Convocation Speech 2002
Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You -
Ask What You Can Do for Your Country....
Paul Locatelli, S.J.
University Convocation
January 15, 2002
Our response to the terrorists attack on September 11 reminds me of President Kennedy’s challenging inaugural address in 1961: "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You - Ask What You Can Do for Your Country. . ." He went on. . . "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
It is ironic that it takes an attack from outside to make Americans pull together and realize how much we have in common. September 11 shocked us into realizing that the rest of the world does not pay attention to our divisions of race, class and ideology: we are Americans sharing a common way of life.
What is it that we share in common? What is it that would make anyone "ask what you can do for your country?" If you pay your taxes and obey the laws, what more do you owe your country?
For the first time in a generation we are forced to ask serious questions about the state of our nation; for the first time since Watergate, we are seeing a rebirth of politics. And yet our students have grown up in an era when politics in America seemed passe, unnecessary, or even hopelessly corrupt. Patriotism no longer seems an old-fashioned virtue.
In the Summer of 1999 at the Aspen Institute in the Rockies, I attended a meeting of university presidents to discuss how we "prepare students for engaged citizenship." This question has become a major concern not only for education, but also for how we are to reinvigorate our democracy.
Engaged citizenship means understanding the principles of democracy and democratic decision-making, of constitutional and civil rights. It also means being active in our democracy, in ways ranging from community service - to debating public policies - to voting, which is the key expression of civic engagement.
During the meeting thoughtful people discussed why students are minimally engaged in the political process. Many of my generation could not understand why young people tended not to vote. One panel of young people pointed out that many of their peers did not vote or get involved in politics because they believed that their vote was worthless and because the political process was predetermined by lobbyists, rich friends of politicians, and special interest groups.
One year after the Aspen Institute, I attended another conference on civic engagement. We were presented with research results that brought to light major differences between the generations on political involvement. Let me summarize some of those differences:(1)
Compared to their elders, young adults between the ages of 18-29 are less interested in politics or public affairs; less knowledgeable about the substance or processes of politics; and less likely to register to vote or to participate in politics beyond voting.
Only 27 percent of college freshmen (in 1997) thought keeping up with public affairs was very important, compared to 59 percent of college freshmen in 1966.
Turnout in the 1996 presidential election among young adults between 18-24 was 28 percent, the lowest turnout on record, compared to well over 60 percent turnout for those 35 years or older.
And most significantly, in the past if you voted, volunteered, or participated in community organizations, you were more likely to get involved in other ways. However, at least one study found that there is no longer a statistical relationship between voting or other traditional political activities and voluntary activities such as working in a soup kitchen, tutoring or helping to clean up a local park.
For the college-aged generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was a time of peak political engagement, marked by the emergence of community service. Since then, while the college age generation has disengaged from politics, it has increased its interest in community service.
Given these trends, we must ask:
1. How do we engage all people, but especially younger generations, to become involved in the public affairs of our nation and world?
2. How will we ever learn to become members of a global village, which is extraordinarily diverse and amorphous, when we are not responsible citizens of our own democracy?
Jesuit education gives us a context for relearning democracy. From its beginning in the 16th century, Jesuit education has been concerned about the question of citizenship. It strives to prepare, not consumers, but responsible citizens who know that their quality of life depends upon the justice and humanity of their society. Jesuit education recognizes our work as God’s work and not merely our own doing.
At Santa Clara, we commit ourselves to "educate leaders of competence, conscience and compassion." Last year we nuanced this commitment, saying that we strive to "prepare students for professional excellence, responsible citizenship, and service to society, especially on behalf of those in greatest need."
The question today is how do we accomplish that? How do faculty integrate a rationale for civic engagement into their scholarship and teaching? How do students learn to take responsibility for their society?
Historical Context for Citizenship
Let me briefly consider the historical context for citizenship. Our democracy was founded as a unique political experiment that required its members to participate in society. The founding generation knew that certain civic virtues were necessary to maintain such a republic: civic mindedness, mutual respect, and a passion for freedom under law.
We commemorate today the birthday of a man who embodied those virtues: Martin Luther King, Jr. His life reminds us that the struggle for freedom and justice has been a long one in this nation, despite our constitutional ideals.
It was not until the 1860s when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment was passed that freedom was recognized as the birth right of all Americans.
In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln reminded the country that we are a "nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all ... are created equal...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . ."
There were other struggles to ensure this promise for all Americans. It took a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote in 1920. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement and the great speeches of Dr. King awakened in many the passion to use non-violent means to end injustice. Is it not ironic that it took a century after Lincoln’s speeches and the 13th Amendment before we saw the important victories in civil rights legislation?
The promising politics of Kennedy’s New Frontier that opened the decade of the Sixties turned sour in the quagmire of Vietnam and led to a politics of division and mistrust. Watergate disillusioned even more people and the focus of the country shifted away from politics to a burgeoning consumer economy.
Today, we struggle to find the balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of national security, between civil rights and constitutional rights, between individual freedom and the need to defend the community. These are complex issues and as a university we need, for example, to provide a forum for debate about the merits of military tribunals, the detention of Middle Eastern immigrants and citizens, and the use of resources for war and peace.
Honest, fair debate in our democracy is critical to moral, responsible action. The debate must be open and candid among ourselves, in the press, and in halls of Congress. And yet we must not let the war so narrow our focus that either we lose sight of long term goals of peace or we forget many other challenges to the common good: health care for all, free versus fair trade, global warming, education of the poor, and the care of the victims’ families.
How can we find a way to live together that measures up to the promise of our American ideals? We will not do it without political engagement, because politics is precisely the arena where we work out how we are to live together. This will take more than renewing a sense of pride in being an American, showing the flag, and posting signs saying "United We Stand." In order to figure out how to stand united, we have to relearn the skills of democracy.
We have had a painful experience of how united we are. A common tragedy made us all realize that we are united in vulnerability and also in shared grief. Most Americans did not personally know any of the 3000 people murdered on September 11, but almost all of us shared a kinship of mourning with the families and friends who had lost loved ones.
Naturally, that initial sense of community bound by tragedy and threat has faded, but it tells us something about our life together.
That experience points to the human community we take for granted in times of prosperity. There is a common good that binds us together. Our response to tragedy is to connect with others, to come together in loss and in prayer, to reach across ethnic and religious lines to affirm that we are all in this together. Some of the best things in life happen only when we share them in common: conversation, family, friendship, art, education, celebration and ritual. That common good is richer than the pursuit of our private good. It calls us to tend to the fabric of our society, to the personal and institutional ties that bind us. The common good is about "our human infrastructure" and the whole purpose of politics is to strengthen our common good.
Citizenship: Integrating Personal and Common Good
President Kennedy had a high sense of the common good and a deep commitment to public service as an honorable profession. Not everyone, however, agreed with his call "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
A famous economics professor was quite critical of this challenge. He wrote: "Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. ... To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them." (2)
The economist’s statement raises for us the historic conflict between "a fierce American individualism and our urgent need for community and commitment to one another." (3)Is a family only "the collection of the individuals who compose it?" Is there not something greater than the individuals in a marriage or a family or a community, something "over and above them" for which they are willing at times to sacrifice their self-interest?
I would argue that our greatest responsibility as citizens is to respect both the good of the community and the human dignity of each individual in our community. Historically, however, Americans have emphasized individual rights and, like the eminent economist who differed with JFK, tend to take the good of the community for granted.
If we believe that freedom is simply the ability to exercise our self-interest, and that concern for our neighbor is limited to achieving our own interests, then I suggest the ethical core of democracy is undermined. Most of us believe our concern for the poor, homeless, and hungry is a matter of justice, not simply self-interest.
Justice itself can be misguided when it is invoked to advance personal agendas and group interests. It can also be invoked by governments to advance policies that benefit only a few. President Kennedy did not challenge us to "ask what you can do for your government." The country is more than the government, so in a democracy it is fatal to leave politics to professional politicians. To address the current disillusionment with the democratic process, we need to change the structures and systems of how we live together through legal and ethical means. It will take more than prophetic voices to bring about that kind of change. It will take the serious study and analysis that the university can offer to society. In short, compassion without competence can easily produce injustice.
So, what have we learned from September 11th? Has this tragedy shown us that we are all in this reality of America together? Out of all the fear and rightful anger, doubt and pain, we have come together as family and friends, as a nation, and, hopefully, as citizens of the world. We have greater appreciation of our public workers like police and fire persons and emergency medical technicians. I think we are also learning that government has an appropriate role to play in keeping our country together, a role that the market cannot supplant. We are starting to learn more about people of other religions. We are learning what other people around the world think about us. Most of all, I think we have a growing appreciation of the fragile fabric of community.
When community is attacked, we wake up to how much we depend upon it. In a democracy, that awareness should result in a renewed commitment to civic engagement. At the very least this means studying the issues, reading newspapers, taking the time to inform ourselves so that we can vote wisely.
At a university we have the luxury to study and to reflect. The prime response for faculty, staff and students to this historic challenge should be a renewed commitment to understand the structures of our society and world, to measure them against the standard of justice and compassion, and to imagine how they can be improved.
We also have the opportunity to build up this "human infrastructure" of democracy. Some of this will be done in the classroom, but enhanced through programs like:
- the promising efforts of the Residential Learning Communities to provide forums for intellectual dialogue and common activities.
- the work of the Centers of distinction to pull us beyond our own courses and academic specialties to engage the larger issues of our world, from technology and ethics to multicultural realities, community service and the faith that does justice. Join those conversations and see what a difference you can make.
- the faculty and staff who went to El Salvador on the immersion trip last year have committed themselves to bring that experience back into their work, to be involved with marginal communities here and to add community-based learning components to their courses so their students can connect with the marginal here at home.
However, it cannot all be left to policy and programs. A great deal can be done personally to strengthen the sense of community, the human infrastructure here on campus.
I urge all of us
- to think about how we treat the custodial staff or the person behind the counter at Mission Bakery.
- to think about how important it is to respect other people who live as far way as Afghanistan or as close as the room next to us in Swig Hall or people who live next door to the house we rent on Alviso or Washington streets.
- Staff can make an enormous difference in setting a positive and helpful tone with the people they deal with every day. Every area of student and other services vitally affects the human infrastructure on campus.
- Faculty can make a difference by reflecting with their students how their own world has changed as teaching scholars because of September 11. They can use their own passion to understand this changed world to spark their students to do the same.
- I urge all of us to vote in future elections... and recall how important that is to enhance our community.
Cornell West has put the challenge of fashioning our community and world into eloquent words. What he says, in my judgement, makes us think more broadly and compassionately:
In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and the pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. . . . We are at a crucial crossroads in the history of this nation - and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so.(4)
If we take these words to heart, then "united we stand" will be more than a slogan. It will be the truth of our community.
Thank you.
References:
1. Michael X. Delli Carpini. The Disengaged Generation: Evidence and Potential Solutions. Of The Pew Charitable Trusts; Keynote Address at the Presidents' Leadership Colloquium. University of Pennsylvania. June 26 2000
2. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p.1.
3. From the dust-jacket review of Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper Row, 1985).
4. Cornel West, Race Matters (New York, Vintage Books, 1994), p. 159.
E-mail this page