Civic ignorance

A nation that skimps on teaching the basic mechanics of governing endangers itself.

Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter was something of a recluse even during his years on the court, and he’s been even more reclusive since he retired from the bench nine years ago. In 2012, however, he emerged from his cabin in the New Hampshire woods and offered observations about the woeful state of civic knowledge in this nation. Five years later those words seem prescient as we plunge forward into the Trumpian era. They also serve as a warning — and as motivation for pursuing efforts to restore robust, informed and engaged self-governance.

Souter, a George H.W. Bush appointee, spoke about “civic ignorance” at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow resurrected his remarks last fall, shortly before the November election.

“I don’t worry about our losing our republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion,” the former jurist said. “I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military, as has happened in some other places. What I worry about is when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough, as they might do, for example, with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown, some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.’”

Souter’s words serve as a portent for Candidate Trump’s chilling statement in his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July: “I alone can fix it.”

A populace unaware of this nation’s civic traditions as embodied in the Constitution, ignorant of the basic mechanics of governing and intolerant of tedious and mundane democratic processes leaves itself susceptible to a figure with little regard for democratic norms. We saw intimations of that in November.

We Texans are not immune. A state that ranks near the bottom on surveys of voting and other forms of civic participation, a state that tolerates a high public official more interested in transgendertargeted bathroom bills than making sure that our schools are well funded, would seem particularly vulnerable to the blandishments of a blustering president with neither knowledge of nor respect for how government works in a self-governing nation. Lacking in civic education, we’re more willing to tolerate our new president’s vilification of opponents, his penchant for false statements, his praise for authoritarian regimes abroad.

Our overburdened public schools are the arena for civic education. In fact, civic education is a core founding mission, as our Founding Fathers were acutely aware.

Civic education shouldn’t be confused with patriotic pablum. It’s not partisan propaganda. It’s an engagement with the basic workings of democracy, an engagement as practical and thorough as a well-taught class in computer programming or engineering technology.

A nation that skimps on teaching the skills, habits and traditions of civic life endangers itself. In Souter’s words, “That is the way democracy dies.”

Civic education shouldn’t be confused with patriotic pablum. It’s not partisan propaganda.