who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage”

Aristotle

Actions have consequences. Whatever we do in both our private and public lives has consequences. The policies that we enact on the local, state, and national levels affect individuals, groups, and society at large—and they may do so in different ways. I even heard someone recently argue that policies do not matter that much, and what matters in the real world are their consequences. There are, however, all sorts of consequences—but we rarely consider the wide range of effects that our actions and policies may have in the heat and excitement of making policy decisions, where we tend to focus narrowly upon their desirable consequences. If that is true, then the discussions of the great variety of potential consequences should have a much more prominent place in our public policy discussions than they usually do.

One of the most prevalent comments about the consequences that I hear is that they are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It is understandable why people may talk this way about the consequences of their actions in their personal lives. But I do not think that this is an appropriate way to talk about the consequences of our policies, because the actions we take to implement them will typically benefit people with certain values, interests, and goals and hurt those with different values, interests, and goals. I think that it would be better to simply talk about their possible consequences without assigning them the moral attributes of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ that too often plague our public policy discussions and contribute to the lack of civility in them.

Another problem is that people tend to talk almost exclusively about a policy’s desirable consequences. But the reality is that we can never know exactly what the consequences of implementing any policy will be, because the world is too interconnected and complex, and the future too uncertain, for any one mind to comprehend what the consequences of an implementation will actually be. There is, however, still a value in discussing more and less likely consequences. I think that it is very important to try to discuss and understand at least some of a policy’s undesirable or unintended consequences—because in some cases, the harm of failing short of a desired consequence is greater than if we never attempted to do anything at all. One could argue, for example, that the policy aims of the Soviet Union—equality and brotherhood—were noble and admirable, but that the failure to achieve them resulted in an oppressive, ruthless, and inhumane political regime.

It is also important to understand that inaction has consequences as well. It is true that a focus upon possible undesirable consequences may lead to inaction. In some cases, inaction may be good. Not creating the Soviet Union at all, for example, would have been the best policy. In other cases, the costs and consequences associated with inaction may lead to ruin, and even to the destruction of our planet and life as we know it, as proponents of the theory of human caused global warming claim. The problem, of course, is how to tell which is which.

Finally, I think that the main blind spot in our thinking about the possible consequences of our policies is that we too often focus on quick fixes and short-term solutions and ignore their possible long-term effects. Such myopic vision is the bane of our times and election driven democratic political systems. Consider the recent example of how America went to war to bring freedom and liberty to Iraqi people and preempt attacks on our soil. These were clearly admirable goals. But one of the consequences of our policy, after nearly ten years of fighting, is that our financial prosperity and security is gone, along with the financial security that our children, and our grandchildren might have had—and future Americans will have to pay off an inherited debt with huge interest for generations to come. It is thus always important to talk about the possible consequences of our policies—and especially the possible undesirable consequences of our policies and their implementations—and to ask ourselves, over and again, what might happen if our policies and the actions that we take to implement them do not go entirely according to the best-laid plans.

Consider the description of the possibility from the Democratic Nation Building Report that we discussed last time: ‘This possibility would have us forgo all active efforts to build democratic nations abroad’. This description is typical of the descriptions of IF policy possibilities, and indeed of policy possibilities in general, in that it briefly describes what the possibility would do, but not the reasons why it would do it. If you had only this description to go on, then you would be at a loss as to how to evaluate it. You could say ‘salvation at last’ or ‘over my dead body’. But this is just a reaction, and not an evaluation. It may, no doubt, be based upon the concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests that you have pertaining to democratic nation building. But there are all sorts of reasons why someone might think we should not try to build democratic nations abroad. And the concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests that motivate this possibility may be very different from your own.

So what are the concerns that motivate this possibility? And what are the beliefs, values, goals, and interests that underlie it?

These are the questions that you have to ask yourself in order to understand the reasoning behind it. The question at this stage is not whether you like the possibility, or would be willing to support it. It is not whether you share the concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests that motivate it. It is not whether the possibility is consistent with the beliefs, values, goals, and interests that underlie it. And it is not even whether or to what extent it is likely to address the concerns that motivate it. We will get to all of that soon enough. The question at this stage is what those concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests actually are. But in order to understand what they actually are, you will have to understand the possibility on its own terms. And in order to do this, you will typically have to see the possibility—and, indeed, the world—through the eyes of someone who might propose it.

But here, we may once again be our own worst enemies, just as we are when we are trying to understand what a policy possibility says and does not say. For we are all almost inevitably over-burdened by the conceptual baggage of our own concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests when we try to understand a policy possibility on its own terms. And if we are not very, very careful about it, then we may all too easily end up understanding it on our own terms instead.

Thinking seriously about contrasting policy possibilities is not for sissies. This is because it can be very difficult to understand a possibility on its own terms. It is because most of us are so locked up in the prisons of our own minds—so certain about the truth of what we believe and the falsity of what we don’t—that we never even recognize the bars. But it is also because trying understanding a policy possibility on its own terms can also be very frightening. It may force us to question some of our deepest and most fundamental beliefs, values, goals, interests, and concerns. And it may, for many of us, even challenge our own self-identities and self-understandings of who we are.

All of this would be bad enough. But there is also the human condition.

We may feel that we have understood a policy possibility on its own terms when it begins to make sense in light of the beliefs, values, goals, interests, and concerns that motivate it. But human beings are inherently fallible and always subject to error. So it is always possible that, even when everything seems to make sense, we do not really understand the things that we think we understand.  The upshot is that even when we think that we have understood a policy possibility on its own terms, we may always come across something that makes us think that we haven’t. So we should always remain open to the possibility that we have not yet understood a possibility on its own terms and must rethink the whole thing all over again.

This is the human condition. And there is no way around it. One of the most difficult things in life is how to know whether we are ahead or behind—whether, in other words, we disagree with someone because we do not quite understand the reasoning behind his beliefs, or because we understand the reasoning behind them well enough and believe that they are false.

But this is where your imagination, creativity, and courage come in. In order to understand a policy possibility on its own terms, you will typically have to break out of your own mental prison far enough and long enough to think how someone who thinks very differently from you might think. This will require your creativity to find a way to explore the world with someone else’s eyes. It will require your imagination to see how the world might look to someone who has very different concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests than you do. And it may even require your courage to question your most fundamental beliefs, values, goals, interests, and concerns—and, very possibly, the courage to become a very different person than you currently are by doing so.

I have sometimes heard people say that the language in our reports is too sophisticated and that it may sometimes even prevent people from understanding what a possibility means. But I, like Pogo, think that we have met the enemy and he is us. For my own sense is that it is more often the conceptual and political baggage that we carry into a discussion⎯our personal expectations and our philosophical presuppositions and our political prejudices and what we have heard on TV and our reluctance to take the time to read something, let alone carefully⎯that prevents us from understanding what is clearly described on a page in front of us.

Why do I think this? Because I usually find that the people who misinterpreted a possibility will quickly agree that they have done so after someone points it out to them.

In this particular case, there were two pieces of baggage that stood in the way⎯a suitcase and a carry-on. The suitcase was the fact that there are currently a lot of isolationist policy possibilities in the air⎯and the presupposition that this possibility must, of course, be one of them. The carry-on was the presupposition that every nation-building project must be a democratic nation-building project.

The suitcase led some participants to think that ‘Forget About Building Democratic Nations Abroad’ would forbid us from pursuing relationships with foreign countries at all⎯which might be a reason for some people to support it and for others to oppose it. The carry-on led some participants to think that the possibility would forbid us from engaging in nation building projects that do not aim at spreading democracy abroad, such as offering foreign aid to underdeveloped countries with no political strings involved (as China currently does)⎯which might be another good reason for some people to support it and for others to oppose it.

But is this what the possibility actually says?

⎯⎯‘Look at the first paragraph in the second column where it says ‘Far from being an isolationist policy, this possibility would encourage us to pursue our economic, military, and geo-political interests openly instead of linking them to spreading democracy abroad’.

⎯⎯‘Oh yeah!’

⎯⎯ ‘Look at the first paragraph in the second column where it says that this possibility ‘would not prevent us from offering foreign aid, or from participating in nation building projects in underdeveloped countries, or from offering humanitarian aid to countries that need it.’

⎯⎯ ‘Oh yeah!’

It wasn’t that anyone had any difficulty understanding what these sentences mean. And it wasn’t that they didn’t take the time to read the description of the possibility (though I am told that that sometimes happens). It was simply that their presuppositions about the area of concern and the policy possibilities for addressing it had somehow prevented them from taking these sentences on board.

Understanding what a policy possibility says is the first step toward evaluating it. And it may be especially difficult if the possibility says something new or something you don’t expect. It often means getting down and dirty with the language that describes it. And there’s not too much you can do to get around it. You certainly can’t do it with pictures. They may, no doubt, be worth a thousand words. But they do not say or mean any one of them. And while developing a policy possibility may be a fine art, the possibilities themselves are much more like laws. They are articulated in language. They are supposed to mean something fairly definite⎯this, and not that⎯and we may actually need to rewrite them if they don’t. They may, of course, be subject to different interpretations. And they may stimulate you to think about different possibilities. But they can’t mean anything you like⎯they would be more or less meaningless if they did⎯even if it does sometimes take a judge or two to say what they currently mean for us. And ignorance, just like in court, is no excuse here.

Understanding what a policy possibility says is the first step toward evaluating it. But you obviously do not need to understand what a policy possibility means in order to discuss it with your friends or neighbors, or even to discuss it intelligently. That, on the contrary, is a large part of what our public discussions are all about. For the process of coming to understand a possibility is the process of exploring its description and the concerns that inspired it, and what it would permit and forbid, and how it might differ from other possibilities for addressing the same governance concerns. You do, however, need to know what the possibility means, and what it does not mean, if you want to evaluate it. For otherwise you are quite literally evaluating something else.

And as I weathered this disquieting media and sensory onslaught from my poolside chair and tried to make sense of the on-air ramblings and various conspiracy theories of the type that I thought (or naively hoped) had last seen prominence in 1954 (thank you again, Joseph N. Welch), I was reminded at some point of the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy or the false choice.  This fallacy, which my spouse and I use regularly to great effect in our own arguments over household chores, incorrectly frames the question under discussion as a choice between only two given and mutually exclusive alternatives:  true or false, black or white, do the dishes or walk the dog, you’re either with us or against us.

Of course such dualism is often forced and—clearly when applied against me—quite obviously wrong.  There is nearly always at least a third option, if not a fourth or fifth or sixth.  I could do both:  wash the dishes and walk the dog.  Or —given my slothful proclivities—more likely do neither.

While further ignoring the clamor from both the TV and my nearly drowning progeny, it also occurred to me that the requirement in IF Discussion process of considering multiple possibilities (commonly 4-8) for a given topic is partly a direct and healthy deterrent to this all too common logical fallacy.

This isn’t to say that avoiding the false choice is necessarily easy—particularly in the heat of an argument.  We often want to frame our arguments to force a choice between the option we prefer and some clearly undesirable option or some slippery slope to that undesirable outcome.  This can take the form of we either we do it “my way” or we’ll inherently slide into some chaos.

Of course reality—and our fellow citizens (and family members)—just as often have a strong bias for multiple and alternative outcomes.  Perhaps the slippery slope will lead to a ski lift to the top of another hill with a better view or perhaps we’re already at the bottom and all the options lead up, or perhaps we’ve got crampons and an ice axe and the whole point is to play on the slippery slope.  The point being that we shouldn’t necessarily accept the given options—almost always there are other possibilities.

If we all agreed about public policy, then there would be little if any need to discuss it. But politics really is about who gets what, when, and how. And we often have different interests, different beliefs, different values, different goals–and, hence, different ideas about who should get what, when, and how. Despite all that talk about the common good and the public interest, our different interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas about who should get what, where, and how tend to influence the way we each see the world, and what we each think we ought to do as a society, and what we call the public interest and the common good.

It’s nice to reaffirm our interests, beliefs, values, and goals with people who share them. But many people do not like to talk about how to bake and divide the public pie with people whose interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas are different from their own. It can be fun to listen to people do it on television and radio because they can’t hear what we say, and because they can’t answer back. But we often get so wrapped up within our own minds–and take our own interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas so much for granted–that we simply cannot imagine how anyone with basic rationality and good intentions could possibly disagree with us. And since we often invest our identities in our interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas–and since we often have a greater certainty in them than could ever possibly be warranted–it is not unusual to find that our passions rise as we discuss our differences, and that our voices rise too, and that we are suddenly talking far too fast and far too loud to listen to, let alone to understand–let alone to digest and rearrange our own constellation of interests, beliefs, values, and goals in relation to–what anyone else has said.

This is why political discussions on television so often turn into shouting matches. It is why political rallies so often seem and sound more like football games. It is why we so often seem to be talking right past each other. And it is why it is almost always good to have a facilitator.

A facilitator can slow down a discussion so we can listen to what has actually been said. He or she can stop a debate, and the felt need to have an immediate and snappy comeback line, just long enough for us to hear what someone else has said and to explore what it means. This does not often happen on television or at political rallies or on internet blogs and discussion threads. It takes a bit of time and discussion to understand our differences. But the more it happens in a face-to-face discussion, and the longer that discussion continues, the easier it becomes to see the world from someone else’s eyes, and the more difficult it becomes to demonize people simply because they have interests and beliefs and values and goals that differ from our own.

They will, of course, still have their interests, beliefs, values, goals, and ideas–and we will still have ours. But the less we blame each other for having them, the more likely we are to approach each other as human beings, instead of as Democrats and Republicans, and the more likely we will be to understand exactly what they are. Indeed, the more we talk with other people about our political differences, and the more we actually hear what they say and try to understand why they are saying it–instead of assuming that they must be liars, thieves, or dummies–the more likely we all will be to address our real concerns. And the more we do that, the easier it will become to make collective decisions in the face of our very real differences.

This, or something very much like it, is what we are trying to do at IF.

The problem is that students are a great deal more creative and engaged than we imagine.  Most times, when faculty provide discussion questions to their students, these questions are not particular robust and do not meet students where they are.  Some students may not have a full sense of what is meant by the question.  Other students may be able to think more critically and deeply than faculty imagine and may therefore be bored by the question.  Faculty talk a lot about “critical thinking,” but do we make enough space in our classrooms for this sort of thinking to happen?

The holy grail of critical thinking can, in its essence, be stated as an ability to identify a range of possible explanations, answers, questions, or possibilities and then to weigh a set of options using a rational logic.  In the digital age, it may be that the ability to imagine and to judge a range of possible explanations is needed more than ever but made increasingly elusive by the very nature of our times:  in surfing the web, reviewing emails, or managing the untold other gigabytes of information that appears before us each day, we are constantly having to make quick decisions.  Which page will I surf next?  Do I respond to this message now?  Later?  Never?  The more that information can be made succinct, the more appeal it has to us.

Could this be why big, complicated issues seem, increasingly, to come down to “obvious” conclusions that appeal to the gut instinct:  (1) Vaccines are dangerous because big corporations are marketing them without sufficient testing so that they can maximize their profits—even if it means that kids become autistic; (2) The earth is heating up, and humans’ reliance on carbon fuels is to blame; (3) A child who abuses an animal will eventually go on to be violent against people because anyone that could abuse an animal must be a cruel and dangerous person?  In fact, all of these conclusions are hardly the only possible explanations for the concerns they address.  But, anyone who is in the business of peddling opinion is well aware that the quick “gut check” is crucial:  an explanation that “just makes sense” to people is easily received—even if it’s not the best possible explanation by which to understand the data/facts.  An expedient explanation is most appealing in an age when information is seemingly never-ending.

In an effort to meet this “digital native” generation where they are, many faculty now use things like PowerPoint slides, YouTube film clips, and clicker technology that periodically asks students’ opinions or tests their factual understanding of the material being covered so as to keep lectures interesting and engaging.  The basic classroom structure largely remains, however:  the lecture hall, which was designed for a time in which texts were scarce.  Professors would literally read from the text they had so that the students could hear what the text had to say.  Multiple choice tests place a premium on the ability to memorize information.  When did you last rely on your memory for anything?  Even if I think I have remembered something correctly, I nearly always check Google to be sure I am correct.

The 21^st Century student always has access to any bit of information they could possibly want to know.  What is needed is an ability to imagine different possibilities and then to evaluate those possibilities—in effect, an ability to critically contemplate and examine the deluge of information that is constantly presented to us.  While these skills are not needed when deciding where to have lunch or which movie to watch tonight, these skills are what now distinguish the most valued workers from their counterparts and the most effective citizens from those who cannot seem to prioritize, communicate, and help to effect changes that resonate within their communities.

In the IF classroom, student-centered discussion is not characterized as students performing a teacher-generated task or series of tasks.  Instead, the students themselves are given the time and space to drive their own reflection of an area of concern—a broad question or concerns that relates to the course topic.  At first, students are very uncomfortable with the broad task at hand.  They fret:  am I doing this right?  Eventually, though, once reassured that the goal is to engage with the process rather than to do some specific task that is to be evaluated (i.e., write a quiz, test, or essay), students relax and engage with what is an exploratory, generative process.  Students are evaluated as a group by their ability to ask questions and to push their fellow students to think about the issue more deeply.

Once allowed reign to do this, students will make intriguing comments and observations and will ask provocative questions.  In fact, most faculty come to realize that a course is far richer when students are afforded space to ask questions and raise issues.  Faculty who view themselves as bearers of special knowledge who are meant to transmit insight to their students have difficulty in an IF classroom.  But, faculty who themselves as experienced mentors to their students know that students have a wonderful “beginner’s mind” and a capacity to ask remarkable questions.  The IF classroom allows students space to explore an issue and then to assess what would happen if various alternative paths were pursued.  Seldom are students given the time and space to do this sort of exploration, and yet this capacity for critical thinking is exactly the skill that they most need in the modern age.

In the best of all possible worlds, a debate might actually be an ideal way to explore and develop ideas. There, debaters would always be completely open to other points of view. No one would be interested in defending his point of view–let alone beyond the point of no return–and everyone would try his best not only to understand other points of view, but to strengthen them as well. This, however, seldom if ever happens in the real world. Here, the element of competition kicks in, and it exerts an unfortunate influence. Debates in the real world are more like sporting contests between opposing players and teams. Debates, as we know them, are all about winning points, defending one’s own position come what may, and attacking opposing positions regardless of whether or not anyone understands them. Indeed, the very term ‘debate’ can be traced to an old French word that means ‘to fight’. So if a debater in the real world says that he wants to explore and develop his opponent’s idea, you can rest assured that it is the first step in a protracted argument designed to knock it out.

The purpose of a debate is to have ideas fight it out to determine which is the strongest. But it is easy to defeat an idea if the fight occurs before it has grown strong enough to defend itself. And the purpose of an IF discussion is see what ideas for addressing an area of concern are out there–and to strengthen them so that they are stronger than they were when you originally found them. The purpose of a debate is to put an end to a discussion. But the purpose of an IF discussion is to develop ideas so they will foster its thoughtful continuation. Our purpose is not to determine which policy possibilities are the most fit to survive. And it is not to resolve an issue once and for all. It is to explore a wide-range of policy possibilities and to develop them as best we can so that the ones that eventually survive public scrutiny will be actually worth pursuing.

This is the reason why IF facilitators try to prevent discussions from becoming debates. The task is a difficult one–partly because it is often difficult to know where discussion leaves off and debate begins, and partly because people who are interested in public policy often take pleasure in a good fight. So I typically let my panelists explore their differences when they disagree. But when I see them set their jaws and begin to repeat themselves, I gently remind them that our task is not to debate the issue, let alone to settle it once and for all, but to see whether it will be useful for public discussion. And this is typically enough to set them back on the right track.

Being practical means getting something done, yes.  But solving immediate problems isn’t the only way to be practical.  Being “practical” can also mean deepening one’s grasp of a problem and widening one’s understanding of the possible ways of moving forward.  This was what our philosophical and religious traditions meant by the phrase “practical wisdom.”  And it is at the core of what a wide range of modern philosophers of otherwise very different perspectives have meant when they used the word “freedom.”  It is only much more recently that our understanding has narrowed to the point that we have forgotten these richer meanings of the term.

To know how to do something, the right “answer” might be enough.  But to really know what you’re doing, you need concepts.  Only concepts can help you reflect on which problems are worth paying attention to; only concepts can help you become aware of the variety of ways they might be approached.  There are a lot of repetitive things we do every day that require little or no thought—because they deviate neither in aim nor in performance from past similar things we’ve done in the past.  We have a term for them: mindless tasks.  But the more important the task, or the further out in the future it is, the more we have reason to think it through.  The only way we can do that is with concepts.  Only concepts can help us describe and explore what we want, our ideals.  The same is true of any distant or complex future.  Ditto for the many ways these might intersect.

We need concepts to think through our ideals, the always-uncertain future, and how these interact:  because (1) ideals aren’t about anything singular; (2) the future is never an exact replica of the past; and (3) their interactivity is by nature conceptual.  All three, separately and interactively, are key elements in any wise choice.  And all three require thinking in terms of more general categories, that is, concepts.

So, no, IF public discussions are not practical in the sense of providing immediate answers to questions that might just as well be left to those who job it is to do them repetitively and well (though notice that even being sure of that is a conceptual question!).  But they are practical in the sense of exploring what needs doing and who or what should be called on to do it.  And they couldn’t be a vehicle for practical wisdom of that sort without relying from start to finish on concepts.

Along these lines you’ll find an interesting piece on Making College ‘Relevant’ by Kate Zernike in Sunday’s NY Times. She notes the trajectory we’ve been following, pointing, for example, to a UCLA annual survey of freshmen with a virtual flip-flop in attitudes about being “very well-off financially” and “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” between 1971 and 2009. In 1971 37% thought wealth was essential compared to 73% for a meaningful philosophy of life. By 2009 wealth is up by a score of 78% to 48% over a meaningful philosophy of life. But she also points out that increasing specialization and career-training in undergraduate education may not be the answer, noting a recent AACU survey that asked employers what they wanted colleges to teach:

The answers did not suggest a narrow focus. Instead, 89 percent said they wanted “more emphasis on on the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing,” 81 percent asked for better critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills” and 70 percent were looking for “the ability to innovate and be creative.”

What if the future of a college education isn’t about increasing specialization. What if it is, at least in part, about developing and honing those complex thinking, communication, and interactional skills that are adaptable for many different career paths? Many of these skills have always been at the heart of liberal education. As Zernike’s piece suggests, perhaps the key then is to help students better to understand the importance of these skills and their broad applicability to the world of work beyond college.

Of course, many of these skills are skills we have in mind when we integrate the IF discussion process into the classroom. When students facilitate a deliberative discussion of their peers, and when they explore possibilities together as a group, they are engaging in complex tasks that require analytic and creative reasoning skills, communication skills, and social skills. These skills are skills that should be adaptable to most any discipline–especially if you think of the various disciplines not so much as set bodies of knowledge but as different ways of thinking about reality. These skills will be directly relevant to most any career path those students take. By helping students to practice and hone these skills over time, we might help students to see the relevance of a college education in a new way. And just maybe it could open up a different future for a college education.