Political Impartiality in Schools?

Schools are told they must be politically impartial in what they teach and discuss.  But what is political impartiality, and who decides?

In the US, an increasing number of Republican states have taken the approach of telling schools what they must not teach (usually anything connected with raising awareness of racism, sexual prejudice, and social injustice), and what they must not prevent from being discussed (any views which, in the name of ‘balance’ challenge concerns with racism, sexual prejudice, or social justice).

In England, the Conservative Government has issued guidance to schools in an attempt to push a similar agenda but to appear less overtly reactionary.  However, one has to wonder if its lack of clarity is deliberate in facilitating the advancement of reactionary ideas, albeit in an obfuscating manner.

For example, the guidance says that topics “which are particularly contentious and disputed” (such as historical events, especially when these relate to “empire and imperialism”) should be taught “in a balanced manner”.’  But what is ‘balanced’?  There are Conservatives who have been adamant that detractors of Britain’s past imperial triumphs should not be allowed to put forward their views in schools.  Should the guidance be interpreted as requiring any criticism of imperial oppression be ‘balanced’ by a glowing account of the glory of empire? Yet do the two sides always balance out?  We cannot assume that every contested issue can simply be resolved by the ‘balancing’ act of giving equal weight to both sides of the conflict.

The advice offered by the government guidance maintains that when it comes to “significant” political figures – “including those who have controversial and contested legacies” – teachers should “focus on teaching about what these figures are most renowned for and factual information about them if teachers think pupils may not be able to understand the contested nature of more complex analyses of their lives, beliefs and actions”.  Many Conservative politicians are unhappy with figures such as Churchill being criticised for any views or actions when he should just be idolised as a national hero.  But if ‘contested’ is taken to cover any view which is rejected by some politicians, then politicians can stop any idea from being taught or discussed just by contesting its validity.  More widely, none of us would learn much about our past if our knowledge is to be fossilised by what historical figures/events were once ‘most renowned for’, regardless of what new research might bring to light.  Should we, for example, look back on the Opium War as a shining example of British military prowess and commercial expansionism, or consider it a regrettable use of force to impose the sale of a harmful narcotic on a country that wanted to stamp it out?

The problematic invocation of ‘contested’ goes beyond history to contemporary affairs.  Schools are assured they can teach climate change, but “where teaching covers the potential solutions for tackling climate change, this may constitute a political issue”.  And the implication is that, since a political issue is by its nature a contested issue, no policy solution (for climate change or any other societal challenge, for that matter) should be explored with pupils unless there is no political argument about it at all.  

Ultimately, if any politician – who is misguided, poorly informed, prejudiced, or holding extremist views – can stop any topic from being considered in schools by contesting it, then nothing much that is sensible about politics and society can be taught.  

The Education Secretary (Nadhim Zahawi) may insist that “no subject is off-limits in the classroom”.  But in adding the critical proviso that it must be done “without promoting contested theories as fact”, he is allowing even facts to be taken off the table so long as someone is prepared to contest them.  Of course, one way to deal with this conundrum is to allow established scholars and recognised experts to differentiate credible claims, reasonable hypotheses, disputed assertions, and dubious statements. Their consensus will form the basis for determining what is reasonable to consider in schools.

By contrast, the views of partisan politicians would be the last thing we want in grounding political impartiality.

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See ‘Guidance on political impartiality in English classrooms ‘confusing’ say teachers’ unions’

Richard Adams, Guardian, 17 February 2022.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/feb/17/guidance-on-political-impartiality-in-english-classrooms-confusing-say-teachers-unions

The Importance of Being Reasonable

You would think that being reasonable is an essential requirement in any discussion that aims to resolve disputes about any issue. If either side can forget about being reasonable – ignoring evidence, flouting logic, making groundless assumptions – then no informed agreement can be reached.

Yet we hear more and more people insisting that reason is overrated.  What is key apparently is what people happen to attach the greatest importance to. This could turn out to be all kinds of thing, and whatever it is, we are supposed to accept that it is something special and not subject to reason.

One familiar example would be individuals with some religious affiliation declaring that what they say must be accepted, and any attempt to question them by secularists (or people of other faiths) has to be automatically dismissed.  What they proclaim could be about how they want to (mis)treat their children, interfere with other people’s lives, or (mis)lead others into giving them money. In all cases, they shield their position by invoking their religious righteousness as beyond anything such as reason.

Another type of example can be found with those who denigrate reason as a western middle-class obsession.   For them, the practices of indigenous tribes should not be criticised for being unreasonable in making flawed assumptions.  And they also want to defend marginalised people who want to talk about their feelings and experiences without considering the reasons (or lack of) for some of their beliefs.  Unconsciously patronising, they want to canonise the disengagement from reasonable discourse, rather than support opportunities for all people to take part in reasoned dialogues.

Lastly, we have the unadulterated egoists who do not bother with invoking religion, culture, class, or anything else when they just come right out and say, “I believe this; I know I’m right; nothing anyone else says will make the slightest difference; and that’s the end of that.” Obviously, there would be no reasoning with them about anything.  And a simple reminder of what it would be like if such a stance is permitted in a court of law, is sufficient to show without reason, disorder will ensue.

Of course, there are occasions when people express poetic sentiments, practise rituals, share stories, or manifest suppressed emotions, without making any declarative claims on what others must accept as true.  In such cases, so long as their behaviour is not injurious to others, it would not be necessary to raise questions of reasonableness.  But just because there are times when reason would not be a central issue, it should not be forgotten that in settling any disagreement over conflicting beliefs, reason has a vital role to play.

Reason calls for external validation, objective evidential examination, coherent inference, consistent probability assessment, weighing of the strengths of arguments, etc.  It is rooted in the critical faculty of society where the effectiveness of everything from engineering design, scientific exploration, conflict resolution, to medical treatment, criminal investigation, and historical authentication, depends on the extent to which careful reasoning has been carried out.

People who want to privilege the claims they make as beyond the scrutiny of reason (on the grounds of their ‘religion’, ‘culture’, ‘tribe’, or personal status) are basically trying to get others to accept what they say without any reasonable consideration of the issue.  They will play the ‘You’re not respecting my [religion/culture/tribe/me]’ card, but if they fundamentally want to keep reason out of a discussion of what they want everyone else to accept, then there is actually nothing further to discuss.

Who Should Play What Role?

Which actor is cast for which role has become a hotly contested issue.  Ethnic minority actors, already finding most roles defined by conventional ‘white male’ characteristics which are then cited as reasons for not auditioning non-white actors, are rightly aggrieved when the odd role of an ethnic minority character comes up, it is a white actor who ends up being cast to play it as well.

Similar feelings are experienced by actors who have to rely on using sign language or a wheelchair, finding out that roles associated with those disabilities are given to actors who can speak or walk without aid in their everyday life.

It is clearly unfair that people are not only told they cannot play the part of X because they lack key characteristics associated with X, but also that despite having the characteristics associated with the part of Y, that part too is denied them and handed to people with X rather than Y characteristics. 

There are at least two ways to respond to this. One may be termed ‘identitarian’, and the other can be called ‘cosmopolitan’.

The identitarian response is to demand that roles with certain defining characteristics must be played by actors who actually possess those characteristics.  This has led to calls for characters with disabilities only to be played by actors with those disabilities, Jewish characters to be played by Jewish actors, gay characters to be played by gay actors, and so on.  The argument often used is that only actors who share key characteristics with the roles in question can bring out what those roles require.  

Identitarian thinking is problematic when it appears to hold that acting is above all about relating one’s own experiences as a person with certain characteristics to performing a dramatic role with those characteristics.  Does that mean only someone who has lost a child should play a character who has lost a child? Should only people who are pathologically sadistic play a dedicated torturer?  Should roles about geniuses be limited to actual geniuses?  Should roles about, say, Texan, heterosexual, or Catholic characters be as a matter of principle be denied, respectively, to Cherokee, gay, and Muslim actors?  Not only is identitarian thinking contrary to the power of imaginative expression that lies at the heart of acting, it could end up providing inadvertent cover for prejudiced practices that deny even more opportunities for actors who are already marginalised.

The cosmopolitan response, by contrast, holds that the essence of dramatic arts is to celebrate our imaginative powers to transcend all mundane barriers.  With CGI, make-up, and alternative reading of text, any actor should have the chance to play any role.  Female actors have played Hamlet; black actors have played white historical figures; gay actors have played womanisers; and CGI has done away with any limitations on how any actor may appear or what physical ability they can exhibit on screen.

Ultimately, identitiarian thinking is self-defeating. It limits the horizons of those for whom it tries to promote wider opportunities; whereas the cosmopolitan outlook embraces diversity and opens the door to all talents to express themselves in any role.  This is, of course, pertinent to the world beyond acting.  Identitarian politics boxes people into sealed off categories. Cosmopolitan democracy paves the way for power sharing amongst people with multiple and overlapping backgrounds.

What do you mean by ‘God’?

Of the people who left Europe for North America in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, there are two notable types who have gone on to have a significant impact on their new home – those who could not stand other people disagreeing with their religious views and hence wanted to go where they could establish themselves without challenge from others; and those who were fed up with vicious and futile religious disputes and wanted to go where religion would be a private matter and never intrude into the public domain. 

The first type can be fanatical about their beliefs and intolerant towards others who won’t subscribe to their doctrines. The second type are wary of theological conflicts and want tolerance for diverse ideas about God.  

In time, this will feed much of the polarisation in the United States.  One side hankers after a quasi-theocracy based exclusively on their version of ‘God’. Puritanically they strive to declare all but their ‘God’ is the true one and whose will – according to their interpretation – should therefore command everyone without exception.  Anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy of God.

By contrast, the other side tries to remind everyone that the Founding Fathers explicitly declared that matters of government and religion should be kept separate.  They champion cultural diversity and religious tolerance.  Invoking the name of ‘God’ (or not), people are expected to pursue their ideals so long as they do not threaten or undermine the wellbeing of others. 

Some may think of this divide as one between the faithful and the godless.  But actually it is between those who hijack ‘God’ as a cover for their own ends, and those who respectfully recognise that what God means for people is to be found in the many relationships diverse people have with the supreme ideal in their lives. 

The holier-than-thou hijackers are prepared, in the name of their ‘God’, to condemn people to be executed on questionable evidence, force victims of rape to carry any resultant pregnancy through to birth, threaten others with deadly weapons, obstruct life-saving vaccination, or prolong the excruciating suffering of terminal patients who want to end their lives.

In the opposite camp are people who would not presume to claim absolute and exclusive knowledge of God; people who appreciate that God is about love –manifested in kindness and fairness, in countless ways in different situations in life; people who care about living together, appreciating their complementariness, and learning through the growth of shared understanding.

This clash in the US has been deepening. Those who have little time for a loving God, have become more arrogant and delusional in insisting their hatred and prejudices are sanctified by the inner voices they hear.  Resisting the spread of their influence are people who, regardless of whether or not they use the word ‘God’ every time they speak, want society to be fair and inclusive so that everyone can be in communion with moral goodness that is worthy of the appellation ‘divine’.

Ultimately, who gains the upper hand in this clash will have sweeping consequences for the US, and indeed the world.

The Evidence-Denial Complex

In politics, in business, in everyday life, there have always been people who try to take advantage of others by conning them – with lies, distorted reports, cunning misdirection, etc.  What they fear most is being exposed for their dishonesty. But in recent decades, they have been able to access support from an increasingly powerful network of misinformation – the Evidence-Denial Complex.

The rise of the Evidence-Denial Complex can be traced to two late 20^th/early 21^stcentury development: the undermining of public interest journalism in conventional media; and the spread of ‘social’ media that is relieved of all public interest duty.  The first has happened through a mix of takeover of media outlets by those allied to the Right, and the persistent and deliberate weakening of impartial public broadcasting (e.g. reduced funding for and heightened attacks on the BBC, privatisation of Channel 4).  The second has come about because governments grant commercial operators of internet platforms the right to host any information posted by participants, without any responsibility to check its veracity.

The net result is that while there are fewer and fewer opportunities in conventional media to carry out in-depth investigations (because they generate relatively little money for the media owners, or worse, they threaten the interests of those owners or their associates in politics and business), systemic liars can use conventional media owned by their plutocratic allies as well as troll farms working across social media platforms, to pump out false and misleading stories to displace warranted beliefs by groundless ones.

At the most pernicious level, they work in concert to attack the credibility of objective evidence.  Since evidence – scrutinised by scientific procedures, gathered by impartial investigators, assessed by experts – is critical in separating out credible assertions from unfounded claims, the fostering of a culture of irrationality becomes an underlying goal.  The very notion of ‘evidence’ is treated as fake.  

For the sake of profiteering from economic chaos, promoting attachment to authoritarianism by fuelling a sense of insecurity, or diverting attention from plutocratic iniquities by attacking vulnerable scapegoats and liberal ‘do-gooders’, evidence-denying campaigns are launched to deceive as many people as possible to win political power.  

Familiar faces can be found amongst those who declare there is no evidence that the climate crisis requires radical action; that racism is still widespread and harmful; that safety measures are necessary to protect people in the midst of a pandemic; and that withdrawal from strategic partnerships with neighbouring countries is damaging politically and economically. They cluster around these lies because their preferred tactics is the con, and their con only works if people can be routinely nudged into looking away from the evidence.

What can be done about the Evidence-Denial Complex?

There are three courses of action that should be taken forward:

·      Education: ensure teaching at all levels helps to develop a good understanding of evidence – what it means, how it is gathered and assessed, its use in different practices, and examples of its collection and false evidence being refuted.

·      Regulation: effective rules and enforcement must be brought in to stop large scale deception continuing. See, for example, ‘Five Categories of Irresponsible Communication’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2018/12/five-categories-of-irresponsible.html

·      Publication: we must not allow falsehoods to spread unchallenged; so objective findings and analyses should be widely shared and discussed through scholarly works, objective media outlets, civic information networks, etc.

Pro-Slavery Stance & Anti-Democracy Tactics

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is a notable overlap of politicians who defend symbols and monuments that endorse a pro-slavery stance, and those who relentlessly deploy anti-democracy tactics.

Take a look at the many statutes erected to commemorate people who profited from the slave trade or built their military career on defending the system of slavery.  There are politicians who, as soon as they hear of any attempt to remove such statutes, summon up the most righteous anger to condemn anyone who dares to disrespect the country’s history.  Note they are not saying that shameful chapters of the past should not be hidden away, but that there is nothing regrettable at all about these individuals who proudly stood on the side of slavery that should make any contemporary commemoration of them unwelcome.

 

These politicians are often found amongst those keenest to use anti-democracy tactics to stop the public from holding them to account.  These tactics include: altering electoral boundaries to reduce the number of winnable seats for their opponents (widely deployed by US Republicans in states they control); the introduction of Photo ID to make it more difficult for the poor and minority groups to vote (a favourite of US Republicans and being introduced by the Conservatives in the UK); taking power from an independent body to determine what is or is not an acceptable political campaign in elections (UK Conservatives); and undermining judicial autonomy in upholding the rule of law (by packing the US Supreme Court with Republican-backed justices, or curtailing the UK Supreme Court’s ability to carry out judicial reviews of government actions).

Anti-democracy politicians often try to hide their affinity with pro-slavery traditions by misrepresenting historical connections. For example, some claim that it was the Tory MP Wilberforce who brought about the abolition of slavery. The truth is that Wilberforce was frustrated for years when his support for the abolition of slavery was repeatedly resisted by the majority of Tory MPs.  It was the Whigs – precursors of the Liberals – who championed the ant-slavery cause. When Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, it was under a Whig Prime Minister; and it was a Whig Government that put an end to slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.

 

In the US, contemporary Republicans are ever ready to invoke Lincoln, the Republican President who stood against the pro-slavery states’ armed attempt to break away from the United States. But many Republicans today side with those seditious confederate states in seeking to retain the symbols of their defiance in the American Civil War.  Most pertinently, the Republican Party today shares the political DNA of, not Abraham Lincoln, but Ronald Reagan – the Reagan who opposed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act; who declared publicly that "if an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, he has a right to do so”; and who as president granted tax exemption to schools that put racial segregation in place.

 

It is no coincidence that politicians who are keen to deploy anti-democracy tactics are often the ones who have no trouble backing people with a pro-slavery stance.  They don’t see the enslavement of others as an affront to society.  They believe that it is perfectly fine for them to gain wealth and status by depriving others of power.  They should not be allowed anywhere near public office.

 

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See: ‘Reagan’s Race Record’, by Matthew Yglesias, The Atlantic November 9, 2007: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/11/reagans-race-record/46875/

Cooperative Problem-Solving: its historical significance

There have been many attempts to deal with sceptics and relativists who dismiss objectivity as a basis for grounding beliefs. It has almost become common to assume that no such attempt can ever succeed because some version of the infinite regress argument can always be deployed.

In short, whatever is claimed to be true, it can be asked by what criteria that claim is assessed to be true and why those criteria should be accepted as the correct ones.  To claim that it is true that those criteria are the correct ones would trigger again the question that challenges the basis for making that claim, and so on.  Either this goes on ad infinitum without any ultimate justification, or it ends abruptly at some arbitrary point.  The sceptic would take the former as pointing to the futility of looking for objective validation.  The relativist would take the latter as a reflection of one’s personal or cultural perspective as the definitive point of reference, beyond which there is no scope for settling any difference in claim assessment.

However, if we stick to the real world and recall how agreement is reached after divergent views emerge, we will come to realise that the most relevant criterion for differentiating the credibility of rival proposed solutions is the effectiveness of each in dealing with the problem they are meant to tackle.  

Historically, cooperative problem-solving first emerged through the utilisation of shared intelligence amongst primitive groups who found that bringing people’s ideas and perspectives together led to better outcomes than having one individual trying to work everything out on one’s own. Its development was disrupted, unfortunately, by the rise of rigid hierarchies, the imposition of dogmas, and the spread of superstitions and prejudices.  

The impetus for a resurgence of cooperative problem-solving came in the 16^th/17^th centuries during a period when the tightly knit power dominance of the monarch, the church, and elite scholastics was challenged by thinkers and practitioners who drew attention to the consistently greater effectiveness in finding what would work well – in governing society, guiding ways of living, evaluating claims about the world – when critical deliberations were carried out by people in collaboration, rather than unquestionable pronouncements issued by a few individuals.

From the 18^th century on, cooperative problem-solving became increasingly more sophisticated and extensively applied. It came to characterise scientific research, underpin the organisation of democratic decision-making, shape societal reflections on and shifts in customs, permeate investigative procedures in civil and criminal cases, and steer diverse practices such as teaching, engineering, and reporting. In different spheres, it was discovered that the more people could cooperate in finding ways to deal with the problems they faced, the better chance they had in arriving at workable solutions.

Furthermore, as the approaches were being taken forward and refined, a number of conditions were found to be particularly important. If people were to participate to the best of their ability in cooperative problem-solving, they needed to be accorded respect as fellow participants; freed from deception, intimidation or bribes; and given meaningful opportunities to make informed contributions. These conditions would in time be recognised as essential for people to flourish together as a community.

For much of the 20^th century, cooperative problem-solving was applied to more situations where conflicting views and incompatible assumptions needed to be resolved.  At the same time, it was so taken for granted that hardly attention was given to raising public understanding of its central value. Consequently, people who aspired to the old authoritarian ways were able to mislead large numbers of people into believing that cooperative problem-solving processes such as democratic participation, scientific peer assessment, judicial examination, journalistic verification, were all dispensable when ‘decisive leadership’ was put forward to deal with demonised scapegoats and imaginary threats.

There is an urgent need to explain why cooperative problem-solving approaches and the conditions they have found to be vital for constructive co-existence are essential for the healthy functioning of society.  Without them, we would be pushed back towards an unaccountable few dictating to us what we must believe and how we should act, all to fit in with the whims and self-centred interests of authoritarians who despise consensus and cooperation.

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For more information on the historical background and contemporary applications of cooperative problem-solving, see:

The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas:  https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030265571

‘Cooperative problem-solving: the key to a reciprocal society’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2012/10/cooperative-problem-solving-key-to.html

‘Paradigm Lost’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2018/01/paradigm-lost.html

‘Question the Powerful’: quincentenary of the 1514 watershed’:

https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2014/01/question-powerful-quincentenary-of-1514.html

‘Learning from the Civic Cooperators’: https://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2021/12/learning-from-civic-cooperators.html