic
banality
um so I I was on a panel at a literary
Festival early last year in daa
Bangladesh I can’t remember the precise
title of the panel but it was about
America’s role in the world uh malign of
course and it quickly devolved into a
bout of America bashing on the part of
my fellow
panelists uh these were a leftist
American
historian a local leftist intellectual
Bengali
and a leftist British documentary maker
so what in blazes was I doing
there um perhaps it was a case of
mistaken identity um I have a brother
who edits a progressive website in India
and they thought perhaps that they were
getting one vajin and instead got the
other um the one they got the one from
the American Enterprise
Institute um so everything the panels
the panelist said that morning uh that
dist America was greeted with Applause
from the audience the audience was Elite
by local standards in that they all
understood English and had the leisure
time to spend a weekday afternoon at a
literary
Festival everything I said was met with
an almost ghostly
silence until I said the following I
said if I stand with a big sign in the
middle of any City in Bangladesh a sign
that says the first 20 people to shake
my hand get to live in the United States
I’d be trampled to death in under a
minute by people who want to live in the
in in the United States rushing to shake
my
hand now this observation of mine was
greeted with hissing booing derision
people felt insulted indignant one young
lady in a front row seat chanted out how
can you say such a thing what proof do
you have to which I asked for a show of
hands
how many of you I asked the audience of
relatives who live in the United States
three4 of my audience rais their hands
QED I said there’s my proof adding that
these people these bangladeshis who live
in the United States remitted $975
million from the US to their native land
in 2022
alone now what has all of this got to do
with Civic culture and civic education
in the United
States uh rather a lot in truth
and perhaps more so about Civic culture
than about civic
education now why would bangladeshis
trample me to death to get to live in
the United
States not just Bangladesh is I wager um
if I stood with my come to America sign
in any city of the third world I think
we’re still allowed to say that uh and
even many European cities outside
northern Europe I’d be besieged by
people who want to live
here why do they want to
come it’s not just the
money and it’s not thank you Tucker
Carlson for our Subway
systems which are sadly bereft of musite
chandeliers um and it’s not for the
Chick-fil-A Super Deluxe combo with
large fries and honey SRI Racha sauce
although I’d gladly pay a coyote to take
me to a place that sells one of those as
I had the other
night why do they
come it’s for America’s Civic
culture for the opportunity to live and
Thrive and flourish and raise a family
in the greatest
civitas in human
history civitas that’s a word we don’t
use often
enough uh the body of citizens who are
bound together by rights and
responsibilities The Immigrant sees our
civitas most obviously because he comes
from a land where such a Civic Corpus is
absent or fractured or undeveloped or
has
imploded I’m reading a book right now
called The Great Wave a reference to the
woodcut by the Japanese artist
Hokusai it’s a book by uh Miko
kakutani the Earth while Chief book
reviewer of the New York
Times now I’m not reading it out of
choice it’s been assigned to me for
review so there’s an element of
compulsion so if you see me with gritted
teeth it’s because I’m reacting to her
particularly hysterical blue stalking
brand of
progressivism now she says and she is in
many ways the U polar opposite of yal
Levan who spoke this morning and whose
book I think is I haven’t read it yet
but from the message of his talk is
likely also to be the polar opposite of
M kakutani’s The Great Wave now she says
American Dem rcy is having a quote
near-death experience right
now with Maga Republicans quotes trying
to roll back the progress made in civil
rights End quotes and the Supreme Court
resurrecting Jim Crow by ruling against
racial preferences which we’ve all been
taught to call affirmative action and
subjugating women by quotes eliminating
the constitutional right to abortion End
quotes but the immigrants who throng to
America whether lawfully or unlawfully
don’t see America the way Mito kakutani
does or perhaps the way many of us do
we’re not Mito kakutani esque in our
disenchantment with many aspects of
American life but we’re all here because
we believe that something in America has
gone wrong that needs
fixing we’re right about that but let’s
not forget or ignore or Overlook or
Glide past the great deal that is good
and strong and resilient and cohesive
and coherent and enviable about this
country let’s not look past the
qualities that this country has that
Drew my Peruvian cleaning lady to come
here unlawfully 15 years ago while her
daughter in Lima was still a child and
to work here without seeing her daughter
for 15 years so the daughter could
finish high school then go to college
and then go to law
school my cleaning lady has now gone
back to Lima to to take care of her
elderly
parents but guess what her daughter has
done the one who went to law school the
one who didn’t see her mother for 15
years she’s come to
America so let us celebrate America for
what it is even as we hold America to
the very highest standards which we
believe it isn’t yet meeting or has
ceased to meet and even as we strive
here collectively to find ways to repair
our fraying
civitas do we need civic education of
course we do but who Among Us needs it
it’s easy to say that the young do and
just because that sounds trite doesn’t
mean that it isn’t
right my son went to a fancy and vaunted
private school in Brooklyn for 12 years
he had more exposure in his time there
to quotes storytelling by drag queens
than he did to civics
everything he knows about the American
Constitution about America’s Civic
architecture about the way America
conducts itself as a democracy Bound by
law and laws he learned from his parents
from me and from my wife in lessons
embedded in conversation at the dinner
table on trips to Washington and Boston
and
Philadelphia Father and Son trips to
teach him about our
civitas now one of the prompts that was
given to this panel was the following
how do communities Foster the habits of
heart and mind behind reflective
patriotism well one answer is good
parenting we were able to do it because
we were taught these things in
school good Civic parenting but good
Civic parenting cannot be done by
parents who were not themselves taught
about the rules and values and
procedures of our Civic
intercourse so American schools must do
what so American schools must do what
younger American parents cannot do
now one important caveat here all of us
gathered here agree I think that with
Civic illiteracy all around us a Revival
of civic’s Education would be
welcome but we need to be careful to
distinguish which
kind one current movement wants to drill
students in social justice activism in
the name of
civics Equity is a part of their Civics
white privilege is a Civic evil black
lives matter is is a Civic
shth all lives matter is a racist verbal
assault the core American values of free
speech and a government that respects it
no longer enjoys near near unanimous
support from
Americans instead we have much of the
American Elite convinced that unless
online
misinformation defined as nearly
anything the elites disagree with is
squashed and speech supressed democracy
is in
Peril now bet older ideal of civics
education emphasizes neutral training in
skills and understandings of how voting
elections and lawmaking work how to
speak effectively at or help run a
public meeting how responsibilities
differ between different levels of
government and so forth information
information that’s useful no essential
to students whatever the content of
their
convictions but it isn’t Only the Young
who need lessons in civics
those who shape the young need lessons
too why in fact why stop at those who
shape the young what about those who
shape America and shape America’s place
in the world it pains me to say this but
the erosion of Civic values can be seen
most starkly in the United States
Congress what else is the failure to
support Ukraine but a failure of civil
civic
duty our nation’s sense of community our
lawmakers sense of community
has shrunk honey who Shrunk the
congressman as the world’s leading
Nation as the world’s Guiding Light our
Civic responsibilities extend beyond our
borders Beyond pyun calculations of what
is American and what is
not to the protection of embattled
democracies around the world to the
protection of Ukraine’s democracy
Israel’s democracy taiwan’s democracy in
strengthening them we strengthen
ourselves in leaving Ukraine to Putin’s
Mercy we diminish ourselves and we
devalue our own
civitas now in any discussion of civics
education mention must be made of a
great American who’s also one of this
country’s most squandered assets I refer
to Douglas H
Ginsburg senior judge on the United
States court of appeals for the District
of Columbia circuit he would have made
an alltime great Justice at the US
Supreme Court but it was not to be as he
withdrew himself from consideration in
no November 1987 after the media started
to Hound him for a picun infraction when
he’d been in
college now judge Ginsburg has made it
his life’s mission to spread civic
education in the United States as he
noted in a letter to the Wall Street
Journal in May 2023 some months after I
had interviewed him for that newspaper
in response to the National assessment
for Ed educational progress which is
sometimes referred to as the nation’s
report card he said only 22 % of eighth
grade students scored at or above the
proficient level in Civics continuing a
downward trend for civics knowledge
among students since
2014 when nearly eight in 10 students
lack of fundamental understanding of why
our government was designed as it is no
one should be surprised with the lack of
civil discourse today voters are unaware
of their rights or even how to define
rights and high school graduates can’t
even name the two branches of the
Congress much less explain why there are
two
we can’t sustain a constitutional
republic he continued with a citizenry
that is estranged from our Constitution
and our institutions and we don’t have
to nearly everything a student or
teacher would need to know about the
basic setup and functions of our
government is available at no cost the
national Constitution Center’s
interactive Constitution the National
Archives website Civic fundamentals. org
and many others offer excellent
nonpartisan online tools to learn about
our government history and rights with
all the free resources available there
is no excuse for America’s low Civic
scores I emailed him yesterday to tell
him I’d be at ASU and at skettle and to
ask him if he had any thoughts that
would help me raise my talk about the
banal and the humdrum and he had this to
say um I’m going to quote him again
Civics education in the United States is
at an abysmal level the great majority
of our fellow citizens could not pass
the test that Aliens Must Pass to become
citizens millions of recent high school
graduates cannot name the two houses of
Congress he that’s particular bug bear
with him nearly half the public think
even lawful alien residents have no
constitutional rights their ignorance is
a danger to the future of our country
they are easily LED astray by candidates
promising to do blatantly
unconstitutional things I hope this
helps he says feel free to name
me now his got me
thinking why not offer in incentives for
native born Americans to take the test
that Aliens Must Pass to become
citizens applicants for citizenship must
answer six of 10 questions correctly
it’s a pretty low bar can some
civic-minded Moneybags sorry
philanthropist not offer $500 to every
American adult who volunteers to take
the test a husband and wife can make
$1,000 if they take the the test
together make it a little harder than
six out of 10 so that we encourage
people to learn Civics to a fuller
extent than the bare minimum let people
take the test as often as they like
until they score eight or nine out of 10
$500 ahead are you listening Peter teal
are you listening Elon
Musk I’ll conclude by stressing that
Civics education is only a part of what
would help repair
America there are other compon
components to a well-ordered well
functioning
civitas a culture of reasoned debate is
important understanding the basics of
Western civilization and why it works is
important property rights and rule of
law are not happenstances to be
rethought every generation they embody
long
experience the spectacular success of
our economic system over the last few
centuries is something few appreciate
and matters greatly for how we run the
country we’re not wealth iier than our
ancestors because the government forced
transfers from robber barons to workers
or sto the introduction of tractors and
machines for
Equity just and so just as important as
the teaching of civics in schools is the
teaching of Economics good economics one
might say makes for good Civics but even
here we must be careful what is good
economics who will decide what we teach
the economics that everyone here might
regard as the Blessed gospel is derived
Ed by the left in fact by MIT Mito
kakutani in her book as quotes free
market
fundamentalism to quote yal from his
paper today how can we act together when
we don’t think
alike now I’ll end with a little
metaphor which I Ed on my son when he
was a teenager to explain Civics to him
and pardon me if it is a tiny bit
hokey um but it was serviceable for a
15-year-old if you imag if you imagine
America as a car the car being the
nation on its Journey you have the US
Constitution as the GPS or the road map
you have the economy as the
fuel you have education as the
accelerator and you have our history as
the
breakes and what is civics and Civics
education in this National Car of ours
it is the steering wheel of course but
it’s also the seat belts and the airbags
the things that prevent us from getting
injured or even dying in the event of a
collision so let the ride
begin thank
[Applause]
you we’re here at an academic
institution and the majority of our
speakers here today are academics but I
am not I come from a management
consulting background so that’s the
professional lens I’m going to bring to
my talk today I want to say thank you
for inviting me to this wonderful event
and I want to talk about one specific
type of civics education which is Civic
leadership development programs in urban
areas because I noticed a curious thing
we have seen incredible growth in the
amount of Civic leadership development
programs in our cities over the last 30
years and yet it seems like the actual
amount of leadership that we get in our
communities have declined there has
never been more leadership development
programs yet there still seems to be a
leadership Gap and since uh my
understanding and my sense of the market
here is that most people in America seem
to sense that we do have a leadership
Gap in many of our cities I’m not going
to spend any time in the interest of
time trying to defend that proposition
but if you’d like to talk about it more
I’d be delighted to do
that so these Civic uh development
programs have been around a while they
might go back as far as the 1950s even
but it’s really been since the
1990s uh that they’ve turn taken off the
national leadership Network which is an
association of these groups has over 800
member
organizations uh but I’m guessing that’s
just a fraction of what’s out there um I
live in Indianapolis so in Indianapolis
we have an organization called
leadership Indianapolis and it is the
organization that runs our Flagship
program the Stanley K Lacy executive
leadership series but a few years ago
some friends of Mitch Daniels created
the Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation
that also does something there both the
Republican and the Democratic parties uh
run different leadership programs the
Republican women’s leadership program in
Indiana is called the Luger series named
after our former Senator Richard Luger
it’s been around about 30 years so right
in in line with the growth of these
things um our uh the Indiana Family
Institute which is our social
conservative family policy Council has a
leadership uh program the International
Center of Indianapolis runs a Global
Leadership series the Indiana University
Kelly School of Business has a
leadership development program not one
for students but for community members
many of our Suburban counties run their
own program and I keep finding more of
these things every time I turn around
that I’d never heard of before and so
here’s how these programs work typically
you have to apply to be accepted and
being acception to one of these programs
is typically prestigious or an honor
something that marks you out as you know
a rising upand cominging leader in the
community a lot of them are targeted at
people in their 30s so these are uh you
know people who’ve had time to start
demonstrating that you know they’re
performing above and beyond and you know
might be the next Generation uh of
leaders and then the people they admit
they bring together in a cohort that’s
led by a chairman or a moderator they’re
called different things which is a more
senior Civic leader maybe the head of
one of the local Civic organizations uh
a CEO a retired politician or judge
someone of that type and then uh for
over the course of generally a year they
spend a month a day per month getting
together and hearing a bunch of
presentations when you’ll hear about
leadership how to be a leader the
importance of leadership in uh in cities
you will hear about the different
entities and organizations in in town
and what they do maybe you’ll hear about
some of the history of various Civic
developments maybe someone would talk
about what ASU has been doing for
example um here uh here in in Arizona uh
you might get a presentation on data
about your community and its challenges
and opportunities maybe you’ll take a
field trip and you’ll go visit a big
project that someone did and so the idea
is you’re learning about the community
and how it functions to equip you to be
a leader in that community and then
often at the end uh sometimes as a year
or two uh even uh you have to uh put
what you’ve learned to work by uh
performing some Capstone project so
you’re going to actually do something in
the community you can think of it’s like
the equivalent of an Eagle Scout project
uh or something of that nature and um I
I think these are uh good programs I
haven’t attended one but I have spoken
at them and I’ve sat in on them and
there’s a lot of great stuff in there
but it doesn’t seem that they’re
actually producing a lot of new high
performance leaders and when I look
around my community I say who are the
highest watsh highest performing high
impact leaders who are doing big
difficult transformational things all of
them are essentially postretirement age
Boomers um who came of age really before
these programs took off and didn’t
really go through them Mitch Daniels
himself our former Governor is a great
example of this so you know after he was
governor he became president of Purdue
University and got a lot of press for a
lot of the changes he did there for
example freezing tuition for a decade so
Purdue has not raised tuition since 2013
when he became president uh which is is
pretty remarkable but I don’t think that
he learned what he was doing in one of
these programs and I think this shows um
you know to me these programs seem to be
an attempt to respond to the perceived
decline in Civic leadership you know we
see that we’re not producing the leaders
that we we see that we’re not getting to
leadership so why don’t we create
programs to to try to do that and I
think this shows a little bit the limits
of civic’s Education to address problems
in the community because when you have
sort of structural changes that are
generating sort of negative outcomes you
could think of the proverbial decline of
our intermediary institutions I don’t
think that it’s possible to Simply make
up for that through additional education
so for example I don’t believe that
we’re going to raise our voter
participation rate by educating people
about why it’s important in a democracy
that people vote although that might be
part of the solution I think the fact
that these voter participation is down
is telling us something profound about
what’s going on in our society and we
need to look at some of the underlying
structural changes that have driven some
of these things so I ask what are some
of the structural changes that may have
undermined leadership in our cities and
I’ll just list a few off
one is Corporate consolidation
particularly of banks if you go back to
the
1980s most cities were had basically
locally owned Banks uh locally owned
utilities locally owned department
stores drug store change and the CEO of
the biggest bank in town was probably
the biggest power player well now most
of those have been Consolidated into
large National and global concerns and
so the local head of the largest bank in
town is now probably a regional manager
for a global banking corporation
headquartered in New York or San
Francisco a second one would be the loss
of Blue Bloods and sort of old money
families so there’s been essentially a
decline in the old Society if you will
but many of these communities had
essentially old money families with
dynastic wealth that was very rooted in
and committed to those cities
intergenerationally and what you often
see now is is the new generations that
are coming of age they go off to Ivy
League schools and then they take their
trust fund to New York or San Francisco
they don’t want to come back and live in
flyover country um a good friend of mine
is is the urbanist Joel cotkin some of
you may know him he speaks at events all
over the country he says invariably when
he speaks at an event in a city the
richest guy in the room has a kid and
lives in either New York or San
Francisco so the next Generations are
basically gone in a lot of these cases a
third is that we’ve had a sort of
politicization of the business world and
not in this case politicization doesn’t
mean Party politics but it means that
things that were traditionally
considered maybe outside the scope of
business are now ideological imperatives
inside the business so the uh economic
social and governance goals the ESG
movement is an example of that so the
the people who are those regional
managers now have to be very aware of
all these land Minds that they can’t
step on and it very much constrains what
they can do they don’t have as much
power as the old CEOs to begin with now
they have all these other considerations
Heming them in and then the fourth one
is the kind of democratization and
bureaucratization of Civic leadership so
if you go back to the 80s who were those
Bank presidents and other leaders well
it really was a relatively small group
of old white men and that’s not the case
anymore we have more diverse and
inclusive leadership in our cities
that’s a good thing it’s also
challenging more challenging to get more
input from more people and Corral them
all into supporting a program so when
you’re trying to get 100 100 to 150
people aligned on something rather than
10 or 15 is obviously more difficult and
you tends to be very process oriented
becomes very bureaucratic Etc and so
what you see is I think as a result of
these and potentially other things if we
now in many of our cities have a sort of
timid very
conformist um essentially very risk
averse leadership groups again a lot of
these people are now essentially
regional managers of global corporations
and you know they’re understandably
worried about how what they do is going
to affect their career and they don’t
want to take on a lot of risk in the
Civic sector that might blow up in their
face and um um you know I I think we
know we read a lot of press from kind of
the the coastal cities where there
actually is a very Lively debate I think
in uh sort of local local issues if you
will and I think that can over um that
could cause us to not see that in most
of America there’s actually very little
disagreement uh in local areas we talked
a lot about polarization today well if
you go to the average Chamber of
Commerce launching in a major American
city every single person is going to be
singing from the same Himel uh
tremendous uh Conformity and unanimity
of thought I’ve been to a ton of
conferences about Urban policy and I’m
always amazed that everybody who speaks
there is in agreement basically on all
the big issues and what needs to be done
you know all from anything from climate
change to inclusive zoning you name it
most of it is
disagreements um around the
margins and so I think if we’re going to
look at something like Civ education as
addressing this leadership deficit in
cities then it needs to be targeted at
the conditions some of these structural
changes have produced um and I think you
know perversely and I think clearly
unintentionally many of these programs
might actually be making things worse by
the way that they operate because what a
lot of them do they give you they tell
you how things work in the town and that
that’s exactly what you would think of
civics education like you know education
in our school children how does the
federal government work this is
educating Rising leaders about how the
community works and yet it can very
easily turn into a sort of
indoctrination into how to go along to
get along within the existing system and
it really doesn’t encourage people to
rock the boat or anything of that nature
quite the opposite in fact uh although I
think there are you know I know of a
couple Exceptions there and so what I
would suggest is is if we wanted to make
these programs more effective they
should be targeted at this risk averse
conformist leadership environment that
has been created so we should stress in
the education process the importance of
taking public risk is one of the things
that is a core part of what it means to
be you know a a Civic leader we should
talk about things like productive
courage courage in being willing to uh
take stands that might be controversial
or unpopular but productive in the sense
that it is targeted towards tangible
positive outcomes for the community it’s
not just rhetorical bomb throwing or
being a provocator uh to get so social
media clips and then my my other idea is
um we should have a a requirement going
in that if you want to be in this
program your Capstone project is going
to have to involve something that is at
Le at least somewhat
controversial or makes at least some
people other than say Trump voters
unhappy so force people to have skin in
the game and then have this chairman and
and of course the boards the
organization be ready to promote and um
reward people and back them for doing
that and of course it would be
appropriate for them to also exercise
and oversight and like encourage people
to do things that are going to be
actually appropriate for us to take on
but I think in that way we start
building our muscle of people people
doing things like that and so I think in
general what I would say is um based on
what I’ve seen in in this leadership
education movement in cities uh civic’s
education can be you know it is not
going to fully make up for negative
structural changes that have undermined
certain aspects of our society but it
can be part of the solution but it has
to be targeted if you will at the the
very specific uh things that we’re
trying to overcome so thank you very
[Applause]
much thank you all very much we have a
um quite an array of ideas and Solutions
on the table um I don’t I don’t know
quite how they all fit together um uh so
let me see if I actually have some
questions that might um
at least uh attempt to bring them
together in some way or fashion I think
what I
heard was uh the following uh uh overall
question how do we create a healthy
Civic
culture and I heard that
um
uh summarized as how do we create a
healthy Civic culture particularly on
the ground in our cities in our towns
and perhaps even more specifically uh um
in the hearts and minds of our
citizens uh uh that this has to do with
civitas with
citizenship ultimately that that this is
not an abstraction that this has to do
with the well as uh we we learned from
toille um that that this has to do with
habits of the heart but remember tokel
not only talked about habits of the
heart he also talked about patterns of
the mind or what I think might uh be
called um public opinion that public
opinion and that uh sense not of popular
opinion fleeting opinion but that more
settled way of of how a people thinks
about uh uh something in a in um a more
fixed way so I’m I’m reminded of
um I couldn’t help but thinking as all
along as I was listening of the eth book
of of Aristotle’s politics that if if
you want a regime to last you have to
think about the importance of educating
the citizens in the spirit of the regime
in a monarchy you have to educate the
citizens in the spirit of the monarchy
in a democracy in the spirit of the
Democracy or in America if we’re
Republic in the spirit of
republicanism um what does that mean if
we’re not going to talk about just from
the top down if we’re if if somehow this
has to do with um um from the bottom up
if it’s not just uh looking at um uh um
education from our masters or from
Statesmen then uh how do the people
teach each other the tools of Republican
government the tools of
self-government I think this is why
toille emphasized New England Town Hall
meetings and uh voluntary
associations um you know you just think
of Ben Franklin when he talks about
Philadelphia and he’s talking about the
volunteer fire departments and and all
of those kinds of things I I always
think of
baseball and then I um and I think uh I
think of what a friend once said we were
uh co- teing a class on um Jefferson and
uh he was trying to get people to
understand what Jefferson was talking
about about democracy he and he and he
he said well you know it’s like baseball
it’s the only game where where those who
don’t have the ball score all the
points um and there’s there’s I think
there’s something to that
um what does that mean uh in terms of I
mean how does that work how do you H how
do you make something like that happen
uh in a Democratic
Republic um if Civic culture is
essentially habits of heart and habits
of mind if it has something to do with
public sentiment and public
opinion um Elizabeth looked at um she
said we have to look away from
DC um to something more real in a kind
of Oak shotan Way um and uh Tonka talked
about different kinds of uh civitas
different kinds of civic education and
said some kinds are not genuine and we
better be better be careful about that
and then Aon um uh warned us uh that we
better get moving and be more practical
um and and employ some productive
courage uh I wonder if that means then
that pluralism is simply not
enough and that
um that even if we’re I wish Danielle
now we’re here um and but we can bring
her into the conversation later that
that in if we’re going to talk about
civic education and how it relates to
Civic culture that we’re going to have
to be more robust about that I mean I
want to ask the panelists
um do we have to go beyond pluralism as
we talk about this even if it might step
on
um some some other I mean maybe it’s
going to create some problems along the
way but is is pluralism not enough do we
have
to
is are we at that kind of break of
Crossroads in the country where if we
try to please everyone will end up
getting nowhere or is it possible to
move forward in this fractured
situation in this culture that we’re
trying to create these programs today to
bind the country in some way uh through
partly through our educational system to
keep us glued together um and that that
it is pluralism that will move us
forward what do you
think yeah I I’m not exactly sure how to
answer the question and do we need to go
beyond pluralism but I think one of the
things I I was trying to say in thinking
about this question I’m not necessarily
sure that the answer is um as Ain is
talking about leadership development
programs I feel like those I I haven’t
been involved in them in the way you
have so I don’t I don’t know from
firsthand but it seems to me that’s kind
of putting a structure on something
that’s not existing already but the
better way is to go and to try to build
up from the smaller things that are
existing already now school boards
everybody’s you know criticized school
boards this morning and I agree the the
meetings are very boring but there are
lots of other things you can do in a
smaller community that are not very
boring and that are um sort of co-
labors I mean think about the think
about you’re talking about pluralism
when you’re in a in a C- labor with a
group of people who you may not agree
with the very fact of co-laboring with
them gives you a kind of bond that you
didn’t have otherwise and it seems to me
those are the where the the more organic
and more healthy um Civic culture is
cultivated because you’re you simply
have to work together to do something um
you know it’s like any situation where
you go through something hard together
suddenly there’s a bond there that
wasn’t there before and to the extent we
can you know not worry about the
political views of our neighbors but but
engage in something with our neighbors
then we have some hope I think of
getting maybe maybe past the pluralist
problem so process in and of itself okay
yeah I would say um
you know uh I think we have to get
Beyond like the theories of some of
these things because it really is like
how how it works out in the practice of
our daily lives I’ve got this friend who
talks about the the Constitution and
that he loves the Constitution because
like there’s the sense in which the
Constitution is the document in our
systems of government but there’s the
sense in which the Constitution is us
and the and the way that we live and the
way that we act you know the way that we
do and if it doesn’t matter how good the
actual document is if we’re not living
out that way of life um you know just
like we couldn’t just hand our documents
and our laws to other countries and
expect it expect it to
happen I I think there’s a lot of that
still in many communities but it tends
to be uh wealthier more monolithically
higher educated communities where all
the stuff that we say we want to see
still goes on I I actually uh I grew up
in a very rural area area and I lived in
big cities most of my life and then the
last year I’ve lived in a suburb of
Indianapolis called Carmel and I’m like
wow I can’t believe this place like it’s
almost like you know there’s like people
who volunteer here and there’s like a
Civic life in a government that’s
responsive and trust and like how did
this happen and you know I think part of
it is um you know in like where the town
where I grew up in there’s so much
Social dysfunction now that the Civic
life has kind of Fallen apart there and
uh so I I don’t know the answer to that
but I do think being able to find find a
community where you can model certain
practices that then that then spread so
there’s a guy I’ll just give one example
there’s a guy who’s the president of the
city council in my town his name was
Jeff warell and he he was the former
head of the chamber long-term resident
and businessman
and he said I I ran for city council
because um I saw that our community was
very divisive a lot of political
disputes and a lot of dirty laundry
being AED in the media and he said I’m
running and I’m going to pledge to never
publicly disparage our community I’m
pledging that I will never publicly
disparage anyone else I’m going to be
positive about our community and I don’t
know if it was just him but you know
really we don’t have what we had before
and uh I love as his re-election his
little yard signs for re-election
positive personable proven and the idea
I’m going to be positive I’m going to
model out what it means to to be
positive you know in a community that’s
small enough and high functioning enough
I think can change the culture in
positive ways but it’s the way that we
ourselves live I think more than any of
the theories to some
extent um I’ll I’ll be brief um I think
we’re danger dangerously close to no
longer being a plural society but being
instead a society that’s comprised of
multiple Waring tribes and um and really
the the need the need of the hour the
need of the moment the Civic need of the
hour is really to
find U ways to get people
to um the word compromise was used
earlier in many of the convers to compro
not just compromise but to resolve
disputes and disagreements and conflicts
between themselves and not not for the
conflict to be the the
Terminus uh and the acceptance that
there is conflict between my tribe and
yours and there’s nothing we can do
about it but instead to understand that
there is disagreement and that the
disagreement is simply U um one step on
the way to a kind of mutual uh shaking
of hands agreeing to disagree uh
Toleration um so I think Americans need
quote unquote Lessons In conflict
resolution
um I a simple example
um it touched him to me in a very
personal way uh as part of my job at the
Wall Street Journal I was sent on
assignment to interview the two ladies
who run um moms for liberty down in
Florida uh and the piece was published a
couple of days later and and then I get
an inbox uh message in my inbox from a
friend of many years who with whom I was
supposed to have dinner saying that she
was canceling din you know because I had
hung out and had said nice things about
moms for Liberty so this is somebody I’d
known for 20 years and and she was
incapable of Simply accepting the fact
that I had pursued an assignment um so
we we patched up later but I’m give you
an examp her first instinct was to
cancel the
dinner we have a few more minutes before
we open this up to um questions from the
audience I want to just push just a
little bit further and if if if you
don’t want to um push it further that’s
fine um but but let me try this
um so on the fourth of July we all watch
the fireworks
together um do the parade watch the
fireworks the kids all play together um
uh people participate together their
neighbors together they have a picnic
together it’s it’s wonderful when small
towns come together and participate that
way and and they act like neighbors
together let’s say they have a pot lock
even they take a meal together and and
and so they’re not just all on their
cell phones looking down they’re they’re
sharing in each other’s lives I totally
agree that you can’t have uh communities
without people coming to know each other
and sharing in some way that that
process that living together is
absolutely
critical my my question is
um is what about the
Creed is it can we dispense with a
common
Creed so it’s the fourth of July they
don’t share a common Creed they share
the fireworks together but they don’t
share a common Creed will that work
moving on that’s I think that’s a great
question to be quite honest is you know
we we can all come together on certain
points but as long as as long as it
remains at that level of enjoying the
fireworks together and the parade but
once it gets into deeper substance then
how do we do that can that translate
into
some uh some sustainable relationship
life together even in the in the
presence of these
disagreements you know because we share
this certain Creed or this commitment to
a set of Institutions or principles
that’s a great question and obviously
we’re Tren that’s we’re trending in the
wrong direction on that
point I mean it’s it’s it’s harder and
hard it’s getting harder and harder to
have what you call a common Creed given
the uh Relentless emphasis in in school
sometimes from the very very earlier
stages like kindergarten on the
differences between us the differences
between children the differences between
races the differences between religions
the differences between languages food
um and even attempts to bridge these
differences you know if I want to if I
isn’t if I wanted to celebrate Cinco de
Mayo I’m culturally appropriating
something that isn’t mine and so
um yes I I love the idea of a common
Creed and there is and and and we come
together on occasions uh it’s the four
the Fourth of July I I Shad to say this
but it’s true also Halloween things like
that you know my my Street in Brooklyn
has never been more um uh communitarian
loving brotherly fraternal than than it
than it has been on Halloween when we
all sit on our Stoops and hand out candy
to all cers together and greet and say
good evening and thank you and trick or
treat but it’s I mean Civic Creed yeah
no no but I me I mean I think the Creeds
of there Creeds I mean the the ultimate
Civic Creed is that we’re all American
um but that’s it’s harder to maintain
because we’re we’re encouraged to
believe that we’re
different um and that the differences
matter and that the differences are uh
defining
definitive um
gamechanging yeah I don’t know that I
have anything to add okay um and so uh
questions from the
audience and I I’ll just um um end that
question with another question in case
anybody from the audience wants to pick
it up um and if there isn’t a common
Civic
Creed what is the purpose of civic
education
I mean there is a common Civic Creed the
and the purpose of civic education is
to emphasize it underscore it to
strengthen it to give it scaffolding to
repair it from its present damaged State
and so um but the commonality of the
Civic Creed has has been allowed to
wither away and that’s our problem
I can’t help but hear this question
being phrased as a false dichotomy can’t
we both be different and be American
can’t we have some differences and have
one common and have some
commonalities uh absolutely um it’s just
that the differences have tended now to
drown out or overshadow the
commonalities is uh in an Ideal World
yes we would
be both American and whatever else we
want to be as long as that other thing
doesn’t diminish or erode or subtract
from our americanness but yes I mean we
should be everything and
American Dr
Bush um I’m curious to hear a little bit
more about these leadership programs I
think they bring up the distinction
between a
credential and say wisdom or knowledge
or understanding so I’m wondering what
kind of place there might be for that
kind of
credential and where these schools of
leader Civic leadership can come in and
fill the Gap so maybe maybe the
academics could answer the latter part
and and you could answer the former part
what do you mean by a credential like
the fact that you something they can put
on their resume to show they have
leadership experience I mean is I guess
it adds it connects to what’s the
motivation of folks who are taking these
in the first place because I do think
you’re right there’s a sense of the Gap
I’m not sure the people are going into
these programs because of that sense of
the Gap yeah well I agree I mean I think
that it’s become like everything else
just an a a one of the tedious resume
building exercises that you do you know
before during and after college and it’s
it’s really weird you know I get the
local we we still get a print news paper
every week in my town and multiple times
I see articles in there of different
students from high school who’ve created
some nonprofit so there’s this one that
these these uh uh uh two people from the
high school created to get middle
schoolers interested in stem stem
careers and I’m
like it’s like if you haven’t created
your own nonprofit and now the new one
is have you published research in high
school you have published peer review
research and it’s like I think we’re
creating like incredibly cynical people
um who are clearly doing all this stuff
because they want to get into a good
school which will then get them the job
with the thing everything is calculated
out from before birth you know of these
kids’ lives and it wasn’t like that when
I was younger and I I do feel like man
these people must just be deeply cynical
you know about society and like what it
takes to get along in it because I do
Wonder like how much of this stuff is
even
undertaken on a legitimate basis versus
again designed to just be one more
little step you have to go through in
order to you know one day be appointed
to the board of directors of the Chamber
of Commerce or something like that um
and also show that you’re doing your ESG
work for your company so you I think
it’s I do think I think the idea of
credentialing is actually like uh I
think it’s gotten we’re too we’re over
credentialed
I would say in our
society and isn’t the University degree
for a lot of people just a credential
though yes exactly of
course I mean that’s what I would say
yeah and just just one followup where
are the Gen xers well that would be me
because yeah but you’re saying you
didn’t get that cynical kind of
education well I mean we’re we’re we’re
kind of like cynical by character I
think on some of this stuff you can see
my my analysis of these things yeah I
mean we we certainly got through
before um you know before this stuff a
lot of us before it took took off and
did those things so I think there are
there are people I know who are my age
who went through some of these programs
people who were more um you know more
more apt to do those things than I was
um yeah I was really focused mostly on
just working uh you know and Consulting
but I I know there are people who went
went through it um for sure
um I I think we we were lucky to I think
though get far enough down the path in
our career before a lot of the stuff
took off um it was a lot easier for us
to get into college you know we didn’t
have to like do all the stuff you got to
do to get in today so it’s just it’s
just a much much more competitive and
much more difficult environment today
than it was you know when I was younger
and so it’s it’s like you know that’s
sort of the game you have to play um
yeah and I was gonna say in in agreeing
with that then the other the other thing
that you see is all that stuff that
they’re doing doesn’t make them happier
in fact it makes them more miserable so
I think what are what not maybe we
escaped it just barely but the the
generation that I’m that we all teach if
we’re teachers or our own children maybe
kids from 15 to 25 30 maybe they are
just caught up in this notion of
credentialing and achievement and it’s
making them absolutely miserable and
it’s taking time away from the things
that might make them happy in life like
forming relationships getting married
having children I mean nobody wants to
talk about actually people are starting
to talk about those things is I mean Ain
Ain works on this uh on on marriage and
and and the place of young men all all
that credentialing stuff gets in the way
of the things that are truly um
lifegiving thank
you um something was said earlier about
how we’ve kind of learned to be
entertained by the Battle of politics um
I’m wondering how we could show like
practical tips for how we could show
leadership to kind of reframe that and
put the emphasis on the correct
things during this semester um at Baylor
my husband and I are teaching a class
called um it it’s called the hardest
issue issues of our age but it’s
basically a class and how to do civil
discourse and we were talking in class
the the other day about how weird it
would be for the students to watch two
people having a civilized debate on
television and how boring they would
find that and we said you know that’s a
problem because it used to be that a
real debate was substantive uh people
were respectful to one another somebody
would probably win or it was very likely
that someone would win in the end but it
wasn’t it wasn’t what it is now and I
said why do you think that is and they
said well it’s it’s fun to watch
political battle it’s fun to turn on Fox
or CNBC and see the see the sides go at
each other and I think uh one way to
maybe remedy this to some extent is to
is to to pull back from the
politicization of everything I mean the
the reason it’s so people are in in
battles all the time is that um we’re
advertising our political views all the
time if we could if we could step I mean
not that not that politics isn’t
important but if we could step back and
say I’m not just a you know conservative
Progressive Republican Democrat but I am
a a person who has these interests or U
you know I have these family
relationships or I live in this place or
I do this thing um for a hobby I mean it
there are all these other dimensions of
human experience that
could give us more um possibility of
healthy relationships but it is the
politicization of everything everything
becomes political in that way and I
think is deeply damaging to
friendships but Elizabeth remember the
old civil discourse of somebody like a
uh Bill Buckley um it was civil but it
was also incredibly witty yeah that was
entertaining too
yeah with the enormous administrative
state that we have both at the federal
government and at the state level could
you comment on the importance of the
study not of democracy but of
bureaucracy in Civics
education and I would note there’s very
little in the academic Realm on the
study of bureaucracy versus the study of
politics and and other aspects of Civic
life who would like to F that I mean
I’ll just give you my instinctive
response before I hand it over to the
scholars I I think bureaucracy is often
at war with democracy and there’s
nothing that uh is better designed to
make citizen feel
powerless and therefore
disenfranchised and therefore civically
impotent than bureaucracy is
think of woodro Wilson’s
work thank you um um I think we’re in a
um um a situation where I think we need
to to view the truth of where we stand
Society I don’t think that the um the
control of the media whether it be the
New Media or the new New Media lesser
now or the old Media or Academia
societal anything seems to be this 50-50
country or maybe even 55 45 or something
towards the left I think though that the
that the progressive left has been um so
skilled at controlling institutions for
decades basically since World War II or
be or before that we think that the
country is indeed kind of this 5050
thing whereas I would argue that
somebody could sit and and and and posit
um
a four or five
sentence um um introduction to several
questions and we would get a great deal
more than 50% of the country agreeing
with certain things if we if we pull the
names if we pull the Trump names and the
Biden names and the Obama names out of
it and just ask these things I think we
would see a great deal of it there is
still severe
danger with whether progressivism
communism despotism whatever there’s a
severe danger that they would continue
to control
the Medan message the Academia that
everything Sprouts from hence why a
great deal of this conference but I
think if we if we can say what do we
need to do what are the steps as aarin
said what are the steps we need to get
to now instead of just flapping our jaw
and ringing our hands and clutching
pearls and stuff what are the steps we
need to get to right now to say we need
to educate these people a great deal
enormously quickly is happening in the
podcast World in YouTube and Rumble
world I mean you’ve got the rogans and
you got the bill Mars Etc that are still
firmly entrenched on the left but they
are being yanked to the right quote
unquote because the middle is moving to
the left I think everyone has seen the
little chart that Elan mus did he goes
here’s here’s me he goes but the left is
moving so far to the left that the
center is now on the left of me I’m by
default becoming a conservative on so
many issues not everything bunch of
social issues he is still but he is
question well my question is what are
the things that we can do to make sure
we go after this right now and not just
talk about it and realize that a great
deal of the country far larger than we
think is really not as Progressive as
the media would have us believe or
Academia it seems to me there are a lot
of things going on right now that are
trying to counter that um this this
institute being one of them the other
institutes springing up in Tennessee and
Florida elsewhere being another and
frankly the the the um classical school
movement I mean think about Great Hearts
and um my own children go to a Christian
classical school and there are lots of
them and they’ve come up in the last 25
years it seems to me a lot of people are
seeing the problem that you identify and
they’re trying to do something about it
on the ground and they’re doing it uh
for people whose minds are not yet
formed that for kids and for for college
students so I think there is a growing
sense that we’re not just going to sit
by and and let this stuff happen we we
can actually make some changes in it and
so I think there are people who are
taking that in Hand of doing it speaking
of which we have the new director of the
classical Education Institute here Carol
mcnamer thanks for
coming I was I was just going to ask
that same question what what’s the role
of liberal education in in sort of
supporting or or directing students
towards a better Civ education what how
can those two work together uh to
produce a sort of
more serious minded Civic population you
know more serious human beings better
citizens well my sense is that it’s it’s
vital for one thing it
allows a real liberal education allows
people to see the world through
different lenses uh you know in other
words most of us maybe are inclined to
see the world practically and
politically but you can look at the
world aesthetically you can look at the
beauty of the world if you choose to you
can look at the world from the point of
view of Science and if you are in uh in
in a in a program where you are
encouraged to see the world in that way
you are sort of released from the
tyranny of politics I’m making an ootan
Point here I think but but but it’s very
much true that liberal education frees
you not only from you know all the
things things we were talking about this
morning but it frees you from the the
notion that my only existence as as a
practical political person in the here
and now and that to me is is a great
first
step move time for one more question
thank you first of all I want to commend
Aaron on his observation about
leadership programs someone who’s been
developing them for 28 plus years I can
appreciate the fact that group think
begets group think not all group
leadership programs are the same um so
my question is
if we’re uh if our leadership programs
are feeding into this categorization of
Left Right conservative liberal aren’t
we just feeding into the same vicious
cycle and U feeding into the group
think well I I would say um you know
there’s like multiple layers of it if
I’m hearing what people are saying you
know and I admit I admit that was
somewhat vocational in my education uh
going to business school as an undergrad
but I think about liberal education is
about the formation of the
person then we could think about you
know Civics is kind of the basics of our
society and our government and how they
function and I think there’s a lot of
that you can get that does not have
particularized outcomes embedded in it
so we can we can all agree on certain
things uh about the the kind of people
that we hope to be or even
the way that we want our country to work
and yet disagree on policies and things
of that nature but I would certainly
agree that um group think is as much a
danger uh in sort of uh you know any
domain if we’re not careful you know
group dynamics will U will will take
over and you’ll end up someplace uh
nobody wanted to be there’s a great
study on that called the abalene Paradox
about how a group of people in this
family ended up taking a trip to AB
Texas even though none of them wanted to
go there but it was sort about the
nature group dynamics you get together
everybody starts agreeing on things and
you think everybody else wants it but
all of a sudden you end up someplace
nobody wants to go and so I think that
uh you know those Dynamics are are we’re
Su we’re all susceptible to
those um you know all susceptible to
those regardless of our our points of
view yeah Lemmings don’t make good
citizens what was that uh Lemmings don’t
make goodi lemings don’t make good
citizens okay um I think that there
because there are um different ways to
think about
politics and uh about what it means to
be human about how to live one’s life
does it necessarily mean that we um are
Lemmings or that we are in categories of
group think um means that we have to
make choices
and education is about making choices so
um can I add one more thing absolutely
that the maybe question the question I
wish someone had asked because somebody
asked about bureaucracy I think one of
the things my observation has been as we
we read classical civilization the great
books the foundings almost entirely
material from a pre Second Industrial
Revolution society and I think with the
Second Industrial Revolution largescale
urbanization
um we live in in an unprecedented era in
human history in terms of some of our
material conditions and I do think we
also need to figure out how to educate
people in the reality of certain aspects
of our society like bureaucracy in the
administrative State and what it does
the role of media like how mass media
and social media function in our society
um you know educating our children to
understand and be masters of the media
not media I think that’s some something
that I think needs to be added to some
of these um traditional forms these
particularly uh post uh post-second
Industrial Revolution conditions of our
society