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DISSENT

                      U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was visiting an elementary school. After 15 minutes speaking, he said, “I will now answer any questions you have.”  Bobby stood up and said: "I have four questions: How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore?  Why haven't you caught Osama Bin Laden?  Why are you using the USA Patriot Act to limit civil liberties? and where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?”   Just then the bell went off and the kids rushed out to play. Upon returning, Mr. Ashcroft said: “1 am sorry we were interrupted.  I will now answer any questions you have." Julie stood up and said:  “I have six questions: How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore?  Why haven't you caught Osama Bin Laden?  Why are you using the USA Patriot Act to limit civil liberties? Where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Why did the bell ring twenty minutes early? and where is Bobby?"

Dissent brings us face to face with the primary tension in American government: The conflict between freedom and order. Every generation struggles to find a balance and ours has tipped - precariously I believe - toward the order side. The USA Patriot Act is one, but by no means the only, example.

Anatomy of a Democratic Society

The elevation of dissent to a protected right is what distinguishes American Democracy from all other forms of government, That is why it is so insidious for cheerleaders for the Bush Administration (here I am talking about the Texas Representative, Tom DeLay) to label criticism of the administration's policies in Iraq as “hate speech.”

To understand the place of dissent, we must examine our historical roots. American government has both a political and an ethical component. This comes as a huge shock for most of us, since politics is the only part we typically recognize.

The Declaration of Independence is our primary ethical document with its emphasis on liberty, equality and self-fulfillment and it is from this ethical basis that government springs, for the Declaration says that these “unalienable” rights precede any government and that if the government is not protecting them, it is both the right and duty of the people to overthrow that government.

That's radical stuff. That American government is meant to preserve the ethical principles of the Declaration of Independence is seen in the five protections of the First Amendment: religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.  These are the protections from the government. That’s American Culture. Maybe you've seen the bumper sticker: “Support bacteria, it's the only culture some people have.” So, the unequivocal beginning of the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law. . . .” means that our spirituality, our intellectual activity, our communication, our association with each other and our right to criticize the government are all beyond the reach of the government's power. Our means of achieving an ethical life is protected and honored by keeping the heavy hand of government at bay.  Memorize the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Our government is filled with tensions because the underlying view of human nature is that it is brutish and self-serving.  In Federalist 10, James Madison talks about fractiousness of people - people so anxious to contend with each other that if a dispute doesn't exist, they will concoct one. To deal with the scruffy nature of humanity, American government has multiple tensions built into its architecture: the separation of powers among legislative, executive and judicial branches; the provision in Article VI of the Constitution that the laws of the United Stares shall be the supreme law of the land compared with the Tenth Amendment that says that the powers not delegated to the United States are reserved to the states or to the people; civilian control of the military; the two house Congress; and the Republican form of government, where one person must represent many factions.  As Woody Allen puts it: “The lion may lie down with the calf, but the calf won't get much sleep.”

But nowhere in the Constitution is there a grant of power to overthrow the government and in this sense the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution conflict. The Constitution, in Article III, §3, clause 1, defines “treason” as: “Levying war against the states or adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort.”

There is a right to amend - that is all Article V is about - but the Constitution doesn’t give a right to overthrow – it does not provide for its own destruction; rather it is the supreme law of the land.

So dissent, as I am using it here, is not against the legitimacy of government but against those who are in charge of government, and their policies.  

I start with these reflections on the nature of American government for two reasons: first, we almost never think about the ethical roots of our government and how much the framers' view of human kind dictated its unwieldy and frustrating structure: and second, we have to teach and protect dissent - particularly in time of war or conflict.

Teaching in a democratic society (and I believe that is the enterprise that all of you involved with libraries are in), requires instilling habits of the mind - intellectual toughness rather than dogma, although dogma is always in high demand. People today do not want to think. They want the answer, or as William Safire put it, "Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.”

Education in a Democratic Society

Education is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution although it is implicit in a system in which the people own the government.  Intelligent choices require a citizenry educated in politics, economics, arts, science and history.

Yet, there are as many tensions in education as there are in Democracy itself:

a) Can we teach necessary societal values such as tolerance, fairness and inclusion and, at the same time, teach the value of dissent?

b) Can we teach both the knowledge of facts and an appreciation of ambiguity?

c) Can we teach the necessity for both involvement and self-sufficiency?

d) Can we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?

e) Can we open vistas and aid in the rejection of unsound options?

f) Can we allow knowledge to alter what we seek as well as what we find?

In short. can we appreciate the words of the great jurist, Learned Hand: “The spirit of liberty is a spirit that is not too certain it is right.

Impediments to Teaching 

All of this is a prelude to the actual business of disseminating information - of teaching.

But let me just list some other current impediments. There are seven of them.

1. We have blurred the distinction between law and ethics. We ask the law to do too much. Bertrand Russell said that most savage conflicts are those about which there is no good evidence -- prohibition; abortion; public prayer.

2. We have lost our appreciation for dissent. One of the few noble congressional debates in recent memory was whether to send troops to the Gulf War. Once the debate was over and the war won, several members, including Congressman Rohrabacher from California, demanded that those who opposed the war on the floor of Congress apologize. How infantile. Democracy welcomes, requires and honors opposing views.

3. Next, we live in an era of fungible facts. Shortly before his death, I heard scientist Carl Sagan speak to an overflow crowd in Oregon. He was recounting the dangers to our environment, principle among them, the depletion of the ozone layer. During the question period a young man asked whether volcanoes didn't cause ozone in the atmosphere. Sagan paused, looked at him and asked, “Have you been listening to Rush Limbaugh?” He had.  Sagan then ticked off half-a-dozen scientific reasons why volcanic material stays in the troposphere and the depletion is above an impervious layer in the ionosphere and so forth…  The lesson is that today we are entitled not only to our own opinions, but to our own set of facts. The writer Dorothy Sayers reminds us that facts are like cows; if you look them in the face long enough, they run away. A recent Harpers Index reports that 12% of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

4. The decay of trust in our society is apparent. We do not trust our politicians, each other, or other races. Parents don't trust teachers, teachers don't trust the students, employees don't trust management and visa versa; and according to a recent study, two-thirds of us don't trust anybody. The root word of trust and trestle is the same. It is the desire to be connected that leads to the leap of faith required for trust. And disputes can be put gently. The famous Operatic composer, Rossini, was heard to say as he left the opera house: “You can't judge Wagner's Lohengrin on just one nearing and I, for one, never intend to hear it again.”

5. The systematic elimination of art from the curriculum has led to multiple problems in education. Art supplies the metaphor that helps us to deal with complexity, ambiguity, paradox and mistake. You know from your experience at work every day that education that simply tries to reduce knowledge to formulas and life to rules is bound to be constipated. For example: history alone is simply facts and dates. Its meaningful lessons are often spiritual or metaphorical. Vietnam doesn't mean that we never fight another war, and the United Nations doesn't mean we have changed human nature. What art does is to help us render knowledge useful. In asking questions, it reveals unarticulated truths about ourselves and about the human condition. This isn't just a commercial for the value of art. It is a confession that humans are wonderful, complex and unpredictable beings whom the no-frills, straight-ahead literalness of the censor cannot accommodate. There is an old Russian proverb that says: “We must help the talented, the untalented will make it on their own.”

6. We have, for the sake of being politically correct, non-offensive or meekly flaccid, bleached the intensity and directness from our language. We are too timid to speak frankly. We have forgotten that offense is inevitable and necessary if we are to express ourselves. Hear the words of Carl Sandburg: “Look out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go it is hard to call them back. They wear long boots, hard boots.”

7. Most important, we have elevated order over freedom. Freedom is imprecise, messy and frustrating, but it is the only means by which we can fully follow our mind's path on any exploration. And that is what the First Amendment is all about.

Ethics and Answers

Process is the engine of democracy. Process establishes equal rights. Process allows us to both speak and listen. Process requires fair and obvious procedures. Process recognizes commonality. Process protects access to information and allows individual choice.  The two fountainheads of process in American government are the First Amendment through its guarantees of speech, press, petition and assembly, and the Fourteenth Amendment in its recognition of equal protection and due process of Laws. The Fourteenth Amendment makes the First Amendment applicable to the states and every governmental entity including public schools.

The willingness of each of us, as citizens, to give these rights to each other depends upon our understanding of, and commitment, to the ethical foundations of our country.  Twice in times of great crisis our leaders have urged us to return to these great ethical principles. I am thinking of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Birmingham jail. When Lincoln traveled to dedicate part of the Gettysburg battlefield as a National cemetery in 1863, there was no assurance that the Union would prevail. Lee's retreat was temporary; his string of victories almost unabated. Instead of simply urging on the troops, Lincoln remembered the fundamental principles upon which our Union was based. After all, four score and seven years subtracted from 1863 is 1776: the year of the Declaration of Independence. The Union that was worth preserving was the one “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Likewise, Martin Luther King, Jr., just 100 years later, was articulating why the greatest respect for the law meant disobeying an unjust law, that is, one not applicable to all or that was imposed upon those who had no part in making it. King said that injustice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere.

Both King and Lincoln were stressing our interconnectedness. Their message required the trust, or trestle, that links us each to the other. Their message compels the belief that in American government, ethics and politics spring from the same philosophical root.

If I Were King

So then, in this context of American politics and ethics, what would I be looking for to teach our citizens about the power and importance of dissent?

1)    Do the citizens ask why?  “Why” is the prototypical American question – it is the search
       for both knowledge and understanding.

2)    Do they look within themselves and to each other for knowledge; have they acknowledged the 
       responsibility for their own lifelong learning?

3)      Do they recognize the connection between education and civic responsibility? Do they own the  
       hotel or are they asking for room service?

4)       Is compassion and inter-reliance apparent among them?

5)       Can they write and speak to articulate their arguments and defend their choices?

6)       Is reliance on process apparent?

7)      Are they aware of ambiguity?  Paul Tillich, the great 20^th century theologian, said: “The awareness 
      of ambiguity of one’s highest achievements (as well as one’s deepest failures) is a definite symptom
      of maturity.”

8)  Do they feel safe enough to express a contrary view?

9)      Do they take intellectual risks?

10)   Do they exhibit passion for ideas?

Citizens with these habits will not develop the closed and armored mind of the bigot or the sunshine patriot.  They will know, because they will want to know.

Keeping Your Job

A library administrator, a college administration or a city counsel (regardless of whom you report to) has an equivalent position to a politician.  She or he answers to parents, to the school trustees, to the community, to donors, to voters.  The ambiguities that you are teaching, the willingness to question, the latent insurrection you promote – all democratic and ethical tools – are likely to be misunderstood or hostilely received.  And with the disclaimer that you are hearing this from someone who was, himself, fired, let me make just a few suggestions.

First, the nudging of citizens toward intellectual toughness and discipline of the mind will be better received if you invite writers from your local newspaper, school trustees and parents to visit your library frequently.  Nothing persuades about the value of education more readily that the electric enthusiasm a good educator generates. Allies outside the library itself are invaluable.

Second. teaching of the kind that I value will deal with controversial subjects head-on. But preparation for the controversy can ease its sting, Every seasoned teacher knows about setting the context, exploring the different and contradicting views and inviting dia1ogue as preparation for difficult and controversia1 subjects.

Next, we all must decide, in libraries or any other endeavor, what are the resigning issues. The conscience is only captive if it is unwilling to liberate itself.

Finally, as my brother who is a professional singer, says: "If you believe your good reviews, you have to believe your bad ones, too," The only evaluation that makes any difference at all is our own.

I leave you with the words of the American poet Sam Hazo*:

            I wish you what I wish

            myself; hard questions

            and the nights to answer them,

            the grace of disappointment

            and the right to seem the fool

            for justice.  That’s enough.

            Cowards might ask for more,

            heroes have died for less.

*Sam Hazo, excerpted from “To a Commencement of Scoundrels.”  The Holy Surprise of Right Now, University of Arkansas Press, 1996, pp. 22-23.