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Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public

Wow! It's been over a year since I last blogged! My little girl Eliana is almost two years old, and I'm still working on my book on corporations and democracy, although making good progress. Here is a link to a good post on iPods and the social commons: http://onthecommons.org/node/1086 posted by Silver @ 10:26 AM	Thursday, February 08, 2007
This article discusses why parents are less likely than in the past to teach their children manners. Two items are especially of note: [W]hat seems to have changed recently, according to childrearing experts, is parental behavior - particularly among the most status-conscious and ambitious - along with the kinds of behavior parents expect from their kids. The pressure to do well is up. The demand to do good is down, way down, particularly if it's the kind of do-gooding that doesn't show up on a college application. . . . "We use kids like Prozac," he said. "People don't necessarily feel great about their spouse or their job but the kids are the bright spot in their day. They don't want to muck up that one moment by getting yelled at. They don't want to hurt. They don't want to feel bad. They want to get satisfaction from their kids. They're so precious to us - maybe more than to any generation previously. What gets thrown out the window is limits. It's a lot easier to pick their towel up off the floor than to get them away from the PlayStation to do it." posted by Silver @ 8:43 PM	Sunday, November 27, 2005
This article examines a few attempts of cafe owners to set rules for the behavior of children as well as the resulting backlash: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09bakery.html?incamp=article_popular_2&pagewanted=all posted by Silver @ 9:11 AM	Friday, November 11, 2005
See this amusing post on Supersize baby strollers on sidewalks and in stores. It addresses the larger role of the societal value of parents versus non-parents. posted by Silver @ 10:25 PM	Thursday, September 22, 2005
See this NY Times article by Stanford historian David M. Kennedy likening the current U.S. army to the mercenary standing armies of the past: THE United States now has a mercenary army. . . .that is extraordinarily lean and lethal, even while it is increasingly separated from the civil society on whose behalf it fights. This is worrisome - for reasons that go well beyond unmet recruiting targets. . . Since the time of the ancient Greeks through the American Revolutionary War and well into the 20th century, the obligation to bear arms and the privileges of citizenship have been intimately linked. It was for the sake of that link between service and a full place in society that the founders were so invested in militias and so worried about standing armies, which Samuel Adams warned were "always dangerous to the liberties of the people." . . . But thanks to something that policymakers and academic experts grandly call the "revolution in military affairs" . . .we now have an active-duty military establishment that is, proportionate to population, about 4 percent of the size of the force that won World War II. And today's military budget is about 4 percent of gross domestic product, as opposed to nearly 40 percent during World War II. The implications are deeply unsettling: history's most potent military force can now be put into the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so. We can now wage war while putting at risk very few of our sons and daughters, none of whom is obliged to serve. Modern warfare lays no significant burdens on the larger body of citizens in whose name war is being waged. This is not a healthy situation. It is, among other things, a standing invitation to the kind of military adventurism that the founders correctly feared was the greatest danger of standing armies - a danger made manifest in their day by the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Jefferson described as having "transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm." Some will find it offensive to call today's armed forces a "mercenary army," but our troops are emphatically not the kind of citizen-soldiers that we fielded two generations ago - drawn from all ranks of society without respect to background or privilege or education, and mobilized on such a scale that civilian society's deep and durable consent to the resort to arms was absolutely necessary. Leaving questions of equity aside, it cannot be wise for a democracy to let such an important function grow so far removed from popular participation and accountability. It makes some supremely important things too easy - like dealing out death and destruction to others, and seeking military solutions on the assumption they will be swifter and more cheaply bought than what could be accomplished by the more vexatious business of diplomacy. The life of a robust democratic society should be strenuous; it should make demands on its citizens when they are asked to engage with issues of life and death. The "revolution in military affairs" has made obsolete the kind of huge army that fought World War II, but a universal duty to service - perhaps in the form of a lottery, or of compulsory national service with military duty as one option among several - would at least ensure that the civilian and military sectors do not become dangerously separate spheres. War is too important to be left either to the generals or the politicians. It must be the people's business. posted by Silver @ 1:45 AM	Monday, July 25, 2005
The Times covers today "lactivists" who protested at ABC studios in response to comments by Barbara Walters that she was made uncomfortable by a woman breastfeeding next to her on a plane. What should be the public etiquette governing breastfeeding? It is unreasonable to demand that nursing women hide themselves out of public view for the regular, frequent and prolonged periods in which they are nursing. Discretion, however, is often possible and when possible it is polite. There is quite a difference between nursing in public while covering up, and while not covering up. Unless there are special circumstances governing why covering up would be impractical or unreasonably uncomfortable, then I think women nursing in public should cover up. One might hope that people were not made uncomfortable by the sight of women's bodies, or towards nursing women's bodies; however, this discomfort need not be based on any sense that women's bodies are bad or shameful. It can rather be based on the idea that the sexualized parts of the body should be displayed only in private, and not in public. Things would be quite different if so much of the body were sexualized that that women (or men, for that matter) had to go out in public completely covered. However, if the parts of the body that require covering leave room for comfort, practicality and individual expression in dress, then I don't see the reasonable grounds for nursing women to object to covering up while nursing. UPDATE #1 (6/8/05): I should make clear here that I think that women should be able to nurse in public, but that a certain amount of discretion is called for. If a nursing mother is reasonably discreet, and someone is still made uncomfortable that is, well, too bad. And it is quite rude for someone to ask someone these women to go hide out of public view. I should also make clear that in my experience nursing mothers do exercise an appropriate level of discretion. So, generally speaking, I think that public etiquette requires people to internally deal with any discomfort they have seeing a nursing mother in public, and should not make requests or demands for her to move, or throw looks or other signs of disapprobation. UPDATE #2 (6/8/05): It occurred to me that the discomfort one might feel in the presence of nursing mothers may be based neither on the view that women's bodies are shameful, or that it involves a sexualized part of the body. (I should add that while the breast is a sexualized part of the body, nursing is obviously not a sexual act.) Rather, it can be based on a basic human attitude of disgust towards bodily emissions of all kinds. This disgust can be overcome (though I am not sure that it can be extinguished), but it also carries some moral weight. If a person can avoid disgusting another without undue cost, then there is a moral case for doing so. posted by Silver @ 9:07 PM	Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Andrew Sullivan follows up iPod article with this one: http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20050306 It has an interesting thesis: all the technologies which wall us off from each other also greatly facilitate the erosion of privacy. Cell phones get hacked and private emails widely distributed. This suggests that as the quality of our public life has eroded, so too has the quality of our private life. The health of one may very well depend on the health of the other. posted by Silver @ 10:02 PM	Thursday, March 10, 2005