First, a big Thank You!
The Rockridge Institute was founded with a mission: to teach Americans about the role of values and framing in political debate, and to help progressives equalize the framing advantages enjoyed by conservatives. With your help, Rockridge has done more than any small think tank could be expected to do. About 1,000 of you have donated to support our efforts. More than 8,000 have registered as members of Rockridge Nation to engage actively with us. And hundreds of thousands, both in the US and abroad, have bought our books and used our materials. If you are one of those hundreds of thousands, political discourse will now look different to you. As you read the newspapers and the blogs and watch TV, you can see the effects of our work everywhere. Your support has made that possible. For this and so much more, you have our complete admiration and gratitude.
Nonetheless, the Rockridge era will come to an end on April 30.
What we have written will remain as archives on our websites www.rockridgeinstitute.org and www.rockridgenation.org.
The end of any organization, even a small one, is a complex matter, and an emotional one for those who have invested themselves in its life. In important ways, Rockridge's triumphs and its limitations reflect the state of the progressive community and point to what the progressive future needs to be. Let's begin at the beginning.
The Rockridge Institute was formed to address a set of challenges: The right-wing think tanks, after spending 35 years and 4 billion dollars, had come to dominate public debate. They had done this by framing Big Ideas their way: the nature of government, the market, taxation, security, morality, responsibility, accountability, character, nature, even life. This allowed them to then frame lower-level issues, special cases like terrorism, Iraq, education, health care, retirement, stem-cell research, the death penalty, affirmative action, and on and on.
Our challenge was to figure out exactly how they had achieved such dominance over the minds of Americans and what progressives could do—not just how to respond case by special case, but how to do the Big Job: to reframe the Big Ideas governing our politics.
How could a tiny institute in Northern California hope to make any progress on such a large task? Our strategy was to use the tools of the cognitive and brain sciences, and to address not just one or two issues, but the full range.
In the last five years, and on a shoe-string budget, Rockridge has achieved more than we could have dreamed of:
Most important to us has been how our work has resonated with you. We are proud of what we have done together. In short, with your support and participation, we have had more of an effect than any tiny Northern California nonprofit think tank had any right to expect.
But... we have not done the Big Job, not even close. The conservatives' Big Ideas about government, taxes, security, the market, and the rest still dominate political discourse. Democrats in Congress still cringe at attacks based on these Big Ideas, and many have been intimidated into voting for conservative policies—on funding for Iraq, on government spying without a warrant, on taxes, on bankruptcy, and on and on. The Big Idea intimidation is still working. Changing that is the Big Job.
We at Rockridge have used the physical think tank form to get us this far. We've made important advances in understanding and articulating political cognition. We have done more in-depth studies than most people have the time to read, and we know what has to be done to tackle the Big Job. But we also realize that no small non-profit think tank can do significantly more of the Big Job than we have already done. That will take a large-scale, well-funded progressive cognitive infrastructure.
The progressive infrastructure built so far does not include a cognitive infrastructure. It has not tackled the Big Job—reversing the dominance of conservative Big Ideas in public life. Policy institutes do not address cognitive policy—the ideas and values that have to structure the public mind in order for nuts-and-bolts progressive policy to be accepted as just common sense.
When Rockridge started on its mission, we knew there were huge hurdles — not just from the Right, but within the progressive community itself.
In the end, we encountered all these problems. They are endemic to progressive advocacy and politics. We weathered them for years and accomplished a huge amount. Eventually—even with a thousand donors—the funding problem caught up with us.
Thank you for all your support.
Together, we will keep the Rockridge spirit alive and together we will continue to build a strong progressive movement with a sustainable infrastructure and a vital understanding of the cognitive dimension of politics, policy and governance.
—The Rockridge Staff
Joe Brewer
Bruce Budner
Evan Frisch
Eric Haas
George Lakoff
Sherry Reson
Glenn W. Smith
The outpouring of support we've received since announcing the end of the Rockridge Institute has taken us on a roller-coaster of emotions. Thank you so much for your concern, offerings, and words of assurance. We have been and will continue to be motivated by these bonds of fellowship that span the globe.
Now is the time for you to take ownership of this community. We can't keep it going any longer for all the reasons mentioned already. So it will be up to you to build the bridge to tomorrow. People from Rockridge will help get things rolling and offer our insights from the experience of creating Rockridge Nation. The responsibility will be in your hands. Here's what you need to do:
This is going to be an organic process so it's hard to say what will happen. We want to keep the momentum alive during this "handing off of the reins" so our goal is to try to reach a consensus by the middle of May. When the group gets a new blog site up and running Rockridge will post an announcement here to let others know where to go.
Again, thank you for all of your help in making this community a success. From here on out, it's going to be an experiment in social change.
Best,
The Rockridge staff
This is part of a larger initiative Rockridge is working on called To Respect and Protect: Expanding Our Discourse on Immigration. Stay tuned for the release of our core thinking in this strategic issue area.
Hi. It's Eric Haas, again. I'm a Senior Fellow at Rockridge. Thanks to all the people who participated in last week's Weekly Workgroup on homeschooling. There were lots of long, in-depth posts full of insightful comments about frames and their real world application.
This week's discussion is another important and emotional topic: immigration. In our Ask Rockridge answer, Nadine Dixon and I examined the question, how do progressives reframe the immigration debate? Especially, how do we move it away from "illegal immigration," both as a label and as a concept?
In sum, we said that illegal immigration is a red herring. The label triggers deep conservative frames that the world is an inherently dangerous place and the U.S. is a container of limited resources that struggling people must fight over, based on race, gender, national origin, and many other superficial characteristics. It gets us to focus on solutions that won't work, like a border fence.
To solve our real problems—from the economy to unemployment to health care to the environment—progressives must expand the immigration debate by explicitly placing immigration within these larger social issues. This means that progressives must push for systemic change—substantive changes in our infrastructure that will protect and empower people on both sides of our borders so they can have the real possibility to improve their lives. When lower and middle class workers in Mexico, for example, have the real possibility to improve their lives at home, then they stay. They don't take the perilous gamble of trying to re-start their lives in a new country. The problems of "over immigration" go away. When the European Union used this approach in adding Spain in 1986, the "over immigration" problem went to zero. Today, more Spaniards return home to Spain than leave it.
But this type of thinking begins with progressive values and frames. You won't get here with conservative thinking. It requires empathy and responsibility to all people, and a belief that government should protect and empower everyone.
I want to discuss this further in the Weekly Workgroup. One issue that challenges progressive frames and helps us get to the heart of them is driver's licenses. Many progressives feel uneasy about letting immigrants without work papers get driver's licenses. Why is that? How do driver's licenses fit with the progressive values of empathy and responsibility, the belief in respect and gratitude as the basis for cooperation, and the belief in protection and empowerment as the means to prosperity?
What do you think?
Eric Haas
This is part of a larger initiative Rockridge is working on called To Respect and Protect: Expanding Our Discourse on Immigration. Stay tuned for the release of our core thinking in this strategic issue area.
We received a question recently on "illegal immigration." How should progressives frame this issue?
Progressive frames are rooted in empathy and responsibility and the understanding that life is interdependent; "no one is an island" and our interdependence is increasingly becoming globalized. From empathy and responsibility flow gratitude and respect for all that we receive from one another. We thrive together when we help each other to prosper. We are part of an international community.
The result of this thinking is that progressives believe that people deserve the opportunity to work hard in places that are free of hazards and that their hard work provide them with enough wages to get food on the table, a roof over their heads, medical care when they are sick, and an education for their children, in neighborhoods where the water and air are clean.
But progressives also understand that many people in the U.S. and around the world are not able to live this way. So, in the progressive mode of thought, empathy and responsibility begin with those who most need our protection and empowerment. This is only fair; it's a matter of human dignity. This is why, for example, progressives have acted to protect low-wage workers—our most vulnerable people—through increases in the minimum wage and strong work safety regulations that help promote livable jobs.
Progressives should reject the conservative emphasis on "illegal" immigration. Calling people "illegal immigrants" is as misleading as calling jaywalkers "illegal walkers" and speeders "illegal drivers." "Illegal" does terrible damage. It stigmatizes hard working people who are desperate to provide for their families. They come here and struggle to make a new life for themselves. And as they do, they make our lives better. Referring to immigrants, George W. Bush stated, "this economy could not function without them." But calling immigrants illegals hides these contributions. Worse still, the damaging stigma spreads. Constant repetition cements this false stereotype until it begins to tarnish everyone from a similar ethnic background. "Economic refugee" is a better descriptor. It's more accurate. But we never hear it. And most people are probably uncomfortable using it. Why is that?
Because the phrase "illegal immigration" dominates our immigration discussions. Presenting immigration as an isolated and "illegal" issue triggers the idea that the world is an inherently dangerous place, and that America's culture, its place in the world, and its prosperity are under attack. This is a deep conservative frame that also divides progressives. These frames present the U.S. as a container of limited resources that people must fight over. Your dreams must come at my expense. Empathy and cooperation are diminished. Effective solutions are lost.
When immigration is discussed as "illegal immigration," the solution that logically flows from this framing is The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of 700 miles of double reinforced fence across parts of the Mexican border with California and Texas, along with more raids, jailings, and deportations.
But we know this will never work. It's a red herring. A 700 mile wall on a 2,000 mile border will never stop people from crossing. And, it won't stop people from simply going "underground" when their visas expire. Further, ending "illegal immigration" by itself won't solve the problems we are really concerned about: not the huge national debt, stagnant economy, crumbling infrastructure, high urban unemployment, and the lack of livable jobs; not the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the lack of affordable housing; not our overdependence on fossil fuels, global climate change, water shortages, and deforestation; 47 million Americans without health care, and so on. None of these problems will be solved through mass deportations (even if that were possible). These problems require much more: better banking regulations, returning the minimum wage to at least half the average wage and enforcing work safety regulations as steps toward livable jobs, universal, single payer health care, and zoning regulations that promote sustainable communities, among others.
To solve our problems, progressives must expand the immigration debate by explicitly placing immigration within these larger societal issues. If we framed this issue as one involving "economic refugees," our understanding of the immigration, societal problems and their solutions would be different.
At the same time, progressives must recognize that fear is a powerful framing technique. It is more difficult to convince people to support a policy that moves the country toward a positive outcome, such as cooperation and prosperity, than to move away from a negative one, such as the fear of an immigrant "invasion."
Here are some recommendations for promoting progressive frames based on the concept of "economic refugee":
Make the progressive frames explicit. Talk first and foremost about prosperity and how we achieve it as a country united and working together in an increasingly globalized world. State that we must explicitly end cheap labor exploitation. Begin with empathy for the middle and lower classes, including gratitude and respect for the necessary work that people do everyday for the United States. This includes all immigrants, both with and without visas.
Repeat that we are responsible to each other for our prosperity. That requires protection and support through government programs from fire fighters to the EPA and schools to the courts. This must include and be extended to the middle and lower classes, including all immigrants. Then we all benefit together.
Stop leading with security. It is of secondary importance (at most) and will have little practical effect.
Use progressive labels, such as "economic refugees." Stop using "illegal immigrants" and explicitly challenge it when used by others.
State progressive understandings of the contested concepts in the immigration debate. Security, for example, requires more than walls to seal the border. They are pointless alone. Managing the flow of people across the border requires reducing economic and environmental pressures abroad and at home. Canada is an excellent example. Its economic prosperity means there is little or no incentive for its citizens to emigrate to the U.S. Add in enforcement of worker protections in the U.S. and you reduce the incentives for employers to hire and exploit immigrant and U.S.-born workers alike.
State the known facts—they are on the progressive side! In other words, we can act right by acting smart. We must protect the lower and middle classes against conservatives using immigration, especially "illegal immigration," for their continued exploitation. Immigrants, whatever their legal status, are nearly all law abiding, contributors to the U.S. We depend on them. Properly managed immigration levels can help support prosperity for all in the U.S. In other words, we are connected across the world. We must work together to prosper together.
Changing the immigration debate is not a simple task. Immigration is a complicated issue and an emotional one. To implement effective policies, progressives must change the "common sense" that surrounds immigration. Progressives must understand and communicate a progressive vision and place immigration policies within it.
We have described some key aspects of the frames that structure progressive policies on immigration, but there is still more. Look for our upcoming paper describing the logic of the immigration debate, entitled To Respect and Protect: Expanding the Discourse on Immigration.
We will also be examining this issue further in our Weekly Workgroup on Rockridge Nation: Reframing Immigration. We will examine how specific policies related to immigration fit within progressive frames. For example, many progressives feel uneasy about letting immigrants without work visas get driver's licenses. Why is that? How do driver's licenses fit with the progressive values of empathy and responsibility, the belief in respect and gratitude as the basis for cooperation, and the belief in protection and empowerment as the means to prosperity?
Eric Haas
Nadine Dixon
This article is cross-posted at Open Left.
The climate crisis is huge. We know this. And we are at a critical juncture. Will we continue to corrode our environment until it cannot sustain us? Or will we look to the future and build communities that thrive on nature's abundance?
Right now, things don't look very promising. It isn't just that we've reached the tipping point, as James Hansen suggests. (warning - large PDF file) It isn't just that the first-ever climate bill is about to arrive DOA on the Senate floor--maybe not such a bad thing since Lieberman-Warner is built on the wrong ideas. The real problem is in the way we think about the problem and, therefore, the solutions.
Maybe it's a no-brainer to say that we got into this mess because of our ways of thinking – resources are infinite, the world's too big for little ol' us to make a dent, quality of life is improving so we must be doing things right, etc. So it should be clear enough that we need new ways of thinking to clean things up.
This is a serious situation. Going on four decades now, conservative think tanks have built a massive communications infrastructure to shift the common sense of America. They have been so successful that even many progressives reason with their ideas – to the detriment of our efforts. This is tragically the case with global warming. Consider this sampling of Big Ideas conservatives have pushed into public discourse:
These ideas are at the heart of the climate debate. We desperately need to challenge them with our own ideas. But first, we need to recognize the strategic differences between ideas and policies. We are caught up in a battle between carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and energy investments. All the while, conservative ideas continue to spread unchecked.
This has got to change.
Here are a few ideas that we at the Rockridge Institute offer to get the conversation rolling:
Nature is the basis of our survival. We depend upon breathable air, drinkable water, and other "environmental services" in order to live. If we destroy the life-support systems that nature provides, we'll need to sink some serious money into building them on our own (sounds like an April Fool's Joke to me).
Wealth is well-being. This includes the empowerment that comes with monetary wealth, but it is significantly broader: emotional and physical health, having good friends, living in a flourishing community, etc. All of these are forms of wealth because they increase our well-being.
A healthy economy depends upon a healthy environment. Our wealth and prosperity are intimately bound to (1) our survival capacity and (2) all that makes flourishing possible. Markets cannot exist where there are no people. People can only exist where there is a capacity for life.
We all own the air. It is our right to have it clean. Companies have been damaging our air without paying the full cost of doing business. This has to change if we are to survive, let alone thrive. The environment is inherently valuable because it is a source of wealth (as the basis of our well-being). Companies should pay for damage to this collective wealth. This is the fair thing to do.
Markets are tools for achieving societal goals. Markets must serve our purposes. We construct them to do so. Solving the climate crisis is not a matter of "waiting for the market." It is a matter of shaping markets so that they generate wealth in the broad sense.
Government makes markets possible. Markets cannot function without rules of operation, courts to enforce those rules, banks to secure financial transactions, stock markets to manage the exchanges, and more. All of these features come from government. It is ironic that conservatives talk about shrinking government, but they never mention these functions. This is because conservatives fundamentally do not understand how markets work! Their worldview makes them blind to it.
We know the facts. Hell, we knew them all along. But our facts only make sense when people understand what is really going on. We need a new common sense.
This article is cross-posted at Alternet.
The movie Field of Dreams had a wild idea -- that a person could build his dream in the corn field and others would come from miles around to take part. This attitude is not restricted to Hollywood: It is a common notion in government that if we build a good policy the people will come rally around it. But because most policy solutions are bureaucratic and technical, people are often uninterested. To get people to care and to rally around good policies, we need to advance the ideas from which the policies flow.
When it comes to the climate crisis, there's been plenty of talk about cap-and-trade, carbon offsets, taxes on fossil fuels, and investment plans for renewable energy. But there is hardly any talk about what all this means to everyday folks or why public understanding matters. What most people are missing is that the solution may well lie in the way people think about and understand the climate crisis.
Recently, my colleague George Lakoff and I released a report called Comparing Climate Proposals: A Case Study in Cognitive Policy. Our goal was to demonstrate the importance of human cognition in the policymaking process. We didn't set out to create an "ultimate solution" or anything like that. We simply suggested that a good place to start looking for solutions is in our own heads.
There's been plenty of talk about cap-and-trade, carbon offsets, taxes on fossil fuels, and investment plans for renewable energy. But there is hardly any talk about what all this means to everyday folks or why public understanding matters. I'd like to take a break from all the techno-speak and suggest something essential that hardly gets talked about – the way people think about and understand the climate crisis is vital to actually solving this problem.
The cognitive dimension of climate policy is a big topic that needs to be unpacked carefully. But we can start by talking about two competing ideas. One has been advanced by conservatives for decades through a multi-million dollar communications campaign. The other has appeared from time to time in discussions of environmental philosophy, especially about the ethics of management practices.
So what are the ideas? You'll no doubt recognize one of them:
Idea #1: Protecting the environment harms the economy.
This idea has been promulgated for decades by the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and other conservative think tanks. It is based on the foundational claims that (1) the environment and the economy are fundamentally different things, and (2) they compete with one another in a zero-sum manner – meaning that a gain for one amounts to an equivalent loss for the other. This idea takes many forms. Here are a few that we hear all the time:
The opposition of the environment and the economy is at the heart of the climate debate. It is the starting point of the Lieberman-Warner "Climate Security" bill that is making its way through Congress now. We see this is in the two stated purposes of Lieberman-Warner:
Critics of this landmark bill focus on policy mechanisms: it gives away billions to polluters; it doesn't reduce carbon dioxide emissions enough; it doesn't address major threats scientists warn us about. All of these things are true, but there is something more fundamental going on. I'd offer a different criticism: Lieberman-Warner is premised on a fundamentally flawed idea!
Is this a bold claim? Perhaps. Is it being debated? Unfortunately, no it's not. How might the debate begin? With an alternative idea:
Idea #2: A healthy economy depends upon a healthy environment.
The well-being of our communities (isn't that what we mean by a healthy economy?) is intimately bound to the preservation of life-giving qualities from nature. In other words, a thriving economy DEPENDS UPON protection of the environment. Separation of environment from economy is fictitious, an artifact of a flawed way of thinking.
This begs the question, " what is wealth and where does it come from?" A progressive response might be that wealth is the well-being of individuals, society, and the earth. Wealth is more than simply material wealth. It comes in many forms - having good relationships with friends and family, maintaining physical health, and yes, living in a community where clean skies, thriving forests, and healthy streams are preserved. Clean air, drinkable water, and fertile soils are inherently valuable because our well-being depends on them – independent of markets. A consequence of this meaning is that resource preservation is wealth creation. The logic works like this:
• Wealth is anything that increases well-being.
• Clean air increases well-being, so it is a form of wealth.
• Dirtying the air reduces well-being, so it is a loss of wealth.
• Keeping the air clean is preserving wealth.
There is a policy proposal that expresses this second idea, what Peter Barnes calls "cap and dividend." His idea is to place a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide (the same mechanism used in Lieberman-Warner), but charge polluters off the bat. And here's the cognitive difference: distribute the money evenly to everyone to promote the understanding that (1) the air is inherently valuable; and (2) it belongs to all of us. Of course, there are critics of this proposal too. And, like opponents of Lieberman-Warner, the concerns are generally focused on policy mechanisms. I don't know if Barnes' proposal is the best we can do, but it is a great starting point for debating these ideas.
Naturally, the idea that has won out so far is the result of a concerted effort to change the way people think. Conservatives have done a MUCH better job of this in recent decades than progressives. Progressives spend most of their time debating policies, while conservatives advance ideas.
This should be clear when all the chatter among progressives is about cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and other policy proposals. It should also be clear when the conservative idea I mentioned is obvious and intuitive while the progressive idea is unfamiliar and likely to seem counter-intuitive, because conservatives got their idea out far and wide in public discourse first.
We need to challenge fundamental ideas before debating policies. This debate should openly engage people from all walks of life. It should be explicit that we want to challenge conservative ideas with our own. This will be necessary for building the trust that leads to lasting support. Only by debating ideas will the populace at large be able to see problems with conservative thinking. Only by debating ideas will people know that the problems we face are moral, not technical, that the solutions depend on what we understand the problems to be in the first place.
Hi. It's Eric Haas, a Senior Fellow here at Rockridge. Thanks again to all the people who participated in last week's Weekly Workgroup on stereotypes. It was a big, wide ranging discussion on such topics as: examples of progressive stereotypes to counter the conservative stereotype of the "welfare queen" — e.g., welfare helping the out of work Enron employee get back on their feet; whether progressives should get involved in creating stereotypes at all — there were different comfort levels with this, but a recognition that prototypes and stereotypes are how our brains function; and examples of progressive narratives that employ more stereotypes about people working together and all prospering — e.g., soup from a stone. Very lively and insightful.
I can't wait for this week's discussion. The topic is homeschooling and it's already provoked an animated discussion, with 29 comments to the original Ask Rockridge question. In my Ask Rockridge answer, I said that homeschooling can fit within the progressive worldview based on the relationship progressives see between accountability and the government roles of protection and empowerment.
In sum, the key is that this accountability encompasses both personal and societal responsibility. We all have a responsibility to provide every child with a level and quality of education so that they are likely to develop into healthy and competent adults—both society and individual parents. This means that there is two-way accountability. Primarily, there is societal accountability — has the community, usually through the government, provided the infrastructure and policies needed so that students can get a high quality public education? Parents shouldn't feel they must pull their students out of school because they are unsafe or have, let alone, detrimental learning environments.
At the same time, society should allow parents to choose a different educational path than the local public school. This can include private schools. This can also include homeschooling. It is not necessary that society support these alternative educational methods, unless the public schools cannot meet the learning needs of a student. This happens most often for children with severe learning and emotional issues.
Still, through our obligation to protect children, we must require that homeschooling meet minimum requirements so that it is reasonably likely that the child will develop properly. But that protection will be ineffective if we do not first and foremost provide the infrastructure and policies that parents and children need to succeed.
This practical aspect of this protection is exemplified in the recent state appellate court ruling in California that all homeschooled children must be taught by a certified instructor. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger were outraged by the ruling. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the California Teachers Association was "happy" with the ruling, while State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell was still studying the ruling.
So, I'd like to begin this Weekly Workgroup discussion with some questions:
What do you think?
Eric Haas
This sure is timely as an appellate court in California recently ruled that homeschoolers must be taught by someone with a teaching certificate. This has fired up a lot of people.
A quick note before I start. In answering this question, I will do a slightly different format than usual. I will answer the question and I will also ask some others. The new questions will help start the Weekly Workgroup at Rockridge Nation, entitled Protecting Homeschoolers, Respecting Parents, which will examine the issues raised by the new ruling in California.
Homeschooling certainly is a controversial issue, because it goes to the core of the one's worldview — the relationship between one's personal family and the nation as family. The New York Times wrote in a March 26, 2008 article about Muslims who are homeschooling their children:
"No matter what the faith, parents who make the choice [to homeschool] are often inspired by a belief that public schools are havens for social ills like drugs and that they can do better with their children at home."
These views about public education clearly complicate the government's role of protecting and empowering children by requiring schooling.
In what might be described as an act of protection, a California state appellate court ruled at the end of February that homeschooled children must be taught by someone with a teaching credential. (The court has decided to reconsider this ruling.) Not everyone would agree with that characterization. Governor Schwarzenegger responded to the ruling by saying:
"Every California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. ... Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education."
Similarly, James Dobson of the conservative advocacy group, Focus on the Family, was outraged.
Thinking about these reactions to homeschooling brought some questions to mind:
Understanding the role and purpose of public education within the progressive mode of thought begins with progressive morality — the morality of empathy and responsibility, for oneself and others. Others, because life is interdependent; "no man is an island." We thrive together when we help each other to prosper.
Empathy and responsibility lead to the community actions of protection and empowerment, which we implement through government. Public education is a fundamental part of empowerment. It's part of the public infrastructure built through government investment and management — everything from roads to banking regulations to satellites for communication to the court system to libraries and so on — that allow us to collectively and individually grow and prosper.
Public education is a central part of that infrastructure. Without public education, many Americans would not be able to afford to send their children to school. Public education helps them pull themselves out of poverty. They, and all of us, are better off.
Society has determined that to deprive children of basic education is a form of neglect. Mandatory school attendance — public, private, or at home — fits with progressive responsibility.
Unfortunately, the reality of public schools has not always matched their promise. Some are terrible places to be students. They are dangerous. No real learning takes place. They solidify mistrust, negative stereotypes, and conflict between students. In addition, some parents strongly disagree with public schools teachings. For example, they may not want their child exposed to evolution or sex education.
In the progressive worldview, then, can these views be accommodated? Is there a difference between allowing an alternative education, such as homeschooling, and supporting it? I think the answer to both questions is yes. And, it is based on the relationship progressives see between accountability and the government roles of protection and empowerment.
The key is that this accountability encompasses both personal and societal responsibility. We all have a responsibility to provide every child with a level and quality of education so that they are likely to develop into healthy and competent adults.
In the progressive mode of thought, this means that there is two-way accountability. Primarily, there is societal accountability — has the community, usually through the government, provided the infrastructure and policies described above?
So, how does this relate to homeschooling? We can allow parents to choose a different educational path than the local public school. This can include private schools. This can also include homeschooling. It is not necessary that society support these alternative educational methods, unless the public schools cannot meet the learning needs of a student. This happens most often for children with severe learning and emotional issues.
Through our obligation to protect children, we must require that homeschooling meet minimum requirements so that it is reasonably likely that the child will develop properly. But that protection will be ineffective if we do not first and foremost provide the infrastructure and policies that parents and children need to succeed.
So, yes progressives can support homeschooling.
The next questions, which will start the Weekly Workgroup discussions on Rockridge Nation, are:
See you at the Weekly Workgroup.
Eric Haas
The Rockridge Institute
Dear Rockridge Nation,
Think about framing
The Weekly Workgroups are living up to their promise: using your Ask Rockridge questions as the basis of a shared investigation and building our understanding. This week's topic, Challenging Welfare Stereotypes, continues, with Eric Haas at the helm, assisted by RI intern Adam Schaffer.
On Monday, we begin a new conversation, about education and a progressive perspective on home schooling. The success of these discussions is yours, and the growing group who are thinking along with us. Come take a look and join the conversation.
Growing a coalition to focus on health care and not health insurance
Eric Haas is in San Diego, speaking to the annual meeting of the Group on Institutional Advancement of the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC). These folks, responsible for public relations and government affairs at the nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals, are deeply interested in our contribution to changing health policy. They are the people whose commitment and understanding are essential to a profound and lasting change in health policy.
Your support makes it possible. You allow us to develop a cognitive policy, promote our thinking and then talk directly to the people whose understanding is essential to a profound and lasting change. Now take a moment and make a material -- and essential -- contribution.
Growing a cognitive policy for a greener climate
Joe Brewer's major contribution of the last weeks is a major new work: Comparing Climate Proposals: A Case Study in Cognitive Policy in our new climate initiative. This is only the beginning, and shows how the promise of the health initiative, Don't Think of a Sick Child, can be applied to an ever widening area of the public debate.
Thinking Clearly, Speaking Out
Eric Haas was interviewed for WUSB-FM 90.1 Stony Brook's
"End of the Empire Report" -- introducing ideas of framing and cognitive
policy to yet another audience. Every time we make these ideas more
familiar, we take a step towards putting the common back in common
sense. You can listen here.
George Lakoff is on NPR today, twice! On Day to Day, George brings a linguistics perspective to recent widely reported comments by Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Listen to the audio for this story -- Misspeaking about 'Misspeak'.
For Talk of the Nation, the topic is the different ways conservatives and progressives talk about politics. Listen to the audio for this story -- When Did You First Become Political? -- here.
Talk to us!
Send a little energy our way today: tell us about your experiences in reframing discussions and moving towards progressive solutions in the comments below. That will help the fellows, and all of us at the Institute and in Rockridge Nation, to keep thinking, teaching, and spreading the word. Then build a better world with us: invest in our combined futures.
Sherry Reson
Dir. of Public Affairs
The Rockridge Institute
The climate crisis is among the greatest challenges we face. Getting the right policy is critical, requiring expertise in many areas – including public policy, science, economics, planning and development, and more. One area of expertise that has gone unnoticed so far is the application of cognitive science to the political process. Our hope is that our analysis will begin to fill that void.
There are two aspects of policy: cognitive policy and material policy. Material policy consists of the nuts and bolts, what is done in the world to fulfill policy goals. Cognitive policy is about the values and ideas that both motivate the policy goals and that have to be uppermost in the minds of the public and the media in order for the policy to seem so much a matter of common sense that it will be readily accepted. (Read this intro to cognitive policy to get a better feel for what we mean by all of this.)
At the Rockridge Institute we have spent the last several months exploring the cognitive policy behind various proposals for dealing with climate change: the key frames, values, and modes of thought shaping the discourse around climate policy. Our latest report, Comparing Climate Proposals: A Case Study in Cognitive Policy (also available in PDF), explores the key differences between the Lieberman-Warner "Climate Security" bill currently under consideration in the U.S. Congress and a proposal by Peter Barnes called Cap and Dividend.
We feel that many of the most important issues surrounding climate policy have yet to be fully discussed. Over the next few weeks, we will write a series of articles to explore the major concerns surrounding markets, governance, policy solutions, and the climate crisis. These articles will be archived on our website as part of our initiative to explore the cognitive dimension of climate policy.