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Press
A review from Tom Watson, author of CauseWired (and friend): Every era has at least a few serious voices who openly question the new ways, the settled conventional wisdom around innovations in style, technology and social habits that change - at least on the surface - how society operates. As everybody else is celebrating the greatness of, well, themselves, these idoloclasts happily throw poison-tipped darts in a cultural clash with the totems of perceived progress. Such a counter-programmer is my friend Andrea Batista Schlesinger, the 32-year-old New Yorker and progressive activist whose first book The Death of Why holds up a big, fat stop sign to those who would celebrate under the banner "all that is modern is good." [Note: Andrea is the longtime executive director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive think tank on whose board of directors I've served since 2002. She's on leave from that position while working as a policy adviser to the reelection campaign of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.] The Death of Why goes against the grain. It stands opposed to any triumphalist viewpoints regarding digital communications. You can easily read it as the diametric opposite of Jeff Jarvis's somewhat hagiographic What Would Google Do?, for example. Andrea doesn't believe the Internet in general - and Google specifically - has necessarily made us any smarter or more democratic as a society. While she praises the innovation of always-available information and the worldwide networked conversation made possible by the network of networks, she also strikes out at the idea of searching as knowledge, of linking as journalism or education. And she uses one particular commentator's voice as a stalking horse for her arguments against the Internet-as-knowledge: mine. In the fourth chapter - In Google We Trust - Andrea posits that the "Internet responds to curiosity as much as it creates it" but argues that "searching for answers" isn't the same thing as answering questions. Then she quotes me: "Certainly we're in far better shape, in terms of tools and ability, for deep inquiry than we used to be." Not so fast, argues Andrea. "When I survey the search engine landscape, I see conditions that are less than inspiring of 'deep inquiry' especially for our youngest. I see the formation of habits of mind characterized by a dangerous lack of discernment." And young people, she says, bounce around as guileless link and search-box addicts, mistaking the search-cut-paste process for deep inquiry. This is undoubtedly true in many instances. I've seen it. But I'm not sure it's a bigger problem than the use of Cliff Notes or the Xerox machine by earlier generations. In the end, I'm not sure young Americans really are less inquisitive. That may be because of the field I've worked in for the last decade - progressive causes and philanthropy - tends to attract young, enthusiastic professionals who won't take no for an answer and seem to question everything. Then too, the social entrepreneurs I profiled in my book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World were similarly driven to challenge every status quo they found - and to use digital technology to do so. Finally, my own three children are constantly questioning things that I tend to think of as settled subject matter, with no hesitation to challenge and probe and looks things up. They don't necessarily follow the leader. Nonetheless, The Death of Why is an important book - and I think it's particularly timely, given the challenges that major American institutions (like big newspapers and Federal agencies) are facing in an increasingly crowd-sourced era. It's a great book for journalists concerned that the so-called "link economy" leaves serious inquiry out in the cold - and for e-government types who seek to go beyond merely making information available in vast databases but to actually encourage citizen involvement in our republic. And this goes for newspapers, whose approaching demise the author mourns loudly. Currying no favor with the digerati, Andrea argues (and I agree) that the decline of news organizations is bad for democracy and that it's unlikely that blogs and online specialty sites will rise to replace the full gamut of professional journalism. "When you start the day with the newspaper," she writes, " you start with the recognition that you are a person in the world, with a need and responsibility to engage." Throughout the book, Andrea decries the echo chamber of modern information and communications - the trend toward finding what you want (the viewpoint you already support) rather than coming across something you didn't know. That "self-segregation" does indeed permeate much of what we take as political dialogue for instance. Andrea decries the national political process in the modern age, panning the 2008 Presidential debates between Senators Obama and McCain as flimsy and personality-driven, and slyly pointing out that Hillary Clinton's campaign was rejuvenated when she came out of the bubble and started taking tough, unscripted questions. "The irony is that the candidates need not fear questioning," she says. Perhaps the best quality of The Death of Why lies in its inherent skepticism toward what we've come to accept as the right way to approach learning, particularly public education. Andrea's a bit young for curmudgeon status, but her gruff and skeptical take on so-called "financial literacy" is welcome. So much of this kind of education is really marketing, priming the sales pump for future consumers. And if that passes for inquiry, we're in serious trouble. Writes Andrea: "Our democracy will suffer if the youngest among us grow up thinking that today's society and the economy that sustains it are working just as they should." Click here to continue the conversation
FDL Book Salon Welcomes Andrea Batista Schlesinger: The Death of Why? Andrea Batista Schlesinger's commentary has a simple thesis. An inquisitive attitude is essential to dutiful citizenship in a democracy, and the attitude is waning among American youths. Teenagers and 20-year-olds in the United States have little curiosity about the workings of government, they don't follow the actions of their representatives, they don't read the newspaper or watch the network news, and, worst of all, they don't care--or at least they are taught not to. The institutions that should inspire civic inquiry--schools, media, governments--fail their responsibility, sometimes deliberately so, and the rising generation follows their lead. We've lost the crucial interrogative "Why?" This is not to say that questions don't happen and media don't expose the workings of power. Those things circulate all the time, but they get lost in the flood of information and 24/7 news cycles. Furthermore, other forces squelch young people's curiosity about such matters. They include: * Parenting styles that emphasize self-esteem and praise, with the effect of discouraging the kind of intellectual struggles that come with civic inquiry. It's a consumerist, individualist era, Schlesinger maintains, and people eschew the labor of examination. "I see an environment that prizes projections of certainty over the wisdom gained from questioning, and questioning again," she says (page 5). Whereas the Internet, politicians, and media promise a world ever-more respectful of public opinion, audience tastes, and empowered users, in truth, "I see us asking our media, our politicians, our self-help gurus for an answer, any answer, to help us understand the world around us." Indeed, therein lies the real attraction of the Internet--not that it opens people to the world and inspires their curiosity, but that it delivers quick and handy resolutions to their confusions and uncertainties. Schlesinger sprinkles illustrations in the commentary to flesh out the message. An appearance with Lou Dobbs on CNN to discuss immigration, a conservative commentator writing about social justice education, local politicians in Hampton, VA, contending with young activists, and advocates of financial literacy in the classroom . . . they display the momentum of an anti-inquiry society. For instance, while civics knowledge among young people is abysmal (only one in four high school seniors on the 2006 NAEP exam reached "proficiency"), politicians and private organizations involved in education such as Jump$tart are more interested in courses in "Money 101" than in "Government 101." And while advocates of digital learning such as Tom Watson claim that "the Internet encourages curiosity," Schlesinger finds that "young people search for information online without any intention. They bounce all over the place, hopping and skipping their way through content" (page 61). The Bush Administration pledged that No Child Left Behind would raise outcomes across the board, but their testing focus, though it may have enhanced basic skills, blunted civic knowledge and critical thinking. These tendencies jeopardize the body politic, Schlesinger concludes, and its reversal begins precisely with a rededication to a vigilant, informed citizenry that guards its prerogatives closely, but doesn't lapse into a self-involved, my-opinion-is-as-good-as-your-opinion mindset. We need a more intelligent, querulous civic sphere, and we waste our time waiting for politicians and media to deliver it. Click here to read the conversation including comments and questions from members of the Firedoglake.com community.
"The Death of Why" excerpted on Alternet.org Provocative New Book Challenges Us to Really Ask "Why?" Ideological Segregation by Click and by Clique Click here for more and to participate in the conversation.
The Death of Why in Los Angeles Times Answers can be found in questions With apologies to Nike, if the United States were a for-profit venture, its slogan would be "Just do it." Few would dispute the notion that we are an action-oriented people. From an early age, Americans are bombarded with the message that actions speak louder than words and that talk is cheap. Who among us as a child opening presents on his birthday really believed the moral that it's the thought that counts? Come on! To the extent that we do value thinking, it's usually as a means to action. We're taught to want solutions, find answers, get to the bottom of things. We pride ourselves in our pragmatism. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once put it, "Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing." That's so American. OK, I'm not about to repeat the hackneyed liberal charge that we are a nation of unthinking dolts, or H.L. Mencken's famous dictum about "the booboisie." I think our orientation toward action has a lot to do with the fact that our country was founded on and built around some rather lofty ideas: freedom, equality, liberty. You can envision U.S. history as the constant uphill battle of trying to turn those ideas into reality. In the beginning, there were ideas. They demanded action. The reality is, we don't see a big dichotomy between action and knowledge. Knowledge gets us where we want to go. In fact, now more than ever, Americans seem to have a grasp of this fact or the other. Having flattened the world of news and knowledge, the younger generations in particular have trillions of facts at their fingertips. "Search" has made us all drive-by scholars. This, according to liberal think-tanker Andrea Batista Schlesinger, has only heightened our collective "obsession with answers." The problem, she says, is that we're less and less likely to be engaged in the questions. Quick access to facts has made us too impatient to engage in lengthy deliberation, "deep inquiry" or discernment. In her new book, "The Death of Why?," Batista Schlesinger -- until recently, the executive director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in New York -- makes a passionate case for inquiry qua inquiry. She links the future of the American experiment to the extent to which we teach our children how to ask questions. Even as society more and more limits its definition of civic engagement to results-oriented activism, Batista Schlesinger defines it as teaching Americans to discuss problems and giving them the intellectual skills to navigate our democracy. For example, she acknowledges the uptick in youth political involvement in the Obama era -- they voted, gave money, sent e-mails. She nonetheless questions young people's depth of engagement in the political process. She suggests that it's not enough to mobilize people to advocate for this or that position. What's more important is cultivating long-term, patient "skills of inquiry, problem solving and creative thinking." As Batista Schlesinger puts it, "We have the mistaken belief that even the most pressing challenges facing our country -- climate change, globalization, healthcare, poverty -- are problems to be 'fixed' once and for all, if only we can find the right solution and the right person to implement." This overwhelming preference for outcome over process is part of what has led to the ideological polarization of the country. The desire for certainty -- hard facts, quick answers -- in an uncertain world leads people to take refuge in political or religious ideology. Ideological solutions -- whether from the left or the right -- generally offer us simple answers to complex problems. In a way, Batista Schlesinger is asking us to take a step back from politics in order to gain newfound respect for the political process. She advocates for what she calls "slow democracy." She's also asking us for a little humility and to embrace a healthy dose of doubt. Our salvation lies in our willingness to rethink the world in its ever-changing configurations. "What we need to acknowledge, now more than ever," she writes, "is that we do not know everything. We cannot know everything. Knowledge changes. ... The future is a moving target, and the ground beneath us will never be still. The only thing we can count on to see us through an uncertain future is our ability to ask questions."
Who Killed the Why? Andrea Batista Schlesinger, a featured speaker at Facing Race 2008 and an ARC boardmember, has written her first book, The Death of Why: The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy. The ability to inquire deeply is the lifeblood of a great democracy, Andrea argues, and Americans have lost much of their questioning muscle in the age of the internet and standardized testing. In chapters ranging from disappearing civics education to the myth of financial literacy ("No Piggybank Left Behind!"), Andrea teaches us the value of struggling with what we don't know, so that we can think and act in ways that transport us outside of our conventional bubbles of so-called wisdom. The book is full of stories, both cautionary and inspiring. Since Andrea blames me for coming up with the miserable notion that she should write a book, good sales among ARC friends will help heal our relationship.
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