Not to endorse everything he says, but the ending is particularly good, and while I think increasing global governance (yes, "One World Government") is ultimately the only way to ensure peace and human rights to a globalized One World Economy, I'm fine being wrong if something like this can do a good enough job:
Robert Fuller emailed me with a request to post the following diary, which is also available Huffington Post here. Ordinarily I wouldn't do that. I would reset his password and tell him to post it himself. But asking me to do it for him gives me the opportunity to intervene and insert my own two cents, which in this case is something I very much want to do.
I think that Fuller is very right about one thing--his concept of dignitarianism is something we very much need to adopt, and the opposite concept--that of rankism--is something we need to become much more sensitive to and commited to rooted out. Fuller's conception provides a common framework for encompassing all the struggles against forms of prejudice--racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, religious bigotry, etc.--as well as the far more various and diverse ways that systems of rank and power (both formal and informal) are subject to abuse. And that's a very powerful unifying concept.
I also think that Fuller is half right about another thing--President Obama does have an intuitive dignitarian bent to him. But I think Fuller sees more in Obama than Obama himself is aware of, or even committed to. The exclusion of single-payer advocates from the health care debate is just one example of Obama "pulling rank" on a large segment of the base that helped elect him, as well as the American people generally, who at the very least deserve the opportunity for a full, free and fair debate.
My way of making sense of Obama's relationship to the dignitarian philosophy that Fuller expounds is relatively simple: I think that Obama has a strong intuitive orientation toward dignitarian conduct, but that that he resists what is most needed, the open, explicit articulation of dignitarian principles, and the adoption of dignitarianism as an organizing framework, as context, as well as content. Taking those steps would put him definitively at odds with Versailles, and that is a step that he is very loathe to take, to put it mildly.
That's my two cents. Read Fuller's article, and let us know what you think.
President Obama's Politics of Dignity
Robert W. Fuller
America is broken. Even if we pull through the current economic crisis, recovery won't last absent an overhaul of our primary institutions.
• One out of ten Americans is now unemployed and the recovery is expected to be jobless.
• Fifty million Americans have no heath insurance; two million, no home.
• Two million Americans are in jail.
• Our public schools have fallen behind those of most developed nations.
• Higher education is priced out of reach of the middle class.
• Our infrastructure is in an advanced state of disrepair.
• We rank first in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Immigration, once our pride, is now our shame.
• We're living on credit and leaving the debt to our children.
The crisis is compounded by corruption of the democratic process. Politicians who owe their seats to private and corporate money are not easily persuaded to put the public interest over the special interests of their benefactors.
An important new book substantiates something progressives have long intuited. Published first in Britain and now headed for the United States, it's by epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson and health researcher Kate Pickett, and its title conveys its message: The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.
Since the French Revolution, belief in the social benefits of egalitarianism has been central to progressive thought. Now Wilkinson and Pickett have produced some hard evidence for this plank in the liberal platform. They show conclusively that the wellbeing of whole societies is closely correlated not with average income level but rather with the size of the disparity of income between the top 20% and the bottom 20%. Countries with smaller disparities like Norway, Sweden, and Japan (4 to 1) have fewer medical, mental, crime, and educational problems than countries like the Britain, U.S. and Portugal with higher disparities (7 or 8 to 1). France and Canada both have mid-range disparities (6 to 1) and place in the middle on health, education and psychological indicators. Even within American society, it's not the absolute income level of a state that determines its social wellbeing, but rather the level of income disparity. Economic inequality and social dysfunction go hand in hand, and Wilkinson and Pickett have marshaled the evidence to make the case.
It's one thing to demonstrate the social benefits of egalitarianism, and another to spell out the underlying political, economic, and psychological mechanisms that explain these findings. Only as we understand how the level of income disparity affects social wellbeing will we be able to generate the political will to undo the damage wrought by gross inequality.
(Another person's take on Robert Fuller's work on dignity and rankism, to start Sunday off on a high note. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
I didn't understand why I found Obama's race speech so moving until I read Fuller's comments on it. They seemed brilliant to me, so I proceeded to read Fuller's other writings. I think they make a powerful contribution to our understanding of the enigmas of our time, and may have the potential to helping us surmount them.
Fuller has had an illustrious career; first as physicist, then President of his alma mater, Oberlin College, as a citizen diplomat during the Cold War, chair of the board of Internews, and many other distinctions. The approach he takes to the issue of inequality may be a still greater contribution.
In his approach there are two main components to the problem of inequality: rankism, on the one hand, and dignity, on the other. The term rankism doesn't concern rank per se, only the abuse of rank. Some systems of rank are inherently abusive: white over black, male over female, hetero over homosexual, Christian over Muslim, extreme nationalism, and so on. But even legitimate systems of rank, those in most organizations, are often abusive; if not in principle, then in practice.
Yesterday, Spencer Ackerman published an important article on Barack Obama's foreign policy at the The American Prospect, " The Obama Doctrine," which had as one of its main themes the role of "dignity promotion" in Obama's thinking. Ackerman's focus is on Obama's foreign policy advisors (including the recently-departed Samantha Power, whose importance in understanding where Obama is coming from remains undiminshed, as she, unlike his other advisers, has already worked closely with him, serving in his Senate office for a year)/ All the adivisors share something in common-regardless of where they come from, all opposed the Iraq War, and weathered absurd, wrong-headed criticism as a result.
What Ackerman's article does-reason enough to set it well above anything similar-is take the next step and ask, "Where does this lead to next? What are the common factors underlying being right about Iraq, and how do they prefigure a different approach to foreign policy in the future?" The answers to this show significant promise that Obama's foreign policy thinking appears most similar to Clinton's only in the short run, if withdrawing from Iraq is the whole enchilada. But when the focus broadens, and turns to the future beyond Iraq, the differences become much clearer.
"Dignity promotion" is, to me, far and away the most promising aspect discussed, but it is far from the sole focus. Still, it represents a vital departure from current thinking. The question remains, however-how serious would it really be? There were, after all, strains of such thinking in John F. Kennedy's foreign policy (the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps), as well as Jimmy Carter's (human rights). Focusing attention on this promise now, and making it part of a wider dialogue is one way we can strengthen the possibility that it will really take root. To that end, let's take a look at some passages in Ackerman's article....
(In my never-ending quest to totally confuse everyone, I'm promoting this new diary by Robert Fuller that offers a much more hopeful, promising view of Obama's speech last week than I offered in my previous diary. To make matters worse, I'm not just doing this to stimulate debate. I actually think that the two diaries converge in viewpoint, because I see Obama's way of distancing himself from Jeremiah Wright as manifesting his own imperfect modeling of the dignitarian promise. While people have asked me how Obama could have done better, one answer is to have better studied and understood what he often grasps intuitively, but has yet to CONSCIOUSLY master. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Americans are listening to Senator Obama on the issue of race, and recognizing something qualitatively different about what he's saying. That's because he's addressing race-based discrimination in a larger context-that of human dignity and affronts to dignity that are even broader than racism itself.
Racial discrimination is but one brand of a more pervasive and still unacknowledged form of abuse and discrimination-rankism. Other subspecies of rankism are sexism, ageism, ableism, classism, nativism, homophobia, etc. All of these ignominious "isms" denote a situation in which a more powerful group disadvantages a weaker group. These "undead" isms can be seen as discrimination based on social rank, each sustained by an interlocking set of expectations, customs, understandings, and laws.
Despite decades devoted to eradicating them, these isms cling to life like vampires. After a flurry of initial progress, often marked by the passage of "landmark" legislation, successes become rarer. Diminishing returns set in long before the ism has been entirely defanged, and its enervating effects continue to diminish the lives of countless individuals who bear a trait that makes them targetable.
(Robert Fuller, father of the dignitarian movement, offers his views of a potential connection I wrote about early this month in "Rankism-An Issue Custom-Made For Obama". - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Barack Obama is offering Americans dignity, and they're grabbing it with both hands. Dignity permeates his speeches, informs his policies, and is evident in his manner. Whether he intended to or not, Obama has become a herald of the politics of dignity.
But dignity for whom? For blacks and whites, for men and women, for gays and straights, for young and old, for rich and poor, and for immigrants and the native-born. Obama also reaches out to both sides of the aisle-liberals and conservatives-and to other nations and their leaders. Americans, eager to move beyond the fractiousness of identity politics and to end the standoff between libertarian and egalitarian ideologies, are lining up in support. They are ready for a leader committed to building a world of dignity for all.
What exactly is the dignity that people crave? It's more than good manners, respect, and civility. It's the absence of indignity. The American people know that indignities inflicted on the world have diminished America's stature. They know that the indignities they and their fellow citizens are suffering at home are sapping the American spirit.
Barack Obama's campaign has been called a "phenomenon," one with the potential to swell into a movement. But to realize its promise, a movement must evolve from a call for change to a plan for removing the obstacles that stand in the way of that change. How can the energy that has crystallized around Obama's candidacy be effectively focused to fight the indignities of everyday life?
It's not simply a matter of protecting folks at the bottom, Hacker argues-effective dealing with risk is vital for creating an environment in which people feel secure enough to take on the sort of voluntary risk that helps drive the economy forward-what's often called "entrepreneurial risk," but that includes a wide range of choices to invest resources of time, money and effort in future possibilities that by their very nature cannot be certain. These include investments in eduction, training, changing careers, starting a new business, etc. In short, Hacker argues, a security orientation is not the polar opposite to an opportunity orientation-it is a vital aspect of an opportunity orientation. And it's this latter argument that gives Hacker's point about countering the Great Risk Shift a potential bipartisan cross-over appeal that fits perfectly with Obama's articulated intentions.
In this diary, I'd like to make another major issue proposal that is, if anything an even better fit for Obama. In fact, this is an issue that is truly transformative. It's called "rankism," and it consists, quite simply, of the abuse of the weak by the strong.
If the term "rankism" sounds a bit odd and contrived, the positive value opposing it is anything but. It's called "dignity," and the struggle against rankism is the struggle to make dignity a universal human right.
The purpose of this web site is to discuss the social cost of rankism and to develop a grassroots capacity to defend and protect dignity in everyday life. We hope you will join us in planning and building a world without rankism!
On the website, Fuller explains:
Rankism: A Social Disorder
An undiagnosed disorder is at large in the world. It afflicts individuals, groups, and nations. It distorts our personal relationships, erodes our will to learn, taxes our economic productivity, stokes ethnic hatred, and incites nations to war. It is the cause of dysfunctionality, and sometimes even violence, in families, schools, and the workplace.
Over the course of history, the most common abuses of power have acquired special names:
Each of these practices is an abuse of the weak by the strong. Each of these familiar named offenses is an instance of bullying, of pulling rank. By analogy with abuses based on race and gender, abuse based on rank is given the name rankism.
1. n. abuse, discrimination, or exploitation based on rank
2. n. abusive, discriminatory, or exploitative behavior towards people who have less power because of their lower rank in a particular hierarchy
Once you have a name for it, you see rankism at the heart of many infringements of human rights, far away or close to home. Rankism is the root cause of indignity, injustice, and unfairness. Choosing the term rankism, places the goal of universal human dignity in the context of contemporary movements for civil rights. Reexamining racism, sexism, and ageism as examples of rankism breathes new life into the movements opposing them. Identifying rankism in all its guises and overcoming it is democracy's next step.
In Part One, I presented the argument for viewing conservatism as a form of identity politics, showed how differences on issues between liberals and conservatives are much smaller than differences on candidates, and showed that conservatives--even self-identified extreme conservatives--support welfare state spending. In Part Two, I examined two cognitive models that distinguish liberalism and conservatism., both of which show reasons why conservatism is associated with a constricted notion of identity, while liberalism is more diffuse.
Now, in Part 3, I address how to construct a diverse liberal identity. The key to doing so lies in weaving together issues, values and narratives, and doing so with a diversified messaging and organizing strategy. To bring things solidly down to earth, I will focus on two key concepts that I believe have tremendous potential for liberal politics, both in 2008, and for decades to come. These concepts can be expressed in a simple pairing: "dignity and security for all."
As I will explain, there is more than just a rhetorical echo of another famous liberal formulation, "liberty and justice for all." In a very real sense, dignity is the lived foundation for justice, just as security is the lived foundation for liberty (this is a key aspect of Locke's social contract theory). What's more, when these concepts are presented together, they represent a fuller and more robust expression of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" --freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
Thus, what I am arguing for is a new articulation of core liberal values in a form that pro-actively responds to 40+ years of rightwing slander, as well as the realworld challenges of the 21st Century. To accomplish a lasting political realignment--along the lines seen in 1930/1932--we will need to change the basic contours of the politically possible, which means the politically imaginable. Fortunately, we've done it before. We can do it again.
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