Paradigm Shift - Part 4
The Costs of Education
There are three keys to improving learning in America and, in the process, placing ourselves in a position to constructively address a number of other overwhelming educational, social, economic, financial, and political problems. The first key is to end compulsory education, and the arguments for why this should be done have been outlined earlier.
By shifting the locus of control for learning from compulsory education to the individual, one will be establishing conditions which are conducive to, rather than antagonistic toward, learning. Equally important, by eliminating compulsory education, one will have provided a means for substantially reducing tax-related problems for individuals, communities, states and the federal government.
Almost all of the fifty states have huge budget difficulties. One of the major reasons for such problems is the inordinate, and quite unnecessary, high cost of public education.
Many communities are overwhelmed with the costs, both financial and otherwise, associated with trying to provide what is hoped to be quality education under an onslaught of forces which often are antithetical to one another. Parents, students, teachers, principles, superintendents, school boards, media, tax payers, higher education, businesses, and government officials all tend to have very different goals, purposes, problems, stresses, and needs.
Consequently, one of the very first casualties of this on-going war tends to be learning. Like the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War, everybody is so consumed with the politics and implications which surround the shape of the table, negotiations often come as an afterthought, if they come at all.
When one multiplies the number of participants, interests, perspectives, needs, and concerns, the result tends to be chaos, Education has become a modern tower of Babel in which everyone is speaking different languages of purpose, meaning, value, significance, goals, and means.
One wag has said that a camel is a horse designed by committee. One might also say that modern education is a nightmare cooked up by too many chefs insisting they have the right to control the process of creating the broth of learning which is to nourish the development of children.
As outlined previously, this is not a right which any of them have. Once people understand only individuals have the right to control the character of their own learning – as long as such control is consonant with preserving the integrity of the principles inherent in the Preamble for others -- then, the idea of compulsory education disappears, and with it the turf wars which have been vying for control of the monetary pie that compulsory education has generated also disappears.
The turf-wars will come to an end because, like all wars, once the money disappears which subsidizes such battles, then, the ones who have been living off the subsidization will have to move on to other well-watered pastures in the search for food and lodging. And, the way in which to make much of this money disappear is to not force people to have to underwrite the expense of compulsory education through their property, state, and federal taxes.
Although there would be substantial reductions in the amount of taxes which might have to be gathered to finance learning, one cannot suppose that with the demise of compulsory education, all community-sponsored learning-related activities would all come to an end. Newer, better, cheaper, more learner-friendly, and more effectively flexible ways of education would have to be found through which to assist students to struggle toward taking control of, and having responsibility for, their own learning, but once one removes the dimension of compulsion one frees up the engines of ingenuity – both individually and collectively -- to fire on all cylinders in a far more dynamic and constructive manner. However, the bottleneck for lowering the tax burden is to jettison the compulsory aspect of education.
As overwhelming and staggering as the monetary costs of trying to dredge the quicksands of modern education are, the real costs associated with schooling and compulsory education are embedded in the lost opportunities for individuals to gain meaningful control over their own learning and, in the process, acquire the conceptual and methodological tools which are necessary for constructive forms of self-determination that would be heuristically valuable sources of contribution to the larger community or Union of communities. By trying to forcibly control what forms such self-determination and potential for contributing to the larger community will assume, everyone loses.
Degrees Are Not About Learning
The second key to improving learning is to end the privilege of degree-granting status to all institutions of higher learning. Closely aligned with this second key is a third step which is intended to help improve conditions that are conducive to learning, and this third, key component requires a shifting of responsibility from schools to corporations, businesses, technical trades, industry, the healing professions, and so on, with respect to the process of finding, identifying, selecting, and, if necessary, training people who will be capable of performing in competent ways within a given job, career, or professional environment.
By rescinding the privilege of institutions, schools, colleges, and universities to grant degrees one opens up a number of possibilities, none of which serves to restrain commerce and trade or impede the free exchange of ideas. A degree is not about the quality of what has been learned, but, rather, is a statement that someone, somehow has managed to navigate -- through happenstance, hard work, good fortune, and/or social connections – her or his way through a process of socialization -- sometimes associated with learning, but what has been learned is often not what has been taught or what is needed to become a mature, productive member of society whose potential for learning has been enhanced in a way that is conducive to the mental, physical, or spiritual health of either the community or the individual.
Whatever grades a person receives pursuant to such a degree are virtually meaningless because the larger community does not know the circumstances of the testing, grading, or learning process surrounding such grades. More importantly, the community has no way of knowing what has been effectively retained from that process, as opposed to what has been picked up independently of it.
Degrees, as also is true of grades, constitute tools of control. Degrees are the means through which one group of people manages to leap frog over other groups of people -- not necessarily because of superior intelligence, learning, competence, ability, talent, or potential, but because a degree is a ticket of admission which has been paid for and, in accordance with a sort of cult-like mind-set, is expected to be able to transport one through the door of social, economic, and career opportunity.
Although particular universities and institutions of so-called higher learning may argue otherwise, the difference in quality of the learning experience from one place to the next is often negligible. Universities or colleges often like to think that it is the clothes which makes the person, but, in truth, it is the person who makes the person, and the role which universities and colleges play is purely ancillary.
Undoubtedly, there are small group of teachers in existence doing their version of Mr. Chips and who, as a result, touch a student’s life in an essential, transformational manner which lasts a life time. In all likelihood, the vast majority of students never encounter such individuals -- although students may come across this or that teacher whom they find to be interesting.
This is so because the sheer logistics of resource allocation are at odds with such a possibility. There are simply too many students matched up against too few teachers with too little time available for teachers to be able to spend much quality time with students.
The vast majority of what is taught in universities can be picked up through methods which have nothing to do with the granting of degrees. Give someone a library and/or a bookstore, along with a computer with an ISP (Internet Service Provider), and that person has pretty much everything a university or college has to offer except, maybe, an arrogance which assumes that learning is not possible without the alchemical elixir which can only (so it is assumed) come through the occult understanding of a teacher or place of ‘higher’ learning.
There are very few professors who teach something other than what they have written in dissertations, books, essays, papers, or journals. If one can access the latter, one doesn’t need to attend a class in order to be read the same material one can read on one’s own.
Of course, being able to question someone about what she or he has written is always nice, but most students never do (although they do discuss and argue such issues with friends) Furthermore, not all professors or teachers know what they are talking about so answering questions under such circumstances doesn’t necessarily lead to enlightenment, understanding, clarity, insight, or truth. Finally, as far as those teachers are concerned who actually are knowledgeable and accessible (and the former group aren’t always synonymous with the latter group), then, lots of luck trying to get much time with them beyond the confines of the classroom.
Degrees are largely about control, privilege, ego, status, money, appearances, expectations, careers, and jobs (those of the teacher as well as that of the student). Degrees are not primarily about learning, realization of human potential, self-determination, or freedom.
If one were to take away the privilege to grant degrees from institutions of so-called ‘higher’ learning, one would not interfere with the process of learning in the least. In fact, quite the opposite would be the case.
With no issue of degrees and grades to murky the waters, then, the people who wanted to attend these institutions would be doing so for the purposes of learning and nothing else. If such institutions no longer become a mere ends to a degree, then, a degree is no longer a commodity in short supply, and, as a result, the price of a degree-less education will begin to fall – perhaps, precipitously so -- because the focus switches from: politics, appearances, hype, egos, status, as well as a scarcity of resources and spaces as alleged gateways for success, to: learning.
If one were to deregulate the process of education so that individuals were free to pursue learning in the most cost-effective, expeditious, and personally satisfying manner, then, universities and colleges would have to do one of three things: they would have to change to accommodate the transformations of the learning landscape; they would have to cater only to the very wealthy, or they would have to cease to exist.
Despite the fact both public schools and higher education pay considerable lip-service to ideas such as the free flow of information and an open-ended search for truth, neither public schools nor higher education is committed to anything but their own take on these issues. They both fear a really free market of learning because in their heart of hearts they know there are numerous avenues to quality learning which need not ever pass through their hallowed halls.
The ace in the hole of such institutions has always been the degree. Even if there are other qualitatively superior ways of learning, if people are required to have a piece of paper or parchment, then, such an entity becomes a sought after commodity that is quite independent of the issue of learning.
The existence of degrees is what forces people to the doorsteps of public schools, private academies, universities and colleges ... not learning. One could have the requisite learning, but if one doesn’t have the credentials or degrees, then, one is fighting an uphill, often unwinnable, battle, and schools/universities/colleges know this very well.
The whole move toward professionalization of so many disciplines is to institutionalize the need of people to seek officially sanctioned credentials, such as degrees, which require an individual to run through whatever idiotic hoops the ring masters of such academic circuses deem to be necessary. Professionalization has been central to the hegemony of higher education because it enables arbitrarily selected individuals to set the rules of the game by which everyone must play, and whoever controls the writing and enforcing of the rule book exerts tremendous control over not only what can be learned, but how this can be learned, or even whether something is deemed worthy of learning.
Professionalization also has been a crucial force behind the narrowness, rigidity, controversy, politics, oppression, stagnation, and resistance to an unfettered examination of a great many issues which has entered into many circles of so-called learning. At the heart of any professional organization is the issue of control, and the nature of this degrees of freedom and constraints entailed by such control is given expression through the paradigm which dominates that process of control.
Changing paradigms is always a very difficult, controversial, and, often, a very messy business. Those in control tend to resist such transitions, otherwise they lose control, and avoiding the lost ofcontrol often is considered more important to such individuals than truth, rights, justice, the general welfare, liberty or learning.
If one takes away the privilege of granting degrees, then, access to higher education, issues of discrimination, reverse discrimination, and affirmative action are largely removed from the domain of learning. If learning is the only issue, and degrees have been retired to museums of ancient history, and, therefore, are no longer a necessary ticket to opportunity, then, there are lots of very cost-effective, diverse, effective, and engaging ways of getting an education – ways which, with a little bit of effort on the part of all of us, can put a set of quality learning experiences within striking distance of nearly everyone.
A Necessary Shift In Responsibility
However, in order to have a realistic chance of deregulating the whole industry of degree-granting privileges, one needs to have the world of business, careers, jobs, corporations, economics, and the rest of the so-called ‘real’ world take charge of, as well as assume financial responsibility for, the human resource methods which are used to identify and select competent candidates for available positions. Up until now, the work-a-day world has appeared to have a symbiotic relationship with the educational process, but, on closer examination, the relationship actually has been destructive both to the world of business as well as to the world of learning.
More specifically, whenever the world of jobs depends on public schools and institutions of higher education to sort out competence, learning, knowledge, and understanding, almost invariably this form of dependence leads to the institutionalizing of methods for not only differentially streaming, labeling, and grading students, but setting in motion an educational accountability version of three card Monte. All of this – the streaming, labeling, grading, and accountability issues – gets in the way of, and effectively compromises, the whole enterprise of learning.
Among other things, these methods unnecessarily put critical emotional and pedagogical distance between a student and someone who is supposedly trying to help that individual learn. Most students, when they realize they are being evaluated for purposes other than determination of strengths and weaknesses concerning the facilitation of learning, tend to withdraw from environments in which critical evaluation constitutes a major sub-text of the relationship.
A teacher cannot help someone learn who has disappeared emotionally and conceptually from a learning relationship even if the body of the latter remains visible. Requiring teachers to differentially grade, label and stream students adversely affects learning because it constitutes an inherent conflict of interest for both the teacher and the learner.
Moreover, placing pressure on teachers, students and school systems to kowtow to arbitrary measures of accountability also gets in the way of learning either by taking time, resources, and focus away from the process of learning, or by restricting learning to what is to be tested. Besides, what could be dumber than requiring students to take, say, a standardized test and, yet, not allowing students to be able to see what they did – either correctly or incorrectly? How does a student learn from such an exercise except in some Kafka-like sense in which nothing makes sense, and nothing is supposed to make sense, and one is not permitted to ask questions, and, yet, one always stands accused of some unknown crime or sin.
If employers were to become fully responsible for assessing their own candidates, the locus of control would shift to where it belongs on a number of levels. Students would gain control over their learning, and employers would be able to devise their own criteria for what is going to best serve the needs of a given work environment.
However, in devising such criteria there needs to be at least one condition to which employers would have to adhere. Namely, while the human resource people of a place of employment would have the right to examine candidates for work-relevant kinds of learning, knowledge, and competence, they would not be entitled to inquire into where or how a candidate acquired such competence unless such acquisition was directly related to some previous form of work experience.
Probing for the nature and extent of a prospective employee’s knowledge, learning, and competence is directly relevant to issues of suitability for employment. Probing to discover how such capabilities were developed is not relevant to the issue of hiring – other than to the degree such capabilities have been gained through other work environments.
Similarly, licensing for jobs involving health, engineering, psychology, insurance, real estate, law, automobile mechanic, and any number of other job designations is entirely independent of how one came to know what one did. All that is important is whether or not a candidate has such knowledge or competence, and not how one obtained that knowledge.
An employer might wish to contract out this task of identifying and selecting potential candidates. Nonetheless, whoever performs this task should be constrained to focus only on what is known and what can be done, and not whether there are certain kinds of status-oriented processes associated with the learning.
Part of the methodology associated with any reliable and valid empirical activity is to eliminate as much bias from the selection process as possible. If one were to require employers to assess job-competence or suitability independently of the means through which such capabilities were acquired, then, this would be somewhat comparable to what, methodologically, is called a ‘single-blind’ experiment in which certain factors are removed from an experimental context in order to avoid tainting our understanding of any experimental results which might be forthcoming.
If one were to retain the privacy issues revolving about the source and means of one’s learning, and, as well, if one were to use human resource facilities that were entirely independent (as far as its methods of assessment were concerned) from a given employer, then, this would be comparable to what is known as a ‘double-blind’ experiment in which an employer is not directly responsible for identifying suitable candidates. Moreover, part and parcel of this kind of evaluation independence would be any reference to the color, gender, religion, or politics of a given candidate.
The more a place of employment reflects some of the qualities of a double-blind experiment, the less likelihood there is for discrimination to enter into the selection process. The less likelihood there is for discrimination to be present in such a process of evaluation, the more level the playing field of life becomes and, therefore, the more likely that all candidates for any given position will be perceived through one and the same set of evaluative lenses that are relatively undistorted by irrelevant and prejudicial considerations.
A Few Possibilities
Only a few of the possibilities which might be generated to deal with the paradigm shift that is being proposed in this paper have been touched upon, or alluded to, in the foregoing discussion. Public schools could be converted into community resource centers. Libraries could evolve in similar ways. Businesses could offer in-house learning opportunities for employees and their children as one of the perks of, attractions for, working for a given company or business. Teaching could be deregulated so that the quality of a teacher was measured by how well they taught and not by whether they had certain degrees or were the member of a union or had been certified by a state or professional agency.
Improving learning in America is not a matter of better public schools, a more diverse array of charter schools, or creative voucher plans. Improving learning begins with: (a) the abandonment of compulsory education; (b) the elimination of degree-granting privileges by institutions of higher learning (a step which has nothing to do with the capacity of such an institution to deliver a set of quality learning experiences or to compete for learners who are seeking such experiences, as opposed to a status-drenched piece of paper which has had a great deal to do with the devaluation of the process of learning); (c) and, finally, a shifting of the responsibility for determining job-competency from schools to places of employment which are permitted to probe to determine the extent and nature of a prospective candidate’s learning and knowledge but would not be permitted to try to discover the means through which such learning and knowledge were acquired. If one were to follow the foregoing three-part prescription, perhaps, a lot of what ails the learning process in America would begin to both heal and improve.
Among other things, such a prescription would have a major leveling effect on the playing field on which people compete for learning, career and job opportunities. If compulsory education is deregulated, and if degree-granting privileges are rescinded, and if employers are required to look only at what has been learned and not seek to discover where or how this has been done, then, to a very large extent, issues of money, social-status, geographical location, and inequitable distribution of resources are attenuated, perhaps completely in many cases, in the way they distort the fairness of playing conditions with respect to learning and employment opportunities.
A person who, for example, buys a book on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and sincerely engages this text need not be at any disadvantage with respect to understanding what is read than a person who goes to an upper-tier university and takes a course on Kant. One doesn’t need money, social position, the right family lineage, power, or a university education to understand Kant. All one needs is the curiosity, intrinsic motivation, and perseverence to see the process through – the same set of qualities which anyone who wishes to understand Kant needs no matter where she or he undertakes such a task.
The same logic extends to much of what goes on within a school or university environment. The rigor and quality of an individual’s search for learning has absolutely nothing to do with whether, or not, that quest takes place inside, or outside, a school environment -- the challenges and problems are largely the same irrespective of the venue used for learning.
There is, of course, one potential difference between someone doing studies independently of school and someone pursuing such activities within a schooling environment. This involves the element of free time .
In other words, whether through loans, scholarships, term-time work, and/or parental financial assistance, people who attend schools usually are able to do so because they, through one means or another, have the financial wherewithal to buy the time necessary to engage learning in a serious manner. The luxuary of such time for learning is something which may not be available to individuals from financially impoverished backgrounds.
Voucher programs usually have been thought of in terms of a process in which students, or their families, are given certificates which can be given to a school of their choice. The selected school, then, redeems that certificate from whomever is footing the bill for education.
Perhaps, the time has come to think about paying our youth for the work of learning. Naturally, some set of checks and balances probably will have to be set in place in order to ensure that such a direct system of payment would not be abusively exploited. This might include possibilities like paying a student’s rent, phone, and other basic expenses directly. Or, perhaps, accounts of various kinds could be set up at particular bookstore, an Internet provider, supermarkets, clothing stores, and so on to look after relevant expenses.
Ideally, whatever payment structure or framework is selected, the administration of that structure should be done as near to a student’s normal living environment as possible. If schools, teachers, and other personnel can be paid through a given school district or municipal level of government, then, there is no reason why the same cannot be done for students in order to afford the latter the free time needed to pursue learning in a serious fashion.
Quite frankly, a system involving some sort of direct payment system to students that would look after their basic living expenses while they go about the process of learning , probably would be a lot cheaper to fund, and, yet, produce qualitatively better results than underwriting the costs of a full-blown system of schooling would be. After all, individual programs of learning need not be subject to the same sort of costs as are associated with the bureaucratic wastes, gridlock politics, and self-serving agendas to which public and higher education seem to be inherently predisposed.
Summing Up and Some Questions
The beginning of this paper started in the following way:
“What if someone could offer a way to (a) substantially cut property, state, and federal taxes, while simultaneously: (b) revolutionizing the process of education so that the emphasis is on learning instead of accountability wars, political agendas, and a self-serving means for generating money for those whose primary interest is other than the welfare of learners; (c) bringing an end to the, till now, interminable wrangling over discrimination-reverse discrimination and affirmative action debates by truly leveling the playing field for all concerned; (d) enabling citizens to gain complete control over their learning; (e) shifting the burden of responsibility for identifying learning competence to where it belongs and, thereby, ending a form of subsidization which has done nothing but undermine the process of learning; (f) reducing the costs of both public and higher education by billions, if not trillions, of dollars; (g) re-thinking the meaning and purpose of the Constitution; (h) and, doing all of the foregoing by requiring only nominal expenditures for underwriting the transition entailed by such changes? Does this all sound like a Rube Goldberg device, a perpetual motion machine, a quixotic quest, and/or the ranting of someone without proper monitoring of medication who has been dumped back into the community from a mental facility?
Read on. You might be surprised.”
Well, now that you have read on, are you surprised? If you are, hopefully this is in a pleasant way.
Not much has been said with respect to the details concerning the “nominal expenditures for underwriting the transition entailed by such changes.” The primary reason for this is because the financial bottom line really depends on how creative, committed, co-operative, and entrepreneurial a given community might be, as well as what kinds of resources (in human terms, as well as material and financial) are available to a community.
There is no question the transition costs associated with such a paradigm change will not be zero. There is, on the other hand, considerable likelihood that such costs might be fairly nominal – at least relative to the soaring costs of education today as well as related cost projections into the future.
Instead of continuing to fund schooling and school systems, we might begin to rethink the role of libraries and other similar resource centers in the process of learning. Instead of continuing to hire teachers and become tied into long-term financial commitments which may not be conducive to enhancing the quality and flexibility of learning which individuals, society and the future may require, we might begin to explore alternative approaches to the way in which learners engage the process of learning, discovery, critical understanding, problem-solving, and transfer of knowledge.
Obviously, there will be costs associated with any such choices. But, the issue is not about eliminating costs altogether but, rather, is a matter of learning how to spend more wisely, justly, and efficaciously in order to enhance the quality of what is learned and, therefore, potentially, the quality of life for both the individual and the surrounding community.
With respect to those vested interests who might feel threatened by, and therefore, resistant to, what is being proposed here, there is only one word to say: “Adapt!” This capacity is part of the wonderful set of tools with which human beings have been endowed, and this has been the watch word throughout history.
Furthermore, at the heart of adaptation is the capacity to learn. Educators have preaching this lesson to students more and more as modern society enters into rapidly changing conditions, environments, needs, and problems. Perhaps, educators need to listen to what they are preaching and apply the underlying lesson to themselves.
If the foregoing considerations were taken seriously, then, everyone in America would have to adapt in one way or another. Hopefully, the collective set of adaptations would form a constructive synergy which is conducive to enhancing the process of learning and giving each of us greater control over her or her life without necessarily compromising, or infringing upon, anyone else’s opportunity to do so as well.
There is another thought which might be added to the foregoing. One question which well-intentioned, and not-so-well intentioned, people are likely to ask is the following. What happens if we permit our youth to seek out their own way and own style of learning according to their own time-table, and as they approach their late teens are still not doing well – What then?
Perhaps the most crucial facet of being able to gain control over the locus of learning is through being able to read. Through enriched library programs, schools which have been converted into community resource centers, the establishing of literacy volunteer programs, as well as mentor-learner relationships being forged with business and corporation participation, one has the potential for helping every child in a community to develop reading and literacy proficiency.
Much of this literacy work would take place when an individual is young, before society has had an opportunity to compromise, if not destroy, the natural curiosity, wonder, openness, and excitement which most children have in relation to life. During this period of life, perhaps more so than any other, the natural tendency of a child is to want to co-operate with someone who is perceived as willing to assist -- in a warm, supportive, encouraging, non-judgmental manner -- a child to learn, and therefore, during this stage of life a child has more teachable moments than do most people who are older. A child’s natural curiosity, together with the forces of intrinsic motivation which vary from person to person, plus a learning environment which offers stress-free, grade-free, labeling-free support is likely to significantly enhance learning for most, if not all, of the children in any given community.
Once a solid foundation of literacy has been established, a child has been given many of the tools which are necessary for her or him to be able to gradually struggle toward assuming greater responsibility for, and control of, the process of learning. The obligation which educators – whether parents, professional, volunteer, or otherwise – have is do whatever is possible to bring a child to this stage where they can begin to fly solo in their own ship of learning.
From time to time, a child or youngster may need to get additional help, of one kind or another, as he or she encounters new challenges for, and problems associated with, learning. Nevertheless, once a child learns how to fly in the foregoing sense, this is like riding a bike, a person never forgets how to do it – although people, as they grow older, often stop themselves, for one reason or another, from continuing on with the learning process.
However, if after all is said and done, there are still individuals who have not taken advantage of the opportunities given to them and, as a result, have resisted developing even minimally acceptable levels of literacy competence, then, the door is open for exploratory discussions directed toward, on the one hand, the responsibilities which accompany rights, and on the other hand, the right of the majority to not have to shoulder the burden of another person’s irresponsibility. Where such exploratory discussions might lead is uncertain, but wherever they go the principles inherent in the Preamble to the Constitution apply to everyone – both with respect to the implied rights and the concomitant responsibilities.
When some Native communities are at an impasse with respect to certain, seemingly, unresolvable problems which are confronting them, the idea of a ‘Healing Circle’ comes into play. If issues of child molestation, sexual abuse, domestic violence, rape, and murder can be resolved through the qualities and properties of such Circles – and they have been and there is documented evidence to this effect – then, surely, similar Circles could be established to resolve problems surrounding the issue of the right to have control over what one learns and the responsibilities to oneself and the community which are attendant to such a right.
The Potential Character of Constitutional Obligation
There are, at least, two questions which remain. These questions were raised fairly early in this essay – namely, (1) why should one feel obligated to comply with a document (i.e., the Constitution) which was written over two hundred years ago, and (2) assuming there is such an obligation, what kind of an obligation is it?
Most people might tend to agree that no one should feel obligated to honor a contract or covenant which someone else entered into several hundred years ago. Whatever arrangements people made then is their affair – that was then, and this is now.
On the other hand, the themes, issues, and problems which are addressed by the Constitution are not restricted to what went on two hundred years ago. The same political and social challenges are still with us. The same human needs remain in effect. The same kind of oppressive, authoritarian, anti-democratic dangers to freedom of choice with respect to the pursuit of life-quality are threatening our existence, both individually and collectively.
Whatever the structural faults and shortcomings of the Constitution may be, the essential idea of the Constitution gives expression to universal themes which resonate with all of us. Which person isn’t interested in issues of justice, tranquility, security, welfare, liberty, and struggling to establish a more perfect Union ... a better place in which to live? Which individual is indifferent to matters involving procedural fairness? Which person doesn’t see the benefits that might accrue from a system regulated through a set of checks and balances that are intended to serve the community? Which individual can afford to be blase about the threat of oppression, tyranny, and involuntary servitude? Which person does not have an abiding interest in a procedural framework that considers the concept of a right, which buffers the individual against the changing tides of majority whims, something to which everyone is entitled consistent with due care for the protection of other democratic principles?
Those who crafted the Declaration of Independence were dead-on when they said: “Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” The one change which might be made in the foregoing is to substitute “Constitutions” for the word “Governments”, because, in truth, what makes any form of government worth while is the quality of the rules and principles to which such governments give expression.
The Constitution is a working arrangement which permits one to get rid of governments that bring suffering on to the people whom are to be served without being forced to throw the baby out with the bath water. The baby in this case is the Constitution and that is what is precious, not any particular form of dirty bath water ... i.e., this or that politician, or this or that government administration.
The obligation a citizen has to the Constitution is a commitment to the universal themes of existence. The nature of this commitment is not derived from the past, but is at the heart of what being human entails, no matter when one may live and no matter where one may live.
Consequently, the obligation a citizen has to the Constitution is an on-going existential one. In our hearts, both collectively and individually, is a plea for justice, liberty, rights, peace, security, and welfare. The Constitution offers us all a means of seeking and struggling toward the deepest yearnings of our being.
The obligation a person has to the Constitution is the obligation a person has to oneself as a human being with a constructive potential and intrinsic integrity which should not be denigrated. The obligation we have to the set of rules and principles embodied by the Constitution is the obligation we have to want for others what we wish for ourselves.
None of the foregoing essay should be construed as grounds for advocating violent revolution or the violent overthrow of governments. Other than the wisdom inherent in the adage that ‘the devil one knows may be better than the devil one does not know’ – and any other number of similar cautionary notes of discretion, the fact of the matter is, everything which has been discussed in this essay can be accomplished through a peaceable shift in the paradigm which is used to engage the Constitution – a paradigm shift intended to unfetter the rich potential of our historical and political heritage.
The paradigm shift which is being suggested here is one that can save lives, money, and the integrity of the democratic principles inherent in the Constitutional protections directed toward preserving and helping to realize the promise of the Preamble. The paradigm shift being advanced is one which could permit people to regain control of the leaning process while, simultaneously, enhancing everyone’s opportunity to participate in the rights, privileges, powers, liberty, justice, tranquility, security, and welfare which has been set forth in the Preamble as we collectively, and, hopefully, cooperatively, strive for a more perfect union of people.
There is a peaceful way to accomplish all of the foregoing. The question is: do we, as a people, have the will to realize such potential?
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