“THE BILL OF OBLIGATIONS”, by RICHARD HAASS.

 

                

                                                                    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.