Eric turns to an infamous spaghetti diagram of the American strategy in Afghanistan to demonstrate his point. Is it possible to truly know anything without also knowing how it is interconnected to everything else? And isn’t that what we’d call constitutional thinking?

As you watch this 3 minute video, consider how Madison’s work on ancient and modern confederacies or the vices of the U.S. political system both represent similar exercise in understanding the nature of questions and answers through zooming in and zooming out.

TED: Eric Berlow, How Complexity Leads to Simplicity

There was a quibble about which version to read, the original version or the current version that reflects revisions, amendments or deletions…. actually, they couldn’t even agree on what to call those. Rep. Goodlatte (R-Virginia) had decided it would be the 2010 version. That contest was easily resolved without any inconvenient turn to principles. It was a matter of privilege. It was Goodlatte’s idea to start the session this way so it was his privilege to select the text.

With that settled, reading the Constitution isn’t tricky. Where our politicians prove their mettle is when they decide what to make of it once it’s read. Will congressional freshman and their colleagues see their own eye staring at them from the text or will they see something more than they already knew was there?

The 10th Amendment was so anticipated during the performance that Rep. Goodlatte made sure he recited it himself and more than a dozen representatives were present to applaud as he did so. Did that group listen as intently to all the powers that were delegated to the United States by the Constitution? Did they notice there was no requirement that those powers be “expressly” or “specifically” granted? This is where the Constitution gets tricky. You have to read carefully for what isn’t there as much as what is and can’t make too much of one favorite clip without considering its relationship to the rest of the document.

If you only read your assigned portion or your favorite part before dashing out of the chamber, have you really read the Constitution? More importantly, have you considered what it requires of you in your role as an elected representative?

Reading the Constitution isn’t a bad idea but don’t stop there. What does it mean? The real debate lies in how we interpret the document and that debate is as old as we the people are. In Original Meanings, Jack Rakove characterizes the 1787 debate between Federalists and Antifederalists as a difference in political, perhaps even scientific, perspective:

If the framers were Newtonian of one kind in seeking to set different political forces in equillibrial opposition to one another, the Anti-Federalists were Newtonians of another stamp in thinking that the science of politics was grounded in universal laws. Their science comprised a fixed body of doctrine and cautionary lessons that were best applied to avert the risks of innovation… By contrast, for Federalists the science of politics was becoming experimental and dynamic in a modern sense (p. 152)

This same contest presents itself today when elected representatives think reading the Constitution on the House floor reveals everything we need to know. Considering these two different ideas about what to do next, it is easy to imagine the 112th’s performance will do little to change “business as usual” in Washington without continuing the discussion. In Rakove’s characterization, National Academy alumni will recognize the difference between nature represented as a a solid green line (Antifederalist) or a dotted one (Federalists). Students of Thomas Kuhn will recognize two competing paradigms or a contest to successfully articulate the one that will guide future efforts to govern. Whatever you see in Rakove’s analysis of the opposing viewpoints, the substance of the Constitution is revealed through its interpretation.

Whether green boxes, competing paradigms or different flavors of Newtonians, the real contest lies in determining what the Constitution means for the real work of governing. It doesn’t stop once the last words of the Constitution have been read. That’s only the beginning.

Colbert’s question: What do these three things (democracy, human rights and labor) have to do with one another?

Posner’s answer: They are very much related. Human rights is the way in which people have a democratic experience. People need to speak publicly and to participate in the political process. They need to be able to organize themselves.

The blue box may have just swallowed a couple of the others if it’s all about the political process. I wonder if our foreign policy makes more sense if you start with this impoverished understanding of human rights. My very next thought was that Academy alumni could do better than that. What do you make of these three components of the Secretary of State’s title? How should officeholders think about each component as well as the connection between them?

The interview begins at 14:30 if you click the link above. Don’t miss Colbert’s effort to make a distinction between human rights and American rights. Apparently American rights are best understood as purchasing power. He supports his position by asking, “at what point do human rights in these other countries get in the way of my ability to buy two dozen tube socks for $1.29?”

Colbert often cuts to the quick and it’s interesting to see when the interviewee realizes it… and when they don’t. I’d put Posner in that second category.

Over the last year I have been contemplating the notion of American identity, and what that means.  As I contemplated the bounds of this notion, I began formulating a rather extreme form of American exceptionalism.    I see no way to avoid getting there, so I ask that Politicolor readers will help dispel it or create a more construct for this idea.

I begin with a basic premise that the American founding experience is transformational; I would refer to it as a paradigm shift but I keep falling asleep through Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolution.  The state system resulting from the Treaty of Westphalia was the final blow to the medieval Augustinian notion of the “City of God,” or that all governmental forms existed for a heavenly purpose.  The Westphalian system provided two key elements to state systems

1. linking the idea of property to national territory; and
2. asserting the political expediency of “Cuius Regio, Eius Religio” that is, he who makes the rules, makes the religion.  So each state began to be identified through property ownership and religious identity.

The American colonial experience missed much of this through two reasons; being mostly English in heritage they had avoided some of the real outcome of the Westphalia settlement because they were fighting their own transformational civil war in England; and that the extreme isolation changed their very nature the moment they stepped of the boat.  They still brought the intellectual tradition of the mergence of classical and biblical thought with them; and settling post-Renaissance/Reformation helped them to have a solid grounding in both traditions at the time of settling.

But we need to add a third intellectual tradition that started with the Colonists, that is the “Natural” mode of thought.  The mere act of survival against hostile land, nature, and yes, indigenous persons (much of it admittedly the colonists’ doing), brought a new form of “metaphysical” understanding.  The character of Natty Bumbpo from the Deerslayer Chronicles is one I am envisioning here; but if you want to go with Daniel Day Lewis from the film, “Last of the Mohicans,” I can dig that. Locke wrote, “America is made both continuous and discontinuous with already extant nation-states by relegating the business of making new landed property, and the state-making system associated with that possession, to a place outside the system of nations.” Americans understood they both are and are not a part of the international state system.

They needed to find a way to merge this third intellectual mode of thought to their traditional modes.  Many of us have already been exposed to this notion; Cicero’s “Scipio’s Dream,” Job’s tour of heaven, and even “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy;” Think of Arthur Dent’s tour of Magrathea. These stories are allegorical of man trying to see a greater order in a chaotic universe.  The “Natural” Mode of thought, in many senses, shatters the collective ideas of the classical and biblical polity.  The battle for survival in nature and endless land led to individual subsistence requirements, and self-reliance on a scale never before seen in Western civilization.

So what is that which makes us “American?”  We can look at Whitman and Thoreau in many ways as the philosophers of the Natural Thought School.  Thoreau’s experience at Walden Pond; his friendship with fish, plants, and animals; he could steer a canoe with one paddle; but also his disconnect to a populated, corrupted state system can be used to describe this Natural Thought notion.  Even as he disavows society; he stills clamors to reform it, shape it, even create a new polity.  Walt Whitman provides another example in Leaves of Grass when he writes:

“One’s self I sing, a simple separate person

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word for en-masse”

The trick is finding the schema to describe the American identity.  But it cannot be constructed to describe what Americans are at a current time and place.  How do we get it into a fixed point in time and space but also have the ability to “enlarge the Orbit?”

For this I have thought I will need seven “virtues” to properly border us as Americans along two-dimensionality (national borders), but extra-dimensionally (transcending contemporary thought, and also through-out time).  This means that this a common identity in 2010, and that it would be common in 1810, or even 2210.

So here’s the construct:

I am using a blend of Biblical and Classical notions here:  meaning the square and the triangle are important shapes.  These are important to builders; and I am thinking Masons here; not the creepy Dan Brown Masons, but the real notion of construction.  We have to use the triangle here, because the treble virtues of New Testament Christianity inform our civilizational experience; “Faith, Hope, and Charity,” in their ancient application and definition are what we are looking for.  I invite any helpful definitions; and references to any of this concepts here or hereafter mentioned.

The four “Earthly” virtues are much more difficult to define.  They are what bind us terrestrially in governmental order and polity.  Using a square bounded by four sides, but also thinking cardinal directions on a compass point, and using Aristotle’s notion of “four cardinal virtues,” as the point of departure here, I am thinking we are bounded by four notions.  (I also realize I may be stretching the boundaries of some of the traditional definitions here).

Side One:  Aristotle’s Four Classical Virtues:  Moderation; Justice; Courage; and Wisdom.  It is a little cute to add another square to as a border; but really when you think that this represents the Aristotelian notion of civic virtue in a citizen; there is some elegance to this that can be stretched and defined later.

Side Two:  Enterprise:  My love for Star Trek not withstanding  (although in the Original we see Three main characters combining to live by the standards of the Four Aristotelian virtues-so it fits quite nicely); the notion of risk-taking, adventure, exploration, wanderlust, entrepreneurship, experimentation, and tinkering are so much a part of who we are this seems self-evident.

Side Three:  Prudence:  Again; this is more of a collective concept.  Rational discourse; thoughtful application; or problem-solving through Ratiocination.  This is deeper than the short-term criticism of our “sound-bite” media; or many of the folks who attend minor-league baseball games.  This is still reliant on a rational-choice theory; and perhaps even collective action theory.  So all you economists, chime in.

Side Four:  Republicanism:  The notion of liberty, equality, and confraternity that is so important in our thinking and feeling.

***

I need to credit a work of remarkable erudition, and accessibility that came out this summer by American diplomat, Charles Hill, entitled, Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order. Many of these ideas are given words and a base from his work; but many others have been crafted through two National Academies, and a week at Montpelier and conversations with Tim Moore, David Richmond, Justice Susan Leeson at Morro Bay, California last summer.  And lastly, I must credit a wonderful patio bar discussion with my dear friend Mike Williams, who gave grounding to undisciplined thought and forced me to articulate my ideas in a disciplined way.  Lastly thanks to Will Harris for reminding us to cultivate “Makers” Knowledge. Any logical leaps here are my fault, but I hope you can help me make the connections.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the American public celebrates independence through fireworks, BBQ and pool parties, the 80 teachers who studied constitutional citizenship at Madison’s Montpelier know we must keep the future as well as the past in our mind’s eye. There’s no reason to skip the fireworks but let’s consider what that particular moment in time reveals to us about our present and our future. If America is an idea rather than a place, it’s essential that we share our ideas about what America is or could be.

It’s that mission that led to our last assignment for our afternoon discussion. We focused on our work as teachers and the role of citizens and elected representatives as constitutional officers, and Jim LeCain shared a quote he thought defined our mission:

Teach the [Constitution's] principles, teach them to your children, speak of them when sitting in your home, speak of them when walking by the way, when lying down and when rising up, write them upon the doorplate of your home and upon your gates.

–John Quincy Adams on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution

–Quoted by Chief Justice Warren Burger at the 200th anniversary celebration

The quote resonates with the power of the words in Deuteronomy beginning with 6:5:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

And Will couldn’t stop there. If you didn’t hear the cadence of the words in Deuteronomy when you read the quote, you might have remembered a folk anthem instead. Remember these lyrics from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Teach Your Children”…

You, who are on the road
Must have a code
That you can live by.
And so, become yourself
Because the past
Is just a goodbye.

Teach, your children well
Their father’s hell
Did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s
The one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would die
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

With such an important task at hand, what do you SEE when you say AMERICA?

(click the image to enlarge)

Gulf Spill Isn't the Biggest

In all the branches of knowledge and in every kind of craft the end in view is some good. In the most sovereign of these, the capacity for [leadership in] political matters, the end in view is the greatest good and the good which is most to be pursued. The good in the sphere of politics is justice; and justice consists in what tends to promote the common interest” (112).

The course of the National Academy then pursued a series of questions for the sake of political knowledge.

From Aristotle, How do you know?

From Cicero, How do you see?

From Hobbes, How do you make?

From Deuteronomy, how do you judge?

And here’s a big question for National Academy alumni… how are you using these questions or these texts to promote an inquiry of political knowledge in your classroom?

A Federal Teacher shared his Path to Description with us in February. He provoked his students  to better examine what they know by describing what something is as well as what it is not. It took a year after the Academy but Hobbes21 unpacked the National Academy’s boxes to share them with his students. The Constitution became a protagonist in the story of We the People as Hobbes21 wove together the We the People text and his National Academy notes. His three part series, My Serial of Boxes, chronicles his concerns as he plunged into the depths of political philosophy in his Montessori classroom and the brilliant achievements of his students as they worked together to make order of this brave new world. You’ll want to check out the fantastic photos in the final post too!

Politicolor is a place to share your success and talk through your concerns. The healthcare debate still struggles to emerge from a summer of what believe was politics at its worst. As teachers and National Academy alumni we have the ability to share the story of politics at its best… how people organize themselves to achieve the good life.

If you have topics you’d like to discuss here… drop a line in the comments. We can also get you set up to write a post of your own.