Iraq and Afghanistan

The election of Bush has produced a great outpouring of commentary about “what went wrong”. A careful consideration of the results by a variety of statistical categories produces (as reported in the NYT Week in Review this Sunday), however, a much more nuanced position than is often encountered. Bush increased his relative vote in nearly every category and nearly everywhere. A notable exception is the 18-29 group. In economic terms, only the very poor preferred Kerry over Bush, and this was probably due in large part to the minority status of many in this category. Beyond that, the Bush percentage of the vote increased with the income of the voters. People did vote their pocketbooks (or at least in what they believed to be their economic interest). Looking at education, only those with graduate training preferred Kerry, college graduates and nearly all with less education preferred Bush. Bush was not elected by the suburbs. In fact, Bush lost only in the largest cities, and did progressively better the less the concentration of population. However, if we compare with 2000, Bush improved his position in the larger cities and suburbs, but did less well than he had in 2000 in smaller cities and rural areas (which is quite a surprise). Regionally, Kerry did well in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, and the Pacific Coast. Previous political scientists had characterized politics in much of this areas as “moralistic”. (See Raymond D. Gastil, Cultural Regions of the United States for a snapshot of how the country breaks down regionally and some of the reasons for it.)

However, at the end of the day, the differences among the statistical and even regional groupings are relatively unimportant. Even among the wealthiest people there were a large number who voted for Kerry and even among those with graduate education, 44% voted for Bush. For those convinced that the “morals” question defeated Kerry, let me suggest as a caution the results from Churchill County Nevada. President Bush received 71.5% of the vote. Yet at the same time the voters rejected a proposal to reimpose a ban on prostitution in the County. The county’s two houses of prostitution are now closed, but the voters appear to be looking toward the future. (I do not think “moral values” should be confused with questions of sexual behavior, but in an environment in which voting for a ban on gay marriages is considered to be a vote for “moral values”, I am using the word as it is currently used in the political discussion.)

Given this situation, the advice being given to the Democratic Party to get off its high horse and develop a more populist, down-home, “values-centered” approach to “middle America” is unfortunate, particularly for the longer term. Op-Eds by Garry Wills and Bob Herbert suggest a somewhat deeper, if much more difficult strategy. Garry Wills see the current crisis as the result of a long-term retreat from the ideals of the Enlightenment on which the country was founded. While the rest of the world has moved away from the traditional, religion-dominated societies of the past, America has moved backwards. He asks, “Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?” Herbert points out that a remarkable number of Americans still believe that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al-Qaida before 9/11. He wants to add “teach-ins” to get more information out to the people.

My suggestion is that we must start further back. We must improve the quality of education. This does not mean “test-centered” teaching meant to satisfy politicians. It means education that provides students a background of information and intellectual tools against which they can evaluate new information. It means developing in students everywhere habits of interacting with the media that they can hold onto as they proceed through life. It means a requirement for general education for all students in colleges, no matter how technical their career objectives. And along with the requirement there must be an administrative commitment to see to it that all students become actively involved in such courses, instead of simply taking them to fulfill a requirement. It also means a commitment to continuing education through the media of people at all levels and with all initial persuasions. Above all, it means a great deal of effort between elections and outside of elections. To accomplish this, some of those very wealthy persons who regularly contribute to liberal and moderate causes, especially in election years, should commit to a long-term effort to educate the American people in science, government, moral values, and religion as these are seen from the Enlightenment perspective of our Founding Fathers.

I do not know how to achieve the goals set out above. Much of the effort must mix entertainment and information, must appeal to both emotions and minds. There will need to be a great deal of research on what works and what does not, especially over a period of years. But what I do know is that the United States is becoming an uneducated, backward country. Many parts of the population always have been ignorant; much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were hardly “enlightened”. Yet today we are the only superpower. We are the leaders of the world. If we do not lead, little gets done. Yet we find our people ill-prepared for this role. In many ways we have become more democratic than we were in the Eighteenth Century when people were prepared to be led by an enlightened elite. This is no longer the case. Now, whether we like it or not, what the United States does in the world will be determined by the people, by their wants, likes, and dislikes, by their ignorance or their knowledge. At present our people are not up the challenge. It is imperative that they develop the capacity to knowledgeably judge and decide public affairs for a complex world. If they do not, our future, and that of humanity, is not promising.