Good teaching has very little to do with an engaging
classroom manner, a fund of funny stories, or even mastery of the subject
matter [as I demonstrated during my first teaching job by adequately teaching a
subject about which I knew practically nothing, namely European History.] The secret of good teaching is knowing what
your students do and don't know, and then telling them at each stage what they
need to know to understand what you are saying and to follow you to the next
stage in the unfolding of the subject.
It is important to know both what they do know as well as what they do not
know, so that you do not alienate them by explaining what they already
understand or lose them by assuming what in fact they do not understand.
Consider the current argument about whether to raise the
debt ceiling [I call it an argument because it has not risen to the level of a
debate.] Any marginally aware American
with even the most modest grasp of the elements of the American political system
knows that the U. S. debt is the total of all the expenditures that past
Congresses have authorized and that past Administrations have then spent in
accordance with the instructions of Congress, over and above those monies that
past Congresses have caused to be raised by enacting bills imposing taxes on
American individuals and corporations.
Had past Congresses chosen not to authorize those expenditures, or had
they chosen to impose taxes sufficient to cover those expenditures, there would
be no U. S. debt. Every two years,
Americans decide whether to send back to Congress the men and women who have
been authorizing the expenditures and imposing the taxes. Any time the American people want to stop the
country from running up the size of the debt, they are free to do so by
electing Representatives who will either hold down the spending authorizations
to the level of taxation, or else raise taxes to cover the level of spending
they choose to authorize. Raising the
debt limit does not constitute an authorization to make new expenditures, nor
does it constitute the imposition of new taxes.
It simply authorizes the Treasury to cover those most recent
expenditures that exceed the most recent taxation levels by borrowing from the
people around the world who are willing to lend money to the United States.
I say that any marginally aware person knows these things,
but there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that perhaps two hundred to two
hundred and fifty million Americans do not know these things. How can they not know them, inasmuch as they
are so obvious? Well you may
wonder. But pretty clearly they do
not. What then do they think insofar as
they pay any attention at all to the argument about raising the debt
ceiling? I would be willing to bet good
money that enormous numbers of Americans think that raising the debt ceiling is
a way of authorizing the President to spend money -- to spend it on Medicare,
or on Obamacare, or on food stamps, or on environmental regulations, or even on
the army and the navy. This is not true,
of course. Quite to the contrary,
raising the debt ceiling has no effect whatsoever on future spending. Its sole effect is to enable the U. S.
government to pay for things that this very Congress has voted to spend money
on.
President Obama understands this, of course. He understands it, I would imagine, with a
degree of detail and depth that is shared by a relatively small fraction of the
American people. But I really think he
does not know how many people in this country do not understand this.
No, that is not quite correct. The truth is rather more complicated. I think he cannot credit, cannot take
seriously, cannot think it his job to speak to the people who do not understand
something as elementary as this because deep down, inside, he has a quite
understandable contempt for people this dim about the simplest and most obvious
facts of public life. "But,"
you will object, "he has given speech after speech in which he has said
that we must pay our debts, must not allow the United States to default, that
all he is asking is that we pay for what we have already spent."
He has indeed made those speeches, but listen carefully to
one of them some time. As he says these
things, he tilts his head a little to one side, he smiles, his voice rises with
an undertone of an incredulous laugh, all of which conveys very clearly
something like the following: "We,
you and I [speaking to his audience], understand, as anyone must, that [and now insert everything I laid out four
paragraphs ago], and the Republicans really understand these things as well,
but the scoundrels are pretending that they do not understand them in an
attempt to blackmail me into agreeing to policies that they were unable to win
approval for in the last election, and I am not going to let them get away with
it."
Now you and I may enjoy this shared sense of superiority
over the dastardly Republicans [except for Chris -- don't even bother, Chris, I
know], because you and I are among the fifty million or fewer folks who
understand all of this and are therefore able to join with him in his amused
contempt for those ne'er do well Republicans.
But the other two hundred and
fifty million Americans hear the scorn in his voice and know that it is
directed at them as well as at the Republicans.
They may not know why he is looking down on them, but they know he is,
and they don't like it.
That is the mark of the bad teacher! I have seen small scale classroom examples of
this same thinly concealed contempt countless times. As I observed in my Autobiography when
talking about the members of the UMass Philosophy Department, the
characteristic facial expression of the contemporary Analytic Philosopher is
the smirk. That is why I was so
enchanted, on my first day in the UMass Afro-American Studies Department by the
sound of a genuine belly laugh.
It is interesting to contrast Obama with Bill Clinton. Clinton, I suspect, is quite as smart as
Obama. They are both very smart
men. But Clinton never speaks in a way
that excludes the two hundred and fifty million. He does not speak down to them. He speaks to them.
It is, I believe, a genuine character flaw in Obama that he
cannot speak to the people whose support he needs. They are not in fact stupid, and whatever the
shortcomings of their grasp of the Congressional processes for authorizing
spending, they are hypersensitive to condescension, in all its forms.
How will all of this play out? I have no idea. But I really hope that Obama decides to mint
that trillion dollar coin.
4 comments:
Not that it is to Obama's credit, but is teaching, or even informing, what these speeches are designed to accomplish? Aren't they, rather, good old-fashioned political rhetoric, with a contemporary Madison Ave. twist, the aim of which is to 'signal', via easily digestible distinctive tropes? Clinton, too, when he was in office, though, for the most part, not these days.
Interesting article, Dr. Wolff. Perhaps President Obama, as a former Law Professor, didn't like teaching any kind of undergtaduate studies, but instead liked to teach graduate students instead because of their maturity and lack of undergraduate ignorance. Or maybe he respects public opinion because it is useless to instruct those who do not care to be taught anyway. I also don't think he has the time to teach courses in economics to the American people since he is pressed for time as it is. And maybe we should forgive a fault or two of his just based on his calm demeanor. As that old adage from the Talmud reads: A man who holds back his temper, is forgiven all of his sins.
Although, in my above post I was condoning Obama's actions, I didn't mean to sound condescending to Professor Wolff and my fellow citizens. I guess I should have edited my comment more.
To follow up on my above point--note that the verb currently pervasively used to characterize a campaign for a policy is "sell". So, I'm inclined to allow that Obama has recognized that, even as Caesar rendering unto the Romans, he must do as the Romans have chronically been doing. He also may have learned, as Clinton before him did, that vicious cycles are not broken in a day.
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