Stevens Strategy has taken on a more international clientele in the last few years. Recently, John Stevens provided client support to American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Polytechnic Namibia in Windhoek, Namibia and explored with Bob DeColfmacker client work at Indraprastha University and other government and higher education institutions in Delhi, India. In the past, we have worked with colleges in Switzerland and Pakistan, and Dr. Stevens co-led a workshop last year with the Association of Private Universities of Japan on comparative collegiate governance issues. John also serves on an international board of advisors working in Albania.
This interface with cultures vastly different yet nearly the same as ours has caused us to realize how complicated our diplomatic world has become, how dangerous it is. The democracies within which we have been engaged recently are fledgling, for the most part, and they are developing in geo-political hotbeds. They are working hard to develop systems for political, religious and economic freedom, and to do so, they must stand up to efforts from major powers in pursuit of goals contrary to the development of those free societies. It is complicated and dangerous for those who desire political, religious and economic freedom, of course, but it is no less threatening for those who desire simply to pursue free inquiry, to think critically, to pursue reason rather than dogma.
Researchers in our American colleges and universities and elsewhere are finding how similar human genetics make each of us—American, African, European, Central Asian, Russian, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Indian (see Haidt, Trivers and Pinker among a long list). We all, according to this research, have the desire to punish wrong-doers, reward those who have done good, help the needy and assuage our own consciences by acting honorably or fixing the effects of our transgressions. And we all are hard-wired with the ethics of autonomy, community and divinity. Our cultures, societies and countries balance and encourage these innate desires and ethics, or they fail. Some cultures in the east are more likely to tip the balance toward community, and in the west (particularly America) toward autonomy. Our communist comrades placed too little emphasis on the ethics of autonomy and divinity, for instance. Democratic political systems are constantly readjusting the recipe to suit contemporary taste and philosophy; one can easily imagine how the dot on the chart of the three axes of autonomy, community and divinity moves with each American election. Of course, individuals (sociopaths) as well as societies (Nazi Germany) can be at variance with this general paradigm. Things can get seriously out of whack.
Which gets us back to the complicated and dangerous world in which we live. Three examples from our recent visits follow.
Kyrgyzstan is a society that, because of its nomadic roots, leans towards the autonomy axis in ways more similar to the American ethos than we might imagine. It is working with determination to build its democratic systems and a free market economy, but it is faced with shortages of investment capital and a poor public education system leading to a shortage of human capital. In the midst of this and other battles, it finds itself in a vice between three external powers:
- Post-soviet Russia still laments the loss of this small piece of its empire to western style democracy and is calculating and testing the means at hand to regain influence (It’s a poignant coincidence that the American university is located in the former communist central party headquarters located next to the parliament. Tunnels, now blocked-off, had linked the two complexes. Massive paintings of Lenin, Marx and Engels still adorn the university’s largest auditorium, while Stalin’s visage has been covered in white),
- China is concerned with the demise of the political stability that came with central control over this region of the world and covets its natural resources, and
- Middle Eastern nations, most notably the Saudis, respond to weaknesses in the post-Soviet public education system and provide free or nearly free education in Madrassas. Some of these schools focus on the militant Wahhabi style of religious schooling that developed the terrorists who toppled America’s twin towers.
India, with a billion people living in the world’s largest standing democracy, needs to compete effectively with China’s rapidly expanding economy. Its leaders bask in the attention paid to them now by both the US and Russia as these two powers jockey for position in that part of the world. India’s economy is held back because the population is not fully utilized to create wealth, still suffering from the effects of its caste system. Its political and social capacity is similarly underutilized. Its higher education institutions provide quality baccalaureate, master and doctoral level degrees to a small proportion of its people and elementary and secondary instruction does not produce sufficient numbers to qualify for quality higher education. Here, too, the Madrassas are making strong headway.
Namibia is a remarkable country that has made enormous progress since the revolution that deposed the fascist regime that imposed apartheid on these intelligent, industrious and kind people. Its capital city of 300,000, Windhoek, is a model to which any mid-size city in the world should aspire, but poverty on the perimeters of the city and throughout the tribal country-side and a seriously declining elementary and secondary education system since the revolution are formidable obstacles to true success. Here, the Chinese play a role, calling in chits for the support they provided to oppose and overthrow the apartheid regime. Somehow, the desire of this country’s people for freedom resisted the appeals of communism and the raw human desire for revenge against their former oppressors that have kept many African nations at continuous war. But still, their industries and their national economy thirst for skilled labor that the Namibian educational system is not yet positioned to produce.
It’s our view that we have temporarily lost our vision for American society’s interface with the world in the midst of our response to its treacherousness. We are focused on stopping terrorist attacks on our soil—as we must; but a focus only on our own survival is not what makes America compelling to the rest of the world. America’s cache has thusly declined. It’s not just America’s economic success that makes us special in the world; it’s our particular recipe for the ethics stew that each society prepares. Ours is spiced uniquely with personal autonomy and religious freedom—and it has proven to be quite appealing for many tastes. America needs to reestablish its special vision in this contemporary world, and the special recipe for our zesty stew is, and has always been, the essence of that vision. But, perhaps because of military tugs on our purse strings, America’s presence in the countries we’ve just discussed is shockingly limited.
Each of these countries is struggling to make an ethical stew, which curiously, would be seasoned quite nicely to America’s tastes. Indeed, each of these countries shares a common desire with the US for human autonomy, religious freedom, and for the cooperative development of strong national communities respecting democratic principles. These western values work, and as much as we strive to avoid any element of cultural imperialism in our thinking about the world, these western values are better than the alternatives. They are a precondition for successful societies.
But each of these countries also has one glaring weakness in common: Each lacks a strong, secular elementary and secondary education system that will build the talent required to fulfill its economic needs, and frankly, those weak educational systems are susceptible to infiltration from, and are now being infiltrated by, fanatical religious sects. Our experiences in these three nations do not make us experts in international relations, but we think the need they share for a workforce educated in quality schools focused on free inquiry, critical thinking and a secular curriculum is also extant in most of the other developing democracies of the world. Fighting military battles against religious fanatics who wish to destroy us may not be avoidable in today’s world. Fighting the politico-religious dogma that creates these warriors is required in the long haul, however, if we are to stop the guns from firing and bombs from blasting. If the mix of values we espouse is to prevail, our society needs to wage a peace through the provision of a secular educational foundation in developing democracies that opposes and exceeds in scope the rigid dogma of the Madrassas and particularly that of the militant Wahhabi sect.
All societies must find a reasonable balance for their citizens between autonomy, community and divinity. Each of us is endowed with a thirst for all three ethics. If we focus on providing the basis for making sound choices regarding these ethical axes, the demise of the enemies of personal autonomy and religious freedom will be hastened—less blood and talent, fewer dreams and human potentialities will be lost.
That’s our view. What’s yours?
Comments (6)
Kudos to you for this thoughtful piece. I offer only a friendly amendment to your three ethical axes: in addition to autonomy, community, and divinity, I offer sustainability as a critical ethical axis going forward. Education--real education which contributes to the development of human potential and the creativity that accompanies free minds--is likely the greatest contributor to the sustainability of any society...all educators can benefit from thinking globally. Looking forward to more blogging with Stevens Strategy.........
Posted by Trish Cook | June 19, 2007 3:49 PM
Posted on June 19, 2007 15:49
John: Sounds like the naive "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" with a "secular educational foundation in developing democracies that opposes and exceeds in scope the rigid dogma of the Madrassas and particularly that of the militant Wahhabi sect"! Which brand of zealous religion do you want the USA to proselytize in competition with the radical Madras education? There are many ready and willing to do so, as the Conquistadors did in the Americas. Our right wing Christians would prevent condoms in Africa in spite of their zealous attempt to stop aids and bring freedom. Our Mormans would love to sieze the pulpit of reaching out to all that "need" their brand of religion. Jews seem to have the right idea......live and let live, possibly from historical necessity.The root cause of the current world treachery is religion and the zealots that normally espouse their "better way". Secular education is best accomplished by transparency and openness of society (showing good and bad) with all having access, not a USA brand of education. We have brought the world democracy and freedom and the Internet.WOW! What is needed is every child in the world having access to it, not a USA brand of education. Our schools "ain't" that great anymore. The USA should give these children a computer in one hand and a gun in the other to fight off the radical religious mullahs with the help of a USA unique brand of "unselfish military strength", before we also succumb to isolationism. At this time in our history, led by the politically motivated left, bailing out of Iraq could be that first step. Stan
Posted by Stan Alterman | June 24, 2007 12:14 PM
Posted on June 24, 2007 12:14
Stan: The first part of your comment compels me to make clear that the word "secular" means "non-religious." We do not suggest proselytizing for any religion. Just the opposite! We are suggesting that America and its democratic allies support the development of secular curricula in developing democracies to help counterbalance the proselytizing taking place in the tuition-free schools there sponsored by militant religious sects. Your strong criticism of the Christian right misses the target. We have worked with all kinds of religious colleges and universities, Christian and Jewish. And we haven't noticed that any one religious institution has a lock on a live-and-let-live philosophy, or that any one religious institution is more able than another to stop its misguided members from acquiring a radicalized philosophy of the right or the left. We have found, however, that the general education programs of all of the religious colleges we've worked with in the US are quite secular. Even most of the religious courses in these institutions tend to be non- or cross-denominational. And now that you've raised the point, we believe this model of religiously sponsored education would be a damn good one for developing democracies; a dramatic contrast to the dogmatic style of the Wahhabi schools. You seem to place value primarily on purely military options; and your shoot-now-aim-later stridency does not play well with thoughtful people. We are suggesting that multiple strategies must be utilized to protect free societies and those striving for freedom. If the US and its democratic allies do not find an appropriate way to provide an alternative to the tuition-free education provided by dogmatic religious sects in developing democracies, it won't matter how many guns you find a way to distribute to the "good guys;" there will always be more terrorists in training. Yes, we believe American educators and American values have something important to offer the countries that are choosing for themselves free democratic societies. We think it's time to mobilize that support. John
Posted by John Stevens | July 2, 2007 10:21 AM
Posted on July 2, 2007 10:21
John,
I like your model of autonomy, community and divinity as three orthogonal and independent forces that shape a society very much. However, I see two problems with the idea that each society can find its most suitable location along those three axes if it only had a sufficiently strong educational foundation and, furthermore, that once it has found that location it can be tolerant of the different choices other societies make.
My first doubt is about the notion that education is invariably the key lever in guiding the decision making in a society. Certainly the discourse among the founding fathers of this country about the society and country they wanted to create is a wonderful but untypical example of educated people making deliberate decisions on the society they want to be part of. More typical for western democracies is the decision making process that shapes our society today in this country: it is less a contest between sophisticated arguments made by politicians and weighed on their merit by an educated populate, than they it is a "log-rolling" between selfish interest groups operating in a dark room we call "inside the beltway". I believe our democratic mechanisms do a pretty good job in limiting excesses, but I think it is important to note that they do so not by stimulating educated arguments, but by framing the decisions as a contest between two competing parties. The results are pretty good by international comparison, but they do not guarantee that the trade-offs between autonomy, community and divinity our society makes are the best compromise for all our citizens. Unfortunately, most other countries are less meritocratic than the U.S. And the less influence and power are a derivative of individual merit (but instead derived from a mix of dynastic, tribal, ethnic, religious and other affiliations), the less education matters.
The second problem I see is the idea that societies can be tolerant of the choices other societies make. "Modernism" and "globalization" affect every society and their struggle between the three forces you lay out. For example, we in the U.S. attach a high value on freedom of expression as a minimum requirement for our need for autonomy. However, one result of our freedom of expression is a pop culture that other societies find offensive, and the distribution of which they find invasive (even though a great many individuals of these societies might be drawn to it). It is not clear to me how the two sides of this argument can agree where the line of "appropriate tolerance" runs. Similarly, I find the argument about "proselytizing" in the previous blog interesting. I don't think any religion proselytizes as fervently as Christianity. Islam, while it takes sometimes barbaric measures to shield its believers from the ideas and followers or other religions, seems much more content to stay within the boundaries of its own societies than Christianity. It is another example that dims my hopes for a world in which societies live in peace under a globally accepted protocol of tolerance.
As we see Kenya disintegrate in bloody tribal wars, the NY Times recently reported a conversation with a machete wielding young man who proudly reported that he and his gang had massacred 30 men of the enemy tribe. He went on to say that he was a university student and that on campus he did not mind sharing classrooms and dorms with members of the enemy tribe, but that at home "things were different".
None of this is to say that education is not a force for goodness. It often certainly is. But I believe that we as members of the "education industry" need to be realistic about the limitations under which societies evolve and interact.
Posted by Christoph Knoess | January 25, 2008 11:58 AM
Posted on January 25, 2008 11:58
Christoph,
Thanks for your thoughtful response to our blog, Education Wars.
We were struck in our visits to these fledgling democracies by the fact that the Madrassas have found fertile ground for the inculcation of values that are extremely intolerant and contrary to the strategic interests of the west and all free societies. In each of these countries, the US and the EU to a lesser extent have ceded the education terrain to these schools. This we believe to be a profound tactical mistake. We need to provide a realistic alternative to these corrosive educational programs, because the developing countries that are subject to them do not have the resources to do so themselves. And if we don't, these states will eventually fall to authoritarian, religiously-directed control. A true liberal education--one based on free inquiry--is not the only factor required for the creation and preservation of a society that will balance autonomy, community and divinity. But it is an ingredient whose omission from the recipe will cause the soufflé to collapse.
John
Posted by John Stevens | January 28, 2008 1:24 PM
Posted on January 28, 2008 13:24
well done, guy
Posted by Sylvestercl | March 21, 2008 5:11 PM
Posted on March 21, 2008 17:11