Subject: Self-introduction
Date: Mon, Mar 24, 2014
Msg: 100842
From: List for transpartisan leaders and innovators [mailto:TRANSPARTISAN@LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG] On Behalf Of Lawrence Chickering Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 10:46 AM To: TRANSPARTISAN@LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG Subject: [TRANSPARTISAN] Self-introduction
I wrote my first book on a transpartisan politics in 1993, Beyond Left and Right (BL&R),
which was an attempt, philosophically, to integrate the thoughts of left and right.
The argument focused not on what both sides argue to be true but on the
central challenge of all modern societies (and all individuals in them), which
is to integrate the two great, modern values of freedom, individualism, and rights
on the one hand (which I call, simply, 'freedom') and the traditional values of
duty, obligation, community, and order (which I call 'order'). Taking the
differences between freedom and order for granted, the modern political
debate understands left and right as unitary concepts, ignoring the huge
differences within the left and within the right, which cause great internal
conflict within each.
Left and right come together in understanding this great modern challenge: to
integrate freedom and order, and thoughtful people on both sides recognize
that no one has successfully accomplish integration. In this sense, I believe
left and right can be integrate not in terms of what they know, but in terms of
what they do not know -- what both understand to be the central, unsolved
challenge we face. The point is not only theoretical: on specific institutions
and policies, transpartisan, 'four-quadrant solutions' not only solve problems;
they also bring everyone together.
This reference to 'four-quadrant solutions' goes to the heart of my transpartisan
vision, first explained in BL&R and later carried on in Jim Turner's and my sequel to
it, Voice of the People: The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life (2008).
These works start by separating left and right into 'freedom' and 'order' components.
Each represents part of the truth, and the overriding objective of all is integration
with the others. Voice is largely devoted to a policy agenda with examples of
how to do this on issues ranging from public school reform, health care,
and poverty to gay rights, crime, and foreign and security policy.
I am attaching a short article that Jim and I wrote -- he from the 'left' and I
from the 'right' -- on the Four-quadrant Matrix of positions: freedom-left
and order-left, and freedom-right and order-right. We try in the paper to
highlight what portion of each position is 'true' and necessary for an
integrated whole. (Comments welcome.)
Different approaches to transpartisan have been expressed in this
transpartisan conversation, some focusing on deliberation and some on
participation. My work is focused almost entirely on participation, which
is to say on an active concept of citizenship in contrast to the passive
concept that tends to govern most mainstream discussions of politics.
Forty percent of voters in the U.S. now identify themselves as independents,
and I think a major reason is that our increasingly individuated people are
not satisfied with passively sitting back and letting the government do
everything in addressing public issues.
While governments have important roles to play, it should be obvious from
the mess that dominates almost every public policy issue that governments
cannot solve most problems by themselves; they need citizens playing active
supporting roles in designing and implementing policies. This general subject
has been mostly dominated by sociologists and political scientists, but I think
that economists' concept of property rights should be expanded beyond
private to public spaces such as schools and housing projects, with citizens
actively working to create positive communities in these and other 'public'
realms. I am coauthoring a book on public school reform based on this
concept. The coauthor is a former, celebrated principal of a middle school
in San Francisco.
The book on U.S. public school reform is strongly connected to one of my
other, primary interests, which is the promotion of girls' education and
general education reform in government schools in the most difficult
(tribal) parts of developing countries. The organization is Educate Girls
Globally (EGG), which has developed its model, working actively with the
governments in two states of India, including the most tribal, Rajasthan.
We are now planning expansion to Africa, working in partnership with
Africare. This is an empowerment model that empowers citizens, including
the poorest in rural areas, to take leadership in promoting change. We
also empower government officials to play active roles in expanding the
program, which is now in about 7,000 schools serving 800,000 children.
We have recently expanded to secondary schools, and we are working
actively to create demonstration projects in three or four Indian states
for an initiative of the federal Ministry of Education to reform secondary
schools throughout the country.
A final interest is researching the uses of civil society (citizen-based)
initiatives to play active roles in promoting social and cultural changes in
the tribal societies that have become the new, primary concerns of foreign
and security policy. This work began in an organization I cofounded called
the International Center for Economic Growth in the mid-1980s, working
with a global network of the best economic policy institutes in more than
100 countries. It became, essentially a South-South dialogue on how to
use markets for economic reform and human development. A short history
of ICEG's experience appears in a book I coauthored, Strategic Foreign
Assistance: Civil Society in International Security (2006), which also
addresses how citizen-based initiatives can support foreign and security
policy in crucial ways.
I look forward to participating in this powerful, new conversation.
Lawry Chickering
A. Lawrence Chickering
Founder and President, Educate Girls Globally (EGG)
1485 Main St., Ste 103c
St. Helena, CA 94574
415.235.6628
email: lchick0203@gmail.com
www.educategirls.org
_____
To unsubscribe from the TRANSPARTISAN list, click the following link: http://lists.thataway.org/scripts/wa-THATAWAY.exe?SUBED1=TRANSPARTISAN &A=1
