Some Peace and Quiet, Please

How about some peace and quiet in this summer of 2015?  After all, does everything in America today have to be driven by a totally distracting and all-too-early political season?  Doesn’t America deserve a little peace and quiet?

This seems like reasonable line of inquiry.  It’s summer time and we’re supposed to enjoy a little vacation, right?  Why on earth would all those politicians involve themselves in the summer debate fray when they could be lying on the beach, hiking mountain trails or just spending time with their families?

We thought we might ask the leaders of our two major political parties a few questions about that.

Are the two parties missing a key narrative in the 2016 race for the Whitehouse (aside from not being able to read the calendar)?  Is it possible that the majority of the American people just want a little break and enjoy the summer?  Maybe there really isn’t a huge desire for change in America outside of a few key issues.  That’s our gut feeling anyway.

Here’s why…

It strikes us that since the 1960s and 70s, our two political parties have somehow managed to make happen most of the big changes that Americans wanted.  It’s starting to look like now the parties are creating a quest for continued change only for the sake of change and may be getting a little too creative.  It’s quite possible their quest for change is causing anxiety across the electorate.

It’s our sense that most Americans just want us all to take a breather and let things settle down for a while.  We know the scientific, technological and social fabrics of America (and indeed the world) are changing but is it really necessary to add political chaos to those changes?  We can adapt to those changes with just a little collective social objectivity, but politics don’t need to get in the way of that!

We believe a smarter approach would be for the parties to test a strategy to slow down and reduce the dramatic changes to our policies and enjoy what we have now, for just a bit at least: give some things a chance to work out.  Relook the National Strategic Narrative paper we pointed to in the earlier days of the blog.

There are a few areas we could still work on but we don’t have to pursue the increasingly lengthy frenetic political campaigns, just some good governance.

We believe a smart approach to better governance would be to tell American politicians that we, the American people, have had enough progress on right and left wing goals.  We now need to roll up our sleeves and just tackle a few changes where there is largely consensus.

Our recommended platform would be no new regulations and programs or laws for the next four years with the exception of:

• Address income inequality. We’re not perfectly sure what this looks like, but the top CEO and officers of companies do not need to make (or are worth) 300 times more than the average employees.  Please Red: get serious about this one and pay attention to mainstream America for a change.  This could be provided for by enhanced visibility of salary rates for the public and shareholders for senior officers in organizations: things will tend to work out from there.  We’re not real sure what else to propose, but we believe the public would support something to start the trend towards more transparency and equality of opportunity for all to succeed.
• Contain the cost of college tuition and medical care. Cost increases in both these sectors are far above average inflation and are hollowing out the middle class.  No one is bothering to explain to the rest of us why this is taking place.  Both Red and the Blue should think hard about this and act together on behalf of America!
• Give the middle class a tax break by lowering the payroll tax to 5% and remove the cap on wages subject to the tax. This would provide an immediate boost to our economy and help stabilize the social security fund.  Again, this should appeal to both parties.
• Remove incentives to offshore business operations, headquarters and profits. This would bring jobs and investment home.  Red, we need some help on this one.
• Control our borders and provide for orderly and at least for a while, less immigration. Increase the penalties further for hiring illegal immigrants and enforce existing laws.  This could possibly apply a little upward pressure on wages and help address income inequality.  We’ve read that in some parts of the country summer jobs are almost a thing of the past for native born Americans because so many jobs are now taken by immigrants.  We want to offer economic opportunity for everyone but America must be stable in its own right before we can offer stability to the rest of the world.  Blue, you can particularly help here.
• Improve our infrastructure. Pass a long-term infrastructure bill funded by a five cent increase on gas taxes.  This will make jobs and help provide long-term economic security for the country.
• Lift the ban on oil exports but place a reasonable tax on oil exports that is strictly earmarked to develop alternative energy.  Make alternative energy our “space program” of the 2020s.  It is the right thing to do for our economy, our future (e.g., our kids’) energy security and the environment long term.  Come one, Red and Blue…get on this!
• Develop a bipartisan carbon tax law to address climate change challenges and consider a tax on importation of goods from countries that are not complying with greenhouse reductions agreements.  Blue and Red: show more interest in the science here, now…please!

9)      Implement a freeze on all entitlements except for Social Security.  This will get people to the table to improve service delivery and change eligibility requirements.  On Social Security, gradually increase eligibility ages (again) and implement a comprehensive disability re-evaluation program to reduce the number of fraudulent recipients.  Both Red and Blue have an important role to play here.

Successful outcomes in tackling these nine areas would not solve all our problems, but we believe each would be valuable steps in the right direction.  They would give the public a breather on at least some fronts where a delay won’t be lethal.  We are confident many Americans would support most of these proposals.  And it’s something we could do together regardless of political affiliation.

We realize there are a lot of issues we don’t address here, including one of the most important: fair and equal treatment for all, considering gender and race in particular.  We offer no excuses for this, and will simply defer to the Principles of RAP.

What do you say…should we start enjoying the seasons now, the coming holidays included, instead of running for offices not even up for election for another year?  Do this for America, you two!

Posted by Chuck Hunt and Carl Hunt, 8/13/2015

Survival at the “Hinge of History”

By Carl W. Hunt

In 1987, the Library of Congress and the Florida Center for the Book collaborated on the publication of an essay entitled “Reading for Survival” by my all-time favorite novelist, John D. MacDonald. I’ve read my collection of Travis McGee novels by JDM (as aficionados call him) at least four times and I’m even meandering through them once again, slowly and with great relish. Chuck has read them all at least three times.

Together, Chuck and I have quoted JDM and his near-mythical Florida beach bum-salvage consultant hero, Travis, dozens of times in papers and blogs and I even cited a Travis quote in my dissertation!

“Reading for Survival” was probably JDM’s last published work and was the culmination of a project first proposed by Jean Trebbi, Director of the Florida Center of the Book, in 1985. It took JDM a long time to create the timeless insights that all of us can now read in the 30 or so printed pages that compose the final product – he clearly thought long and hard about one of his “final” contributions to the future of America. Chuck and I have read the essay a number of times and still marvel at how much relevant history, philosophy and meaningful prognostication JDM packed into some 7000 words.

Chuck and I both re-read “Reading for Survival” this last weekend. In reading it again, I learned that sometimes you just don’t have enough knowledge and experience for sage words to mean what they can…you have to wait until you’ve read another piece of great insight or experience life just a little more before things clarify. That’s what I experienced this weekend.

I had recently read another essay, one from the United Nations Academic Impact site co-written by my good friend and dissertation co-director, Stuart Kauffman and several others, including another friend, Caryn Devins. The essay, “Searching for Transcendence at the Hinge of History”, is one of those pieces that set the stage for understanding and appreciating anew the brilliance of both John D. MacDonald and my friend, Stu Kauffman. But, I had to read both within close proximity to put the pieces together.

Stu and company’s essay reflects the best of what some call nonlinear thinking. This is important because life is not a linear phenomenon even though time seems to pass that way, one moment followed by another, day after day, year after year. Life really isn’t just “one damned thing after another” but rather lots of things happening all at the same time, spread across lots of people and places: life is full of nonlinearity and massive interactions, a major theme of this blog.

The “Hinge of History” essay, something of a spin-off of Thomas Cahill’s series of books of the same name, eloquently raises the possibility “that we are unleashing the largest extinction event since perhaps the Permian, thereby destroying the accumulated living wisdom of thousands of species with no thought that we almost surely cannot recreate what we are losing,” [1] but that simultaneously, humanity’s “hinge of history may be the most staggering opportunity the globe faces.” We’re the problem and the solution at the same time!

How we become the problem and solution simultaneously is both the gist of Stu, Caryn and their co-authors’ essay and it’s a marvelous example of nonlinear thinking. A meaningful way to think about the passage and flow of time then might be found in the UN essay as follows:

“…the past provides ‘actual situations’ that become ‘enabling constraints,’ which at once restrain and encourage the development of the future. In other words, the enabling constraints from the past ensure that we cannot mold the world from scratch, but that we can build on what exists to create novel possibilities.”

In this way, we’re able to think beyond the past and its apparent linear unfolding and create a future that guides rather than forces the next turn of events. This is nonlinear thinking!

Let’s examine one of JDM’s examples in “Reading for Survival” and compare it to the “Hinge” essay. In this passage, JDM is describing the nonlinear, but elegantly “organized” mind of Travis’ great and brilliant friend Meyer. Here’s how Travis thought Meyer’s mind might work:

“When you and I think, it is a fairly simple process. A lot of fuzzy notions bump about in our skulls like play toys in a roiled swimming pool. With brute force and exasperation we sort them into a row and reach a conclusion, the quicker the better. With Meyer it is quite a different process. He has a skull like a house I read about once, where an old lady kept building on rooms because she thought if she ever stopped building she would die. It became an architectural maze, hundreds of rooms stuck on every which way. Meyer knows his way around his rooms. He knows where the libraries are, and the little laboratories, the computer rooms, the print shop, the studios. When he thinks, he wanders from room to room, looking at a book here, a pamphlet there, a specimen across the hall. His ideas are compilations of the thought and wisdom he has accumulated up until now.”

It’s just possible that my friend Stu thinks the same way and that’s why he’s so capable of conceiving these kinds of solutions to global planning problems in such a marvelously nonlinear, bottom-up driven fashion. Who would have thought and proposed what he and his coauthors did: that we could leverage this “Hinge of History” at which point we seem to exist today and seek to solve many of our societal dysfunctions not with new plans and designs but with a “vision of global change through adaptive institutional change at all levels…first and foremost at the local level. It is not a vision of design or command and control or engineering and rational forecasts. It is a vision of enablement. We enable global change by enabling local governance.” I think Meyer would approve!

In the end, we have to ask “Why is this at all important to how we Reconnect to the American Promise?” Well, I’ll take a shot at that answer: we can’t effectively reconnect to something that we can’t rediscover our intent to connect to in the first place…we really have to intend and desire to reconnect.

In their essay, Stu and company borrowed from Alfred North Whitehead’s thoughts on how the “future exerts its influence on the present, in the form of intention.” At the same time, they admonish us to recognize “that our intentions, and the realities they enable, can often create a widely divergent pattern of becoming, much like the evolving biosphere, political systems, and the economy.”

In large part, failure to recognize these divergences, aggravated by the super-connectivity of Information Technology, brought about much of the disconnection we’ve experienced in America since World War II. IT has helped to obscure and diffuse our desires and intentions to cohesively remain connected to our Founders. In finally recognizing this condition and leveraging technology to connect rather than disconnect, we’ll find the seeds to Reconnecting to the American Promise. I think it will help in the quest Stu, Caryn and company seek to fulfill, too.

In the meantime, to reflect nonlinearly how we could think and reconnect to our Founders as Americans of the 21^st Century, consider JDM and “Reading for Survival.” You’ll be amazed at how timely Travis and Meyer’s chat of 28 years ago is to our current world and our current disconnections. Read it for America…please!

Originally posted 6/30/2015

NOTES:

[1] See for example: “Earth is on brink of a sixth mass extinction, scientists say, and it’s humans’ fault” for a recent mainstream media version of this report, by Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 6/22/2015.

The Paradox of “Political Leadership”

by Carl W. Hunt and Walter E. Natemeyer [1]

In the American version of the English language, we often string together two words to make a more descriptive term. Some of these eventually become targets for jokes, such as “military intelligence” a term those of us who served in the military often lampooned as an oxymoron. Other examples include “sweet sorrow” and “deafening silence.” Some used to call the early versions of “Microsoft Works” an oxymoron.

The two-word term we’re going to talk about in this post shouldn’t be an oxymoron. However, in this current age of what passes for governance in the halls of our Congress and our Executive branch, the term “political leadership” is probably more of an oxymoron than we’d like to think…it’s certainly become a paradox.

Today, political leadership has become focused on using power to achieve the goals of one’s political party, not working to do what is best for our country overall. At the federal level, leadership is about getting congressional members to align with their party leaders’ demands and cast their votes accordingly – the needs of the American people have become an afterthought.

In fact, an observer might think that our elected leaders no longer have any interest in being the leaders of the American people. Sadly, it appears our political leaders forgot how to apply leadership skills to inspire and motivate the people of our nation to achieve new heights, although they like to claim they speak for the American people. Perhaps it’s time to remind our nation’s “leaders” about true leadership.

The responsibilities and functions of leaders in a purer sense of the practice of leadership are numerous. It’s worthwhile, however, to highlight two very important characteristics of leadership. If our national, state and local leaders would just practice these concepts even a little more, the citizens of our nation could become more cohesive and once again start Reconnecting to the American Promise.

We want to focus on two leadership characteristics in this post: Creating a Shared Vision; and Creating the Environment for Achieving Common Agreement. These leadership principles are fundamental responsibilities for leaders of any type, whether in government, industry or academia. This is particularly true for the leaders of our nation today as we face increasing competition and threats from other nations and adversaries which would see the United States weaken or fall.

Our founding fathers recognized that open, honest debate and a willingness to cooperate were essential ingredients for democracy. Yet today we seem mired in political win-lose battles where our citizens are the big losers. Since when was American governance built upon “winner-take-all?” What can we do to break out of this destructive game? [2]

Let’s start with the idea of Creating a Shared Vision in America.

The first thing leaders can do to create shared vision is to break away from the traditional win-lose philosophy in politics today and start focusing on creating win-win scenarios based on collaboration, cooperation and yes, compromise. Beginning to think about win-win situations works great when leaders can create a sense of shared vision built on freedom and opportunity, backed by a framework for security and prosperity. The Framers turned out to be quite good at this as they created a foundational document of such a shared vision. This shared vision launched what became our United States of America.

It surely wasn’t easy, and it required a number of years before the Constitution was ratified by all the states. The Framers’ efforts eventually delivered a vision that was transparent and forward-looking, shared among almost everyone in the nation (even today). It also sought win-win situations for the most part that did not exist anywhere else in the world at the time. [3]

Next, Let’s Create an Environment for Achieving Common Agreement Across America.

The Constitution and the Convention in which it was developed also Created an Environment for Achieving Common Agreement. The Framers did this by moving from Win-Lose to Win-Win, applying the essence of an outline Walt has developed over his 40+ years of teaching leadership and management at all levels of government and business.

Walt’s list of steps for “Moving from Win-Lose to Win-Win” provides a framework for immediate application in all levels of our government as we seek to move towards Reconnecting to the American Promise. His steps include the following, and could (and should) be initiated by either political party towards the other:

• Take initiative to start progress toward cooperation
• Increase/improve communication
• Listen/strive to understand one another’s point of view
• Build trust by keeping trust
• Admit your mistakes
• Identify “common” goals and work together toward them
• Collaborate on behalf of the nation
• Be willing to compromise/take reasonable risks together
• Stay rational/avoid being emotional
• Never throw the first stone and resist the urge to retaliate
• Reiterate advantages of cooperation and dangers of excess competition
• Recognize/reward cooperative effort
• Remember: two winners are better than one

Leadership’s greatest challenge is in achieving success through marshaling the human resources they have on their teams. America elects its own leadership team to marshal those resources and to demonstrate effective leadership on behalf of the electorate. Congress and the Administration seem to have forgotten that one simple but important concept; and so leadership on behalf of our people has suffered.

“Political leadership” may have become an oxymoron but the representatives we elect to lead America can break out of that mold starting today and begin to be real leaders once again. We think it will be amazing what they can accomplish once they stop trying to be an American Paradox.

Originally posted on 12/11/2014.

NOTES:

[1]  Dr. Walter E. Natemeyer is the CEO of North American Training and Development, Inc., Houston, TX. He taught at the university graduate level for over ten years before devoting full-time effort to teaching basic and advanced leadership skills in business and government sectors, including teaching at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for over 40 years. Dr. Natemeyer is a leading authority on “Situational Leadership,” employee motivation, strategic planning and team building. He has authored numerous books, articles, and training instruments on these and other management topics.

[2]  We articulated several more of these important leadership qualities and potential outcomes of good leadership in The Principles of RAP, which have accompanied this website since its foundation in February, 2014.

[3]  As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, the Constitution did not resolve every issue of freedom in the late 18^th Century, but we must hope that America is making progress on that front as our history unfolds. Additionally, we have chosen not to address the recent US Senate report on US intelligence activities (released on 12/9/2014) as it is still too early to discuss its relationship to Reconnecting to the American Promise.

The Exercise of “Public Reason”

In 1997, Harvard philosopher John Rawls wrote a piece for the Chicago Law Review titled “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” This article challenged Americans to think about the arguments they make to each other. It argued that while reliance on ideologically-based political dogmas may or may not be sound, the arguments from these baselines do not make for reasonable means to attempt to persuade others to see a public good in the ideology.

So…we finally have a logical explanation for why the Right and Left keep talking past each other and why the Edges of each side have so little hope of convincing others of their positions.

Rawls noted that “Public Reason “concerns how the political relation is to be understood.” He went on to observe what has become ever more obvious in today’s politically charged environment: that those “who reject constitutional democracy with its criterion of reciprocity will of course reject the very idea of public reason.”

Rawls wrote that “Citizens realize that they cannot reach agreement or even approach mutual understanding on the basis of their irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines. In view of this, they need to consider what kinds of reasons they may reasonably give one another when fundamental political questions are at stake.”

Most importantly, Rawls added that “Central to the idea of public reason is that it neither criticizes nor attacks any comprehensive doctrine, religious or nonreligious, except insofar as that doctrine is incompatible with the essentials of public reason and a democratic polity.” That, unfortunately, is not where American politics seems to be today in terms of the parties communicating with each other. [1]

This idea of “public reason” is very much worth “revisiting” in today’s Edge-driven political environment.

We’ve mentioned how we both grew up in a Texas that was essentially conservative-democratic-leaning. Chuck was still there as the trend was starting to shift to more red than blue after Carl had departed for the Army in 1972. But, aside from the eccentricities of growing up Texan, we both still observed a good deal of Rawls’ concept of Public Reason. The popular slogan of “Don’t Mess with Texas” (designed to keep litter off the highways) grew out of a “don’t mess with me and mine and I won’t mess with you and yours!” Our Texas was a live and let live kind of place and quite reasonable-seeming back in the day. [2]

We remember a Texas where people could talk to each other and not past each other.

What we admired about our Texas of the 60s, 70s and 80s was the notion of “live and let live.” While Texas of 30-50 years ago was somewhat confusing in its split loyalties to the Stars and Stripes, Stars and Bars and the Lone Star from a cultural standpoint, it was a land of great opportunity, and generally reasonable in those days. At least in the cities and larger towns, Texas of that age tended to reflect objectivity about opportunity regardless of background. Our Texas leaned towards Public Reason.

Neither of us lives in Texas anymore, but that’s beside the point. Neither of us really wants to live in Texas today, more because of how hot it is and how much the state has tampered with what we consider to be objective K-12 education. But it also seems like a lot of the dominant political philosophy has abandoned “live and let live” principles, not unlike what is happening elsewhere in America in 2014.

Texas politics today don’t seem to be a reasoned conservatism as much as a knee-jerk conservatism that at times seems…well, mostly mindless. The people of Texas are still our kindred souls and they generally are awesome folk that usually demonstrate an appreciation of public reason. Unfortunately, the politicians Texans elect tend not to feel the same way. So, we’ll stay “Texpatriates” for a while longer. This could be an object lesson for the rest of America, however.

It is so important that our nation (including Texas) return to an appreciation of Public Reason. As this election season approaches and we witness the appalling lack of Public Reason where politicians feel they cannot argue in reasoned tones that reflect the goals of public service, let’s reflect once more on what Professor Rawls wrote less than 15 years ago: citizens of this nation “cannot reach agreement or even approach mutual understanding on the basis of their irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines” nor can we continue to mindlessly attack each other oblivious to the commonality we all share as Americans.

We should challenge each other, just as our Founders did in Philadelphia in 1776 and 1787, but let’s exercise the same courtesy and sense of compromise our forefathers did in that day. Our goal cannot be to tear each other down, but must be to build up our nation. Let’s exercise Public Reason on behalf of keeping America strong, balanced and worth passing on to our progeny.

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 10/15/2014

NOTES:

[1] Rawls devoted a great deal of the paper laying out the “structure” of public reason, noting that it had five basic aspects: fundamental political questions to which public reason applies; the people to whom it applies (e.g., public officials and candidates for office); the content of public reason as it pertains to justice; the applications of these aspects in the form of legitimate law for a democratic nation; and the citizens’ role in ensuring the principles of public reason satisfy the criterion of reciprocity (essentially, the equitable give and take between parties and citizens): “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. For a concise background and photo of this remarkable philosopher, please see his biography in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

[2] To be sure, bias and prejudice did exist in the Texas we experienced (mostly Houston), but it was at least a “laid-back” kind of bias and prejudice (if that makes any difference)!

The American Promise and “World Order”

by Carl W. Hunt

This week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reviewed another former Secretary of State’s latest book, expressing some insights common to those we publish in Reconnecting to the American Promise. Clinton published a thoughtful book review of Henry Kissinger’s book World Order, comparing the chaos of past and present world events. [1] 

This RAP post is not specifically a review of Kissinger’s book but more a review of Clinton’s review. While her appraisal of Kissinger’s book is enlightening, so are Clinton’s thoughts about how the America of today must meet our own obligations to our people while continuing to inspire a world in which enlightened leadership is so desperately needed. [2]

The contrasting and complementary reflections of a Secretary who served a Republican administration during the more global Cold War and a Secretary who served a Democratic administration during several regional hot wars are interesting. According to Clinton’s review, there are actually more complementary thoughts than contrasts. And, there are significant agreements between their perspectives that are worth noting in light of the theme of RAP.

Perhaps paradoxically, RAP has not sought to discuss a great deal about world events, preferring to address issues related to helping America focus more on equal access to opportunity and the political environment that we need to bring about that focus. That, along with restoring the voice of the American Center, comprises the key principals of RAP. It was gratifying to see that Hillary Clinton’s review emphasized that as well: “Sustaining America’s leadership in the world depends on renewing the American dream for all our people,” she wrote in her Washington Post book review this week.

We’ve created a distinction between the American Promise and the “American Dream” in this blog, primarily to emphasize the leadership responsibilities of our elected officials to both create and enforce access to opportunity. In other posts, we’ve commented on the failures of our politicians in that area, so no need to dwell further there.

The main point here and in Clinton’s review is that ensuring opportunity for Americans is central to our nation’s ability to inspire, lead and even motivate other nations in the world to embrace what both she and Kissinger called a “bipartisan commitment to protecting and expanding a community of nations devoted to freedom, market economies and cooperation” that worked successfully during the Cold War.

Thanks in large part to an America that has politically curtailed the concept of domestic cooperation in the last few years, it’s hard to know if we still actually maintain that kind of globally-focused bipartisan commitment Clinton discusses. After all, bipartisanship is a word rarely used to describe American political leadership any longer. In fact, it would appear we’ve forgotten as a nation not only our responsibilities globally but also nationally in terms of bipartisanship and cooperation in an increasingly chaotic world as described by both Clinton and Kissinger.

This is the sad point that we’ve not addressed in RAP: the danger in forgetting these responsibilities to act in a bipartisan way is not just to America (and its failure to fulfill the American Promise of access to opportunity), but it’s also to the rest of the world. The dangers we create in pulling away from the responsibilities we’ve met in past times of global chaos affect the world in significantly different ways today. Kissinger and Clinton both point this out with their insights about globally distributed social media and diverse and diffused political perspectives.

However, when it comes to ultimately recognizing and discharging global responsibilities, America in the past has indeed been the leader. There is just no other nation in the history of our world that can meet these responsibilities – as Clinton and Kissinger both point out, that’s just the way it is!

In this day and age, America is the only nation that can “relate ‘power to legitimacy’” Clinton writes, quoting Kissinger’s book. That’s an enormous responsibility, burdened by the pull of the chaos that exists in this world today. But, we are the only nation that can take on this responsibility and help ensure both our own national security and freedoms and help the world see the value in emulating some of our better nature.

Most importantly, we can only live up to these responsibilities on a framework of cooperative and collaborative bipartisanship here in American government (at all levels). That has been the enduring theme of Reconnecting to the American Promise. This time, however, we need to look at this theme through the lens of America at home and abroad…we certainly will in the future.

Originally posted by Carl W. Hunt, 9/7/2014.

Notes:

[1] World Order is scheduled to be released Tuesday, 9-9-2014, by Penguin Press.

[2] In my cursory examination of various other reviews of Kissinger’s book, I found a gamut of perspectives that included critiques that Kissinger was calling for America to form a new “world order.” As a graduate of the US Defense Department’s National War College in 2003, and recalling the readings of Kissinger at the time, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying…I’ll have to read the book to be certain, of course. But, by my review of Clinton’s piece in the Washington Post and a look at other online reviews, I think what Kissinger is pointing out is that a new “world order” is taking place whether America wants to be a part of it or not and that if we don’t figure out how to play a distinctly American role, as described by Clinton, this new “world order” will leave America increasingly irrelevant. In my view, failure to engage in any opportunity to shape an equitably beneficial “world order” should not be acceptable to any American.

* Image of World Order, courtesy of multiple book review sites, including Amazon.com, Google Books and Publishers Weekly.com.

Renewing American Vigor: Consumption and Production

In spite of the way this title may sound, this is NOT about renewing America by making and buying more “stuff.” This blog post accompanies the delivery of the RAP essay entitled “Renewing American Vigor: Transforming Consumption and Production.” After two months of promising this essay and drafting many versions, we decided to just post the draft as it is today, knowing we’ll never get it “perfect.”

The essay is several times longer than our typical blog posts, but it took a few more words to report on how production and consumption have led to the state of the American Promise today. Our intent is to demonstrate how transforming the production and consumption of “stuff” is at the heart of what we can do as individuals to regenerate and renew American vigor and potential to more broadly fulfill the American Promise.

The American ideal of possessing “stuff” has roots in the influence John Locke had on George Mason and Thomas Jefferson in their respective writings of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the American Declaration of Independence. [1] We noted this in a post that introduced what we called a Platform for RAP (called FAPITCA at the time).

Our essay on production and consumption in America shares these roots. We’ve also sought to expand the discussion to talk about sustainability of the American Promise and way of life through smarter production and ownership of property and ideas in light of what’s possible today. We address consumption, production and “ownership” of ideas as additional items of “stuff” we sometimes tend to hold on to all too long.

The essay traces an important part of the story of how Americans think about the acquisition and possession of “stuff” (again, where “stuff” means both physical and intellectual possessions). We go back and cite previous work in this area by Betty and Mike Sproule, and Annie Leonard, as we’ve previously written about in “…and our Posterity…”. Their work introduces important driving forces that have led to the challenges we have with production and consumption in America. The essay also introduces the role of marketing and investing in the world of American consumption.

Since this blog is about America in the Connected Age, we devote a good deal of the essay to how we might harness the tools of information technology to transform consumption and production. As we note in the essay, the “problem is that we have been unable to see the forest of opportunity in a new age of connectivity because all we can see are the trees that compose our individual relationships to the present and the future.” We make the case for the imperative of leveraging information technologies available to us today.

Additionally, we revisit one of our very favorite authors in American history and culture, John D. MacDonald, creator of the well-known “Travis McGee” series of novels. It turns out that the ol’ beach bum Travis and his sidekick, Meyer, had a lot of insight about America today even though they talked about an America of 40-50 years ago. [2]

Finally, we wrap up the current version of the essay with a review of some highly pertinent insights from our friends Wayne Porter and Puck Mykleby, the authors of A National Strategic Narrative. We’ve written about Wayne and Puck’s work in several previous posts, but in the essay we try to tie some of their relevant thoughts to the ideas of transformed consumption in America. Thanks to Wayne, Puck and Betty Sproule for making the Narrative so accessible!

Note that we call this the “current version of the essay.” This simply means that we understand an undertaking like the essay can only be a draft in the Connected Age. Our networked world changes quickly and an essay about production and consumption in America needs to maintain some level of fluidity, as well. This also means that we intend for our readers to help us maintain this essay through their comments and edits. We mean this…please help us make this essay better!

We hope you find value in the time you might invest in “Renewing American Vigor: Transforming Consumption and Production.”

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 9/4/2014/.

Notes:

[1] As noted in the essay, George Mason even had designs on transforming American consumption back in September, 1787, while the Constitutional Convention was wrapping up the final drafts of the Constitution.

[2] Contemporary mystery and adventure fiction readers who enjoy novels by Carl Hiaasen and Lee Child (“Jack Reacher”) will appreciate their respective Forewords in the last two re-releases of the “Travis McGee” series.

Reconnecting to the American Promise

Change is good, or so “they” say. We had enough comments from “they” that we made what we think is a significant change to the blog. We hope it’s a good one (or “they” will probably let us know again!).

The change, as demonstrated by the new page titles, is of course streamlining the name of the blog to Reconnecting to the American Promise (RAP) from Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age (FAPITCA).

There’s no question that the acronym is shorter, as well as easier to pronounce, but it may even be closer to the truth we hope to talk about in the blog: throughout its over two centuries of existence, America was indeed connected to the promise of its origins, we started losing that connection in the last few decades, and now we as a nation finally recognize we need to reestablish our connection to the American Promise.

If we don’t reconnect Americans to the American Promise, pretty soon there won’t be an America that our Founders would recognize. That’s what we want to talk about in the future as well as build on the foundation of the first sixth months of the existence of this blog.

That’s right…we’ve been doing FAPITCA, now RAP, for over six months now and this is the 39^th posting. When we started, we didn’t know how long we would try to tell the story of America and its Promise, but we’ve had just enough interest and participation that it seems more than reasonable to keep going.

With almost 50,000 words published, we hope we’ve appropriately reflected on the failings in today’s elected leadership to keep Americans connected to the American Promise, while we’ve pointed to the hope the future of America in the Connected Age offers. We’re hardly out of the woods, but new generations of Americans, growing up with Connected Age technologies and thinking are now poised to help us get back on track. We just need to make sure our young people understand what’s at stake.

Our hope and our objectives for RAP are to keep telling the story of an America reconnecting to the original hopes and dreams of our Founders as we leverage the spirit and vigor of our youth. With your continued help, we’ll keep telling that story. It’s definitely time to Reconnect to the American Promise!

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 8/25/2014.

The Platform, Part VI: The Honor of Public Service

This final post on the FAPITCA Platform comes “straight from the heart.” Both of us have worked for government throughout our career. Carl started as a Houston, Texas police officer at age 19, while Chuck began his service to the nation as a Presidential Management Intern for the US Bureau of Land Management  at age 24. Carl completed a 30-year career in the United States Army in 2006 and Chuck continues to work in the federal sector after almost 30 years of service. Our sister served 20 years in the US Air Force and is still a public high school teacher.

Fortunately, in spite of politically-driven attacks on American governance (often by so-called government servants of the more “conservative” party), many still serve America working for the various levels of government: our nation is better as a result. Americans working on behalf of America, providing services to other Americans and foreign visitors makes our nation stronger and more representative of who we are. To be sure, we can always work for America more efficiently and more objectively, but Americans working for America is a good thing.

Representing Americans as elected leaders in office is also a great service, and even though we’ve been critical of our federal legislators in this blog, we also honor their service when performed in the intended role rather than exploitation of the profession for personal power or gain. While helping to draft the United States Constitution, Benjamin Franklin talked about “the classical republican ideal of ‘disinterested public service’”…and hoping that “‘every member of Congress’ (would) consider himself rather as a representative of the whole, than as an agent for the interests of a particular state.” Franklin, also foreseeing the role of political parties, knew how important public service on behalf of all Americans was, having been in that capacity for much of his professional life. [1]

Our nation and our citizens require and should demand honorable public service to make America great. This service may take place in many forms, including government, academia and industry that supports our economic growth and fairly promotes access to equal opportunity for all qualified to serve. [2] Without this level of service, our nation would likely fall into the ruin of corporate greed and corrupt political “leadership” that far exceeds what we consider problematic today. We’d be a lot worse off without dedicated service to our nation.

There are threats to effective public service, however. Most of these threats are politically motivated in an attempt to define what is acceptable governance and public service. Since the Reagan era, conservative politics claim government is too big, too inefficient and too generous to Americans and immigrants who are unemployed, homeless or who do not have access to a reasonable level of education. This side tends to favor lower taxes and less government interference in Americans’ lives. [3]

Liberal politics tend to support collection of more and “fairer” taxes, the creation of more opportunities for education and employment, and a government of sufficient size that it can adequately oversee what should be a balance of receipts (of taxes) and expenditures (legislatively approved obligations). Of course, conservatives also claim they want balance in the budget, as well, as long as that balance includes intense scrutiny of public servants and the funds they discharge. We agree…it’s hard not to agree with the idea of reasonable scrutiny and oversight.  It takes capable, inspired Americans to manage the day-to-day delivery of critical government services: clean water, safe drugs, social security payments, national and border security, etc., and provide daily internal scrutiny and oversight.

Both sides say they want balance eventually, but rarely accomplish this balance as there’s always some emergency like a war or recession that demands the budget objectives be delayed “temporarily.” This condition in America is no longer an “emergency” however, but more the way of life in an America that is fighting to be competitive in a globally rising community that includes, among others, China and India.

If this is the case, however, it seems as though we need more and better trained public servants to govern in this new normal, however, not less. We need our best involved in government and service to America!

The budget and fair administration of receipts and expenditures is really only one part of good public service. Another part is good old fashioned “customer service,” whether accomplished by sworn government officials or not; this involves dedication to our nation and concern for our fellow citizens, including fair access to equal opportunities to succeed as Americans and legal immigrants.

This is where things seem to be falling apart these days. As a nation of Americans we’ve quit worrying about the opportunity and income gaps and the advantages of closing those gaps on behalf of our nation. Instead, we’ve been thinking largely about ourselves and what’s in it for us. Service, unless it has an immediate benefit to us as individuals, is for someone else to worry about and to deliver.

Here’s the bottom line: if we are constantly condemning public service and those who dedicate themselves to it; if we fail to take care of our fellow citizens and ensure they have opportunity to compete and even become great public servants, academicians or business people; and if we fail to challenge the growing gaps between the wealthy and the rest of us, how can we ever hope to remain a great nation and a meaningful example to the rest of the world?

Public Service is an honorable profession. In many cases, our governments hire the best, not just those who can’t do anything else. This is equally true among the Millennial generation. [4] These servants don’t seek wealth but rather fair access to opportunity…they deserve our respect and support.

Our government services may not pay as well as the commercial and academic worlds perhaps, but government service offers the chance to serve our great nation in ways that are not possible any other way. If some among great Americans (our best presidents and leaders, members of the military, teachers and many others) had declined to serve, this nation would likely have failed long ago. They were there for us, and we need to be there for our future generations.

Please think about that the next time you are tempted to complain about the “evils of government” that happens when some politically-driven claim attempts to garner votes…that kind of claim really needs to be critically tested. Americans know how to think better than that.  Americans must once again learn to discern and embrace good government, and reject extremist calls for zero…or excessive… government.

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 8/10/2014.

NOTES:

[1] Beeman, R., Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, Random House, NY, 2009, page 151. Also, back in February, 2014, we posted Thomas Paine on Honor and the Congress, in which we recounted Paine’s essay “Reflections on Titles,” a piece in which he commented on the honor of those who served in the Continental Congress and drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence. We refer the reader to those pieces for more reflections on honorable public service as an elected official.

[2] In fact, we also honor the “public” service of businesses that do in fact support the American way of life, furthering access to economic and social opportunity…we could not have succeeded in either war or peace without their support (e.g., the accomplishments of industry in World War II). We have a more difficult time “honoring” businesses that hide behind the need to serve their stockholders BEFORE the nation that makes it possible for businesses to exist. To be sure, stockholders provide investment (for their own personal gain), but without the protections that objective, effective government provides, business would have a much more difficult environment in which to thrive as they have in America throughout its history. Businesses which put loyalty to stockholders before the nation that nurtures their growth should really consider their priorities. This is particularly true in the case of businesses that seek to move their headquarters oversees to avoid the responsibility of paying taxes to support our nation. This so-called process of “inversion” strips America of needed support and creation of increased opportunity within our own borders.

[3] This does not seem to apply to many conservative seniors who still want their social security payments and Medicare access, but who says you can’t have your cake and want to eat it, too?

[4] See for example:  Lavigna, B. and Flato, J. January, 2014 blog post: “Millennials Are Attracted to Public Service, But Government Needs to Deliver.” This article noted that “federal agencies were among the most preferred employers for students across main fields of study: the FBI, National Institutes of Health, NASA, Department of State, and Peace Corps all ranked among the top ten, alongside companies like Google, Walt Disney Company, Apple, and Microsoft. Government employers are particularly popular with humanities and natural science students.” Also see: Fournier, R. “The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It?” which in spite of the name of the article documents how Millennials “in general, are fiercely committed to community service” but they “don’t see politics or government as a way to improve their communities, their country, or the world.” Sigh…again, edge-driven politics are jeopardizing our nation’s future. Fournier’s August, 2013 Atlantic Magazine study indicated that Millennials are increasingly less likely to enter into politics and government, a trend we must all somehow contribute to reversing to ensure our nation’s future. For one bit of recent bright news, see Millennial authors Eric Zenisek and Mike Stinnett in their Fortune Magazine piece, Why millennials should ditch corporate jobs for public service…their conclusion: “It’s going to take a renewed commitment to service to repair our country. Millennials are up for the task.”

 

Platform Part V: Education, Science and Culture (Section B)

subtitle: Enough with the Boring Blog Post Titles, Eh?

Larry Kuznar’s post about the failings of higher education last week deserved a better title than we gave it. It was a brave and outstanding piece written by someone who knows how higher education works in the nation today. Larry’s post also opened the door to express more of our own perspectives.

Larry’s post was part of the series on a Platform for FAPITCA we “cleverly” called Building a Platform, Part I, in which we introduced an outline for five “Planks” that a more center-focused “political party” could use to inform how our nation moves away from fringe- and edge-driven politics. [1] Recent posts, while titled with boring but semi-descriptive phrases, are all part of this Platform; after today’s post, we’ll have only one plank left. [2]

Most importantly, we’re indebted to Larry for challenging us with his example to open up more and try to express our feelings about America with less equivocation. This means no longer blaming both sides of the political spectrum equally with softly uttered descriptions, although we will endeavor to maintain balance and represent the Center as an attractor to the disillusioned in the Edges. [3] America needs these people at the Edges to come back towards the Center, post-haste…please! [4]

First, here are a couple of thoughts about how Larry’s post fits into the Science, Culture and Education plank of the FAPITCA: America is greatest when we support the sciences (and the arts, hence culture). Education for our upcoming generations is the singular best way to build and strengthen our contributions to both our nation’s and the world’s science and arts. [5]

Each of the planks of the FAPITCA Platform is proposed as part of a whole. This whole benefits from linkages between the planks through rich interacting network connections that leverage the Connected Age in which we live. The planks can even compensate for each other when one is working less well than we might hope. [6]

As Larry noted, education and the resultant growth of science and culture (and arts) that ensues from education are deeply interacting pieces of the plank that deserve constant attention and investment to sustain our future as a nation. Education must evoke critical thinking and problem solving capabilities in order to grow America. They combine and even coevolve to provide the basis for our “national seed corn.”

It’s a mystery to us how our American system of education has not been more greatly valued and received more investment and encouragement. Instead, the various education factions line up against each other and rail about how the other side’s approach is so wrong. The various sides’ capacity, if it exists, to listen to each other and compromise with our nation’s interests in mind could surely produce a better working educational system if only they really wanted to and cared enough about America’s future.

It’s sad to note that too many in our political parties have forgotten whatever lessons they learned in school about compromise and collaboration. How much longer are the two parties and their supporting factions going to refuse to work together so we can stop eating our seed corn?

While both parties are at fault in the realm of agreement, the rise and influence of entities like the so-called “Tea Party” faction and its ilk have aggravated the failure of our national capacity to compromise and cooperate. These groups, even if well intended, must get down off their high-horses and start cooperating a bit more…with BOTH parties. They need to use the education they received in the American school system to help us move forward, not backwards! [7]

In the last few decades, America has been at the global forefront in scientific discovery and technological development (which leveraged those discoveries in science, by the way). We’ve also led in social and cultural activities that changed the world in many places and pushed forward the role of higher education across the nation and the world.

As Larry pointed out, education in America has experienced challenges to continuing that momentum of the past. We’ve lapsed in how many levels of education stack up with the rest of the world. But, this is America…we can fix that. If we don’t, science and culture will also lapse!

Our biggest challenge is that we have to collectively rediscover the will to succeed as a nation…we have to want to fix education. We have to embrace the need to invest in our ability to do good science. Americans must desire to collaborate and exploit our science into even better technologies, cleaner environment, enhanced infrastructures and other improvements in our way of life. Most importantly, we have to feel the love in doing all of this for our children and their children. We think Americans really do want to do these things…so let’s do it.

Now, if we can only find better titles for our blog posts! We want to and we will!

Originally posted by Carl and Chuck Hunt, 7/16/2014.

NOTES:

[1] While we have been disparaging in our blog posts of the “Edge” and “Fringe” (the edge of the edge, as we like to label them) segments of American political parties throughout our posts, we do appreciate the paradox that they also apparently represent a source of real “out of the box” thinking about politics in this nation. In that regard, the Edges and Fringes might have a leg up on imagining new ways to govern and the rejection of the traps of excessive government and financial policy into which we’ve fallen as a nation through traditional politics. We strongly recommend the edges and fringes read Joseph Stiglitz’s recent book The Price of Inequality (or at least the essay of the same name at AlterNet) to better understand the effective role of government (as the Founders intended), rather than reject government outright.

[2] After this post and the final Plank post, we’ll finally post that essay on Transforming Consumption in America that expands on the second plank, again “cleverly” titled “Transform Production and Consumption.”

[3] So, some admissions: We are both moderately progressive, reformed semi-conservative types…sorry we can’t make a meaningful acronym out of that; perhaps we were really “radical moderates” as Elliot Richardson coined it in a book of the same name). One friend called Carl “socially progressive and fiscally conservative”…maybe that also works! The bottom line is that we’re not particularly happy with where the Edges of the Republican Party have taken our nation in the last decade or two, making issues of inane subjects that really should not affect how our nation moves forward in Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. This is not to say that the Democratic Party is above the fray in promoting irrelevancy as well, but the Republican Party has not done well by America, perhaps even for the last 20 years. If only we could say the Democratic Party had done all that much better! As Adelson, Buffet and Gates wrote recently in Break the Immigration Impasse, “Americans deserve better than this” and “It’s time for 535 of America’s citizens to remember what they owe to the 318 million who employ them.”

[4] The bottom line here is that the Edges and Fringes (and apparently even the larger parties with which they are associated) could likely never come together sufficiently to champion opportunity for all Americans. At the rate we seem to be going, they probably could never be large enough to be a source of real change that enables maximum equal access to opportunity for all. Only the Center can act with enough mass and momentum to bring about that kind of change. A balanced Center that understands the importance of equal access to opportunity, and enforces it with their vote, will make the kind of difference America so desperately needs now.

[5] To ensure we can sustain such growth, we also commented on the need for protecting our environment and infrastructure…that one plank is tied to the success of all of the rest.

[6] The interacting principles of FAPITCA can also be viewed as a complex system that creates maximum resiliency and opportunity if used to inspire new thinking about governance in America.

[7] See footnote 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Platform, Part V, Section A: How Higher Ed Fails the American Promise

Editor’s Note: This post is part of the FAPITCA Platform series entitled: Sustain and Advance American Culture, Science and Education. Dr. Kuznar provides us a distinctive perspective on education in America.

By Dr. Lawrence Kuznar, Ph.D., Indiana University – Purdue University, Fort Wayne [1]

Higher education is central for Fulfilling the American Promise in the Connected Age. This essay is one insider’s perspective on how higher education fails to deliver that promise to our next generation, and what can be done to correct this failure. [2]

The core of the problem is that higher education has become a system for issuing credentials (degrees), and not one that transfers the skills our next generation requires to serve themselves and our society in a globalized, interconnected world.

Consider three dimensions of the problem:

• Our upcoming generation needs to acquire a set of useful thinking skills from universities
• Our universities claim to confer these skills
• Universities actually provide something else

The system fails due to specific actions by faculty, administrators and students, and therefore integrated changes in their actions can solve the problem.

Desired Thinking Skills

Here’s the bottom line objective: Today’s college graduates need to be employed to be productive, and the skills employers desire are consistent with academic ideals that are applicable to both the world of work and responsible citizenship. This involves knowing how to think and how to learn (and keep learning and thinking)!

A couple of recent surveys (National Association of Colleges and Employers, Chronicle of Higher Education) [3] provide results consistent with other research on the skills employers want and need, and what graduates often lack. Some of the most important skills employers note lacking in college grads, and that would be most valuable in the modern workplace, include: verbal and written expression, time management, problem solving and decision-making.

What Universities Claim to Produce

Academics consistently insist a baccalaureate degree signifies that a graduate has acquired the time-honored skills of expression, critical thinking and love of learning. This is true for an elite research institution such as Harvard [4], and for a State-sponsored institution such as Indiana University – Purdue University, Fort Wayne, which serves typical middle Americans. [5] Yet, employers of recent graduates claim that these skills are lacking across the board. Something is wrong.

What Universities Really Confer

If students are not acquiring the skills that academics claim they teach, then what do students get from their universities? The answer is simple: a credential, the baccalaureate degree.  Universities are more systems that confer symbols in the form of diplomas, and less like institutions that educate the next generation.

The Problem: Why Don’t Students Learn?

Universities fail to educate and prepare the next generation to lead our society because education has become a tertiary objective at best. Arum and Roska’s 2011 Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses is an honest and sound analysis of higher education’s failings. They administered a widely accepted test of expression and critical thinking to thousands of college students across the spectrum of higher education institutions. They found that students demonstrated only marginal gains in these skills since high school, and those gains were directly proportionate to the amount of time students spent reading and writing for their class requirements.

The problem is not that students are lazy. They spend a lot of time socializing, working and even serving their communities. What they do not do is spend much time studying because educators do not require much reading and much writing on behalf their students.

Arum and Roska keenly point out that over the past several decades, an agreement has tacitly emerged between faculty and students: “Don’t bother me and I won’t challenge you.” Students responded as consummately rational actors, allocating their time efficiently to gain their credential, the degree, with the least effort possible. We have incentivized students to earn credentials, and de-incentivized them to learn.

Why don’t my colleagues and I require students to read, process and think? It is because that would be valuable time taken away from our research, our ever-increasing administrative duties, and other academic activities. There is a triumvirate involved in this systemic failure. Administrators focus on creating new programs and increasing graduation rates, faculty concentrate on research accomplishment, and students efficiently gain the benefit we taught them to value, the degree.

In the end, everyone gets what they want (or think they “want”), but the students are robbed of a genuine education and our society is robbed of an upcoming generation prepared to meet the challenges of a new, interconnected and globalized world. We rob our future of the thinkers our nation so desperately needs!

The Solution

The solution is daunting, especially given how administrative, faculty and student goals interact to create an agenda that subverts the real educational mission…this substituted agenda has taken on a life of its own. [6]

Businesses in our modern economy demand smart, creative, communicative and sound-thinking employees and this should be used as incentive for positive change. To help things change, employers need to emphasize credentials less, and value evidence of thinking and the ability to express oneself effectively more in potential and desired employees. This could be fed back into the cycle through more active support of effective universities on the part of employers.

There is some progress. Some employers are starting to scrutinize the whole applicant and some universities are helping students develop portfolios as a means of demonstrating their skills. However, we need a tighter focus, and real education.

The successful Berlin model [7] that required educators to be current in their fields by engaging in active research has metastasized, practically turning many of our universities into for-profit research institutes. Teaching at these institutions is often denigrated, and graduate students are socialized to avoid and dislike the classroom.

In order to avoid this distraction and refocus the system on education:

• Faculty and administration must balance the emphasis between research, teaching and service in meaningful ways when evaluating faculty for tenure, promotion, and compensation.
• Time spent productively challenging and interacting with students should be rewarded and not punished. If so, I am pretty sure many of us would focus more time on challenging students and not merely mollifying them.
• Graduation rates should not dominate the metrics used to calculate state and federal support.
• Instead of using graduation rates, the teaching component in state and federal funding formulae needs to measure actual learning and intellectual development, not credentialing. An educated public can prevail upon legislators to change those formulae.

As for the students in this new focus on education, they just need to be themselves. Our next generations have always risen to a challenge, and they continue to do so today: that’s an American legacy that still works! Unfortunately, the older among us have forgotten that legacy and have stopped truly challenging our young learners in productive ways.

The problems with our higher education system genuinely threaten our ability to sustain the American Promise. If we fail to recalibrate our higher education system toward learning and away from symbolic credentialing, then we fail to provide our next generation with the tools they need in a modern, globally interconnected world…the Connected Age. Ironically, these are timeless tools the ancient Greek founders designed and intended for higher education to deliver 2500 years ago. It’s time to get back to applying their wisdom to the future of America!

Originally posted by Carl Hunt, on behalf of Dr. Lawrence Kuznar, on 7/9/2014.

NOTES:

[1] Mariah Yager kindly produced graphics for this essay.

[2] I am a career university professor. I attended a large state institution for my undergraduate degree where I witnessed the shift from learning to credentialing, and then attended an elite research institution for my graduate work where I was socialized to focus entirely on research and to denigrate teaching. I have spent the past 24 years as a professor at an institution that primarily serves working class, first generation college students. The views I express are mine alone and do not reflect any official position of my university.

[3] National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 2014, Job Outlook Survey https://www.naceweb.org/about-us/press/skills-employers-value-in-new-hires.aspx?land-surv-lp-3-prsrel-07042014; The Role of Higher Education in Career Development: Employer Perceptions https://chronicle.com/items/biz/pdf/Employers%20Survey.pdf.

[4] “To these ends, the College encourages students to respect ideas and their free expression, and to rejoice in discovery and in critical thought” http://www.harvard.edu/faqs/mission-statement.

[5] “IPFW values… a strong general education program and baccalaureate framework that emphasize critical thinking, promote lifelong learning” http://www.ipfw.edu/about/strategic-plan/mission-values-vision.html.

[6] While I am focusing on education, it is important to note that universities also have equally important research and service missions that cannot be ignored in any solution. While none of these missions can be neglected, education has been de-emphasized and thus fallen behind.

[7] Anderson, Robert (March 2010). “The ‘Idea of a University’ today”. History & Policy. United Kingdom: History & Policy. Retrieved 20 June 2014.