A REVIEW
Dr. Richard
Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations has written a
magnificent book titled: “The Bill of Obligations” in which he expands on two
central ideas: (1), the most urgent threat to American security and stability
is not to be found abroad but within the nation, and (2), the threat is the deterioration
of the concept of citizenship, the emphasis on rights – as consecrated in the
constitutional amendments – without a corresponding set of civic obligations. He
quotes educator Max Hartz: “Rights
without duties lead to lawleness, even as duties without rights can lead to
slavery”.
Haass
illustrates the dangers: 40 presidential transitions in the U.S. went without a
hitch until the elections of 2019 when President Trump insisted, despite evidence,
that results had been fraudulent and tried to overturn them. His attitude has
led a substantial of Republican followers to deny electoral results, weakening bipartisan
cooperation while encouraging political violence. Democracy, says Haass, seems
to carry the seeds of its demise, as illustrated by Weimar Germany and by Venezuela
under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro and warns about a progressive loss of
common identity which could lead to the collapse of the country.
The
U.S. is particularly vulnerable, he says, because constitutional changes that
could improve on the quality of citizenship are difficult to implement since
they would require very large majorities in congress or in state legislature.
This explains why the American political system is becoming more unresponsive to
address the most pressing issues such as quality of education, climate change,
debt and the opioid crisis. National political parties are becoming weaker and
the original concept of a melting pot seems to be giving way to
the emergence of ideological silos resentful of each other.
So,
what to do? Haass suggests a partial list of things that can be done, such as
ending gerrymandering, regulate social media to control content that incites
violence, establishing term limits for judges and congressmen and, particularly, actively promoting civics
education.
Dr.
Haass recommends that the Bill of Rights should be complemented by a Bill of
Obligations, so that American democracy can experience the reforms that are
required.
The
Bill of Obligations
Dr. Haass
establishes ten main obligations to complement the Bill of Rights:
I.
To Be Informed
II.
To Get Involved
III.
To stay Open to
Compromise
IV.
To Remain Civil
V.
To reject Violence
VI.
To Value Norms
VII.
To Promote the Common
Good
VIII.
To respect Government
Service
IX.
To Support the Teaching
of Civics
X.
To Put Country First
Being
well informed
The
obligation of being well informed is probably one of the weakest aspects of
life in the U.S. Too many citizens are prisoners of their prejudices and will only
listen to what reinforces their preconceptions. Only the well informed can vote
responsibly. Haass quotes Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “everyone
is entitled to his opinion, but not to his own facts”, stressing the needs
for fact-based positions rather than opinion-based positions. In his extraordinary
book “The Revenge of Power” Moises Naim makes a similar point when describing
what he calls the Post-truth, one of the main tools utilized by non democratic
leaders to consolidate their power.
To get
involved
Citizens
are obliged to participate. If not someone will decide for him/her. Lack of involvement
is usually the deciding factor in elections, as when George W. Bush defeated Al
Gore by 537 votes in Florida out of about six million votes cast. The author
adds that voting is not the only manner of participation. Individual civic initiatives
are important, as exemplified by Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the
bus.
Democracy,
Haass says, cannot be a spectators sport.
Staying
open to compromise
The
third component of the Bill of Obligations, to stay open to compromise, is a
controversial one since the boundaries between compromise and surrender can
sometimes be tenuous. When is compromise acceptable and when equivalent to
surrender? Haas mentions at least two criteria: one, when gains exceed losses,
the other one, in the line of Gandhi, when no principles are violated. It would
seem to me that compromise can be a valid tool when the two sides are essentially
morally equivalent, as in the case of two political parties in a democratic country
or two religious groups trying to settle a matter of procedure. However, when
the two sides inhabit different moral provinces compromise becomes undesirable.
Remaining
Civil
Remaining
civil is the fourth component of the proposed Bill of Obligations. Haass says civility
is closely aligned with manner, courtesy and respect. In calling for civility
Haass mentions the case of the friendship between Ruth Bader and Antonin
Scalia, having very different views but committed to civil behavior
Rejecting
Violence
There
are valid alternatives to violence in order to bring about political and social
change. Haass mentions civil disobedience, civil protest and voting. It is true
that civil protests and disobedience can generate violent reprisals from the political
regime in power, as has been often the case in North Korea, Russia, Venezuela
or Iran. In the U.S. violence erupted in
January 2020, when a mob attacked congress trying to prevent the peaceful
transfer of power. Republican leader Mitch McConnell called it a violent
insurrection, now widely considered to have been a terrorist act.
To
value Norms
In his
exhortation of norms Dr. Haass touches perhaps upon the essential component of
American exceptionalism, what De Tocqueville called, in 1831, “The habits of
the heart”, to explain the success of the U.S. society. Norms are unwritten
traditions, codes of conduct. Dr. Haass says that the letter of the law is often
insufficient to sustain democracy, which finds additional solid support in its
unwritten norms. As a 2003 immigrant from Venezuela I find this one of the most
beautiful aspects of life in America, the fact that most collective attitudes
in the country are based in tradition, passed across generations, on handshakes
without the need for legal complexities. One of the most respected norms, Dr. Haass
says, has been that of respecting electoral outcomes, calling the acceptance of
electoral results critical to democracy. Acceptance gives legitimacy to the
winner allowing him/her to do the job effectively. Under this light Trump’s
denial of the results of the 2019 presidential election can be seen as an
attack on American democracy.
Promoting
the Common Good
Dr. Haass
says that the promotion of the common good is one of the fundamental
obligations of man, as dictated by the world’s major religions and philosophers
such as Judaism, Hinduism, John Donne, Martin Luther King and John Stuart Mills,
among others. One of the enemies of this obligation, he says, is American individualism,
a trait that can often morph into selfishness.
Respect
for Government
Respect
for government service is another obligation, albeit controversial. Government
is often seen as an intruder, as being too powerful. Haass quotes Reagan’s
saying: “the nine most terrifying words
in the English language are: I am from the government and I am here to help”.
Haass says that since government decides on issues influencing a full third of
the national economy we should want the best and the brightest to be involved
in government service and suggests promoting a voluntary one or two year
service tour for young Americans.
Teaching
Civics Education
The
next obligation, supporting the teaching of civics is a topic very close to my
heart. He worries that Americans seem to be losing their sense of identity. The
obligation to pass down the essentials of what it means to be an American citizen
is weakening. He says that the U.S. is a country grounded not on a single
religion or race or ethnicity but on a set of ideas and these ideas should
become the central component of civic education.
This,
he adds, is not what is happening in America. Only eight states and the District
of Columbia require a full year of high school civics while ten states require little
or none. Less than 20% of all colleges and universities require any civics education
as a condition for graduation. Dr. Haass
recommends making civics education mandatory in order to graduate from high
school or college. The main components of an education in civics should include
the structure of government, the rights and obligations of citizenship and a
reasonable knowledge of the process of governance, emphasizing the need for
civility and fact based opinions.
A
personal input
One of my main interests for the last decades
has been the need for civics education in my native country, Venezuela. I find
it serendipic that this book by Dr. Haass appears at the same time as a book of
mine on a similar subject. My book is in Spanish, “Fábrica de Ciudadanos” (A
Factory of Citizens”) and advances two ideas almost identical to the ones
presented by Dr. Haass in his book: (1), civic rights need to be supplemented with
civic obligations and (2), civics education
should be mandatory. This explains
my delight in reading Dr. Haass book which carries the same essential
messages.
There
are two or three areas in which I place different emphasis.
The first one is that I consider civics
education mostly from the perspective of ethical, civic virtues, rather than
about improved knowledge about government and political processes. The asymmetry
between rights and duties is of a similar nature in Venezuela and the U.S. but much
worse in Venezuela. While in the U.S. the strength of civic duties has deteriorated
in the last decades, in Venezuela it has been historically very weak. The
Venezuelan constitutions have numbered about 27 and all have been full of
guarantees for rights but almost absent of obligations. Venezuelan society
lacks much of those norms that De Tocqueville identified in U.S. society as
“habits of the heart”, the social customs and attitudes even stronger than
legal obligations.
The
second difference is that Dr. Haass calls for civics education to be given at
the high school and college levels while I advocate a program of civic
education in values for Venezuela starting at the kindergarten level, 4-5 year
olds, continuing through elementary and secondary schools, until the person
enters college or the labor market. After so many years of suffering populist
and/or dictatorial regimes Venezuela requires a new model of citizenship based
on moral, civic values such as tolerance, solidarity, duty to the community,
honesty, principle-based behavior and self-sufficiency, values which have been dormant during the years of government paternalism. I
would suggest that such an approach is also necessary for the United States but,
in general, it seems that civics education is best absorbed at very young ages
rather than at the end of the adolescence, when the person enters college. I
propose this program as mandatory for Venezuela, something which in the case of
the U.S. might not possible.
Tenth
obligation: Putting country first
Dr. Haass calls for putting the country and
American democracy before party and person, a specially urgent requirement at a
time in which partisan political agendas and greed for power are trying to
prevail over the national interest. The author warns about short term
considerations prevailing over the long term view and about decisions based on
desired personal or tribal outcomes rather than “institutional thinking”.
There
is an aspect that could have been added in this section of the book, the relation
between the national interest and the global interest.
What
happens when choices have to be made between the national interest and the
interest of our blue planet, our ultimate “country”? This is an issue of the greatest importance
and very much in the limelight, as illustrated by Jair Bolsonaro’s deforestation
of the Amazon Basin based on notions of political sovereignty or by former
President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of climate change control
agreements.
Conclusion,
quoting from Dr. Haass text:
American democracy will endure only if obligations
join rights at the core of a widely shared understanding of citizenship….
Citizens should demand that those they elect do what is best in the interests
of American democracy…. But obligations as defined in the book are moral, not
legal undertakings…. As such, difficult to insert into the constitution, a
difficult and slow moving process…. the hope is that the book stimulates conversations
about citizenship and alters the context in which American politics are
conducted… the future of the country and indeed the world depends on it.
A
WELCOME BONUS: Where to go for more
At the
end of the book Dr. Haass offers a superb list of reading, TV content and
suggestions for personal experiences which complement the proposals made in the
book.
