Author Archives: Peter

what causes works to be used in college courses?

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I just read a valuable forthcoming article about bias in college syllabi. I don’t want to “scoop” that piece and won’t address its claims here. It did get me thinking more broadly about why some texts are widely assigned in college courses.

  • Fashion: When I was a humanities-oriented undergraduate in the 1980s, it seemed as if every professor assigned Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935). I don’t hear much about that book these days, and other texts are more fashionable. Such changes presumably reflect shifts among intellectuals as well as prominent developments in the world. For instance, Benjamin’s book seemed prescient when culture was first turning digital but may now seem dated.
  • Ideological proclivities: Individual professors tend to prefer to assign works that they agree with. I recognize that many of my colleagues intentionally choose texts that they would criticize, but I am asserting that there is some degree of bias in the whole population of professors, with variations by discipline. By the way, a proclivity is not a bias if it’s reflective, acknowledged, and open to change. The main concern is unconscious bias.
  • Genre and style: It is much easier to use a text that is addressed to a general reader and aims to interest people in the topic and influence their behavior, rather than a text that is written for academic colleagues and meant to contribute to a literature. One issue is jargon (specialized terminology), but some jargony works are widely assigned anyway. I think the main issue is the purpose of the work. If it aims to influence a public audience, it is more likely to be assigned.
  • Marketing, broadly defined: Like everyone else, academics are influenced by marketing. I am not thinking of the deliberate advertising and promotion of specific academic books, because those investments are very modest. I am thinking about the difference between any academic book and a mass-market paperback that is sold in bookstores and reviewed in The New York Times. The latter will be used in more courses. By the way, ideological bias could be relevant here, but it would be the bias of commercial publishers and mass-circulation journals, not academics.
  • Personal branding: Some authors, including some professors, turn themselves into recognizable personalities. Nowadays, that means that they are prominent on broadcast and social media, and they exemplify a particular position or perspective. Academics quickly think of their works when deciding what to assign.
  • Hedgehogs, not foxes: When you’re designing a syllabus, you often want texts that clearly and directly represent a particular view, even if you are also looking for contrary views. For instance, in teaching 20th century political philosophy last spring, I wanted to include fascist texts. This was certainly not an endorsement; I just thought that we should analyze their views. I went looking for clear expressions of fascism, not subtle or equivocal arguments. I assigned a speech by Mussolini (probably ghost-written by Gentile). I did not end up using Heidegger’s 1933 “Rector’s Address” because it’s too complicated and addresses too many things at once. Authors and individual texts are more attractive if they say one thing clearly (like the proverbial hedgehog) rather than many things with various qualifications and complexities (like the fox). Therefore, our syllabi fill up with works by “hedgehogs.”

See also: on hedgehogs and foxes; trying to keep myself honest; don’t confuse bias and judgment

Hannah Arendt: “The problem wasn’t what our enemies did, but what our friends did”

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Here is a clip that resonates today. It is from Hannah Arendt’s 1964 interview on German television. The journalist Günter Gaus takes her through her life, from her childhood in Königsburg to the controversy about her 1963 Eichmann book.

At this point in the conversation, Arendt has been describing her work in France in 1933-1941. As an activist, social worker, and educator, she had helped to move Jewish refugee teenagers from France to kibbutzim in Palestine.

She concludes, “So that was roughly the activity [Tätigkeit]”. In her later theoretical writing, Arendt combines that word with other terms to differentiate three major human “activities”: labor, thinking, and action. Her work in France was the third kind of activity, “Die Tätigkeit des Handelns”: talking and working with others to change the world. That is how she defines politics, and “freedom is exclusively located in the political realm” (The Human Condition, p. 31),

She asks Gauss whether he would like to hear how she turned to this “activity.”

He nods, and she says, “You see, I came from purely academic activity [what she would call “thinking”], and in that respect, the year ‘33 made a very lasting impression on me, first positive and second negative. Or I would say, first negative and second positive.”

It is surprising that there was anything positive about 1933, but I suspect Arendt was thinking of how it had propelled her from thinking into action.

She continues, “Today, one often thinks that the shock of the German Jews in ’33 came from the fact that Hitler seized power. Now, as far as I and people of my generation are concerned, I can say that this is a curious misunderstanding. It was of course very bad. It was political. It wasn’t personal. That the Nazis are our enemies, my God, we didn’t need Hitler’s seizure of power to know that. It had been completely evident to anyone who wasn’t an idiot for at least four years that a large part of the German people were behind it. Yes, we knew that too. We couldn’t have been surprised by it.”

Gauss says, “The shock in 1933 was that something general and political turned into something personal.”

Arendt replies, “No. Well, first, that too. First, the general and political did become a personal fate, if one emigrated. Secondly, you know what conforming is. [She uses Nazi jargon, Gleichschaltung, which could perhaps be translated as preemptive capitulation.]. And it meant that friends were conforming. Yes, it was never a personal problem. The problem wasn’t what our enemies did, but what our friends did. Well, uh, what happened back then in the wave of Gleichschaltung–which was pretty voluntary, anyway, not under the pressure of terror–above all, in this sudden abandonment, it was as if an empty space had formed around me.”

For Arendt, this empty space would not only be cruel and disillusioning but would also reveal that she could not act freely when surrounded by the people she had counted as friends. “Action is entirely dependent on the presence of others” and requires interaction with them [The Human Condition, p. 23].

She adds:

Well, I lived in an intellectual milieu, but I also knew other people, and I could see that among the intellectuals, [conforming] was the rule, so to speak; and among the others, not. And I’ve never forgotten that story.

I always thought back then (I was exaggerating a bit of course): ‘I am leaving Germany. Never again! Never again will I touch this intellectual business. I don’t want to have anything to do with this community.

“I was, of course, not of the opinion that German Jews or German-Jewish intellectuals would have acted any differently if they had been in a different situation. I didn’t think so. I was of the opinion that it had to do with this profession. I’m speaking of that time–I know more about it now than I did back then.

I learned about this interview from the new PBS documentary, Hannah Arendt: Facing History, which I generally recommend. See also: Hannah Arendt: I’m Nothing but a Little Dot; “Complaint,” by Hannah Arendt; Reading Arendt in Palo Alto; Arendt, freedom, Trump (from 2017); Hannah Arendt and thinking from the perspective of an agent; notes on Hannah Arendt’s On Revolution; what is the basis of a political judgment? etc.

the landscape for civically engaged research

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I’m on my way home from co-directing the Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER), which took place this year at UCLA. Our participants are encouraged to debate what constitutes “civically engaged research” (CER), and we look for people who will disagree about that question. Nevertheless, here is one definition:

Civically engaged political science research is an approach to inquiry that involves political scientists collaborating in a mutually beneficial way with people and groups beyond th eacademy to co-produce, share, and apply knowledge related to power or politics, contributing to self-governance.

civically: How people govern themselves. Engaged research teams are self-governing collaborative groups (composed of community organizations, government actors, social movements, and others); their research strengthens self-governance for others.

engaged: Collaborative, in partnership, with benefits andsubstantive roles for both political scientists and nonacademicsin the same projects.

research: Any organized, rigorous production of knowledge,including empirical, interpretive, historical, conceptual, nor-mative, and other forms of inquiry.

political science: A pluralist discipline with a central focus onquestions of power, politics, and governance

Amy Cabrera Rasmussen, Peter Levine, Robert Lieberman, Valeria Sinclair-Chapman & Rogers Smith “Preface,” PS: Political Science & Politics symposium on Civically Engaged Research (2021)

I don’t believe that CER is the single best approach. I also appreciate many other kinds of political science, from close readings of ancient texts to game theory to analyses of massive voter files. But I believe that CER is valuable and underdeveloped in political science.

Fairly often, the senior administrators of a university are supportive. In Southern California, we heard impressive presentations about university-wide policies and initiatives at UCLA, UC-San Diego, and Cal-State Dominguez Hills that enable CER. Many other examples could be found across the country. Perhaps some politically edgy engaged research projects make some university leaders nervous (depending, in part, on the state’s political environment), but often institutional leaders appreciate interdisciplinary work, applied research, collaborations with local community organizations, and projects that create opportunities for students.

The funding landscape is complicated. Often CER requires a lot of time and effort for developing relationships. Outcomes are unpredictable; goals may shift as projects play out. Some funders prefer concrete projects that have predictable outcomes. On the other hand, local foundations and philanthropists may prefer engaged research over other kinds of academic activity because they care about local issues and organizations. And many serious CER scholars are credible applicants for grants because they are seasoned civic actors with strong networks.

Often the strongest skeptics and opponents of CER in political science are political scientists–other members of a scholar’s department, hiring committees, and reviewers. At best, these colleagues overlook and fail to value the time and skill required to build partnerships that yield research. At worst, they reject the results as fatally biased, or merely local and un-generalizable, or insufficiently original and sophisticated. Theorists, empiricists, and formal modelers have different notions of sophistication, but any of them may regard CER as simple, even though an impressive CER project is often extremely complex.

Not every effort to collaborate with partners deserves credit, any more than any text typed on a word processor should count toward tenure. Good CER demonstrates rigor, ethics, and validity while also requiring diplomatic and managerial skills, cultural competence, and tactical acumen. I would not ask the profession to reward every effort at CER but to become capable of identifying the really good work (and supporting newcomers who are still developing their skills).

We certainly have allies within the profession; in fact, APSA is responsible for ICER. But we still need to change many minds.

the 2025 Institute for Civically Engaged Research

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We are concluding the second day of the 2025 edition of the American Political Science Association’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER), which is a professional-development program for political scientists (graduate students, professors, and some people who work in other institutions) who want to create knowledge in partnerships with non-academics.

This is the 6th ICER, which means that our current and former Fellows number about 120 people. It has been deeply satisfying to watch them do impressive research with partners and to advance in their careers.

Previously, we met at Tufts’ Tisch College of Civic Life. This year, thanks to the Haynes Foundation, we are at UCLA. The Los Angeles metro area, home to almost 13 million people, makes a fascinating backdrop for discussions of research about politics and social issues. Just yesterday, according to the LA Times,

Immigration agents in military green surrounded MacArthur Park as the convoy readied for a show of force akin to a Hollywood movie.

They came with horses and armored vehicles, carrying rifles and in tactical gear in the middle of what is the heart of immigrant Los Angeles. But there were few of their supposed targets to be found Monday — immigrants without documentation.

On the elegant UCLA campus, quiet in midsummer, there is no obvious sign of state repression. However, some of our speakers have offered insights about the city from their perspectives as engaged scholars. And our conversations range much more widely, for we have participants from Bangladesh, Nigeria, and elsewhere.

See also: Civically Engaged Research in Political Science; how to keep political science in touch with politics; Grounded Normative Theory

a pluralistic 250th

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As the 250th year of the republic begins, I am not in a celebratory mood. Our current political crisis is the worst since 1877, the end of Reconstruction. The government is violating core republican principles; and to some extent, this is happening because of flaws in American culture and civil society.

Still, the United States is a community, and communities can mark auspicious dates. America’s 250th anniversary events need not celebrate our national leaders or claim any kind of superiority for our political history and system. The year can be a celebration of our people, by our people, in all our diversity. We can mark the 250th in a pluralistic way, with many local communities, groups, and institutions expressing how they understand the moment–not in a centralized way determined by the White House. In that case, the 250th will be an opportunity to contest the meaning of America, and such contestation is the best of our tradition.

My friend Rev. Dr. Willis Johnson writes: “Personally, I’m drawn to the notion of bearing witness, not just to what is, but to what ought to be. Independence Day, in its best form, should be an act of collective remembrance and recommitment, not just a party. We need to remember that freedom is not static, nor is it evenly distributed. We need to recommit to the labor of making liberty real for everyone, especially those for whom the promise of independence still rings hollow.”

I am old enough to remember the Bicentennial, albeit dimly. The official American Revolution Bicentennial Administration organized some of the events. President Ford presided over a nationally televised fireworks display and reviewed the sailing ships that had gathered in New York Harbor from aboard a naval vessel.

But there were also many local and nongovernmental events, including some protests. The image with this post illustrates an environmental protest in the Boston Harbor that marked the 200th anniversary of the Tea Party. Even the Tall Ships were organized by a nonprofit.

To the extent that the celebrations appeared unified, it was mainly because of the political context. Two centrist presidential candidates, Ford and Carter, were competing to unite the country after the traumas of the previous decade. Nixon had resigned in 1974; Saigon had fallen in 1975. This meant that Watergate and the war were now definitively over, and Americans could hope that a less contentious period was starting. The national government did not create a unifying moment, but the country was in a relatively unified mood.

Such is not the case today. The official national effort, America250, has “announce[d] a monumental celebration, kicking off a new era of American greatness, featuring special remarks by President Donald J. Trump. This kick-off event will take place at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, offering patriotism, excitement, inspiration, and a glimpse into the grand festivities planned for America’s 250th anniversary.”

Even people who support Trump need to recognize that many fellow citizens oppose him, and any kind of ceremony that focuses on him and invokes MAGA concepts will provoke opposition. In my view, such conflict is the most appropriate celebration of a free people, born in rebellion and accustomed to free speech and debate.

Rev. Johnson concludes, “In my heart, I still love my country. I love its messiness, its stubborn hope, its capacity to surprise. To love America means abstaining from turning a blind eye to its wounds. Loving our dear republic means asking hard questions at the cookout. Above all, love of country requires telling the truth—about the people still locked out of the celebration, about the freedoms that remain unfulfilled, about the dangers of settling for easy myths.”

There is little hope that America250 will tell these truths, but it doesn’t own the anniversary. The American people have an opportunity to celebrate our diverse community and to recommit to self-government.

In Ukraine: Building Civic Life Amid War

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In this episode of The Stakes, host Brad Rourke speaks with Kettering Foundation Senior Fellow and retired Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and Kettering board member and Tufts professor Peter Levine. They reflect on their recent experiences helping to build democracy and civil society in Ukraine—O’Connor working to vet candidates for the embattled Constitutional Court, and Levine teaching Civic Studies in a war-torn Kyiv.

Both offer firsthand insight into the resilience of Ukrainian civil society and the country’s struggle to build democratic institutions. O’Connor describes the bomb shelter where judicial reforms are being debated, and Levine details the micro-decisions citizens must make under constant threat. Together, they explore what the U.S. can learn from Ukraine’s resolve—and how psychological, civic, and symbolic support from the West matters more than ever.

youth trust in institutions

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CIRCLE has released a detailed report on young people’s trust in various institutions, broken down by demographics and partisanship. They have also published an array of responses to their data by young leaders.

I recommend the whole product. As a teaser, I’m sharing one graph with this post. Note that the police are the second-most trusted institution, below “peers and neighbors” but above nonprofit organizations. White youth trust police at about twice the rate of Black youth.

Also interesting is the extremely low level of trust for social media and technology companies, which turns out to be driven by white youth. (Black youth trust social media somewhat more.)

Whether people should trust these institutions is a different question that is worth some reflection. CIRCLE shows that higher trust is related to voter turnout, so one drawback of deep distrust can be disengagement.

See also: CIRCLE report: How Does Gen Z Really Feel about Democracy? (April 9); to restore trust in schools and media, engage people in civic life

the meanings of ‘civility’

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If you Google the word “civility,” the Internet tells you that it means “formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech.” This bothers me a bit because the word has had other meanings. Besides, demanding “formal politeness and courtesy” in politics can be a way of suppressing criticism and agitation. William H. Chafe describes how calls for civility were used against Martin Luther King, Jr. in Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom.

My favorite meaning of the word “civility” (or its analogue in Italian: civiltá) comes from the Italian renaissance. For proponents of renaissance republics, civility meant speech and behavior that was egalitarian. Civility existed among people who treated each other as equals and therefore spoke plainly, practically, and with an absence of formal politeness.

For example, in the Discourses (book LV), Machiavelli writes, “Republics where political life has been maintained uncorrupted do not tolerate any of their citizens to be gentlemen, or to live in the manner of gentlemen: rather, they maintain equality among themselves. … ” He adds that in lands where many rich men live idly on inherited wealth, “there has never been any republic, nor any political life; because such generations of men are completely enemies of all civiltá.”

The last word is sometimes translated as “civil government.” Thompson’s Victorian translation simply says, “Such persons are very mischievous in every republic or country.” But literally, the idle rich are enemies of civility for Machiavelli, because civility is a conversation among equals aimed at making collective decisions.

Using the common Latin noun civis (“citizen”) as a root, it was possible to construct an abstract noun, meaning something like “citizenness”–civilitas. That word would be understandable in Latin, but it was rare, surviving only in a couple of texts. For one ancient author (Quintilian) civilitas meant the art of government; for another (Suetonius), it meant courteousness. They were thinking of different attributes of a Roman citizen. I doubt that anyone would have noted this range of meanings before the modern era of Latin lexicons.

Nevertheless, the Latin word civilitas was available to be imitated in modern languages, either by authors who found it in Quintilian or Suetonius or by those who re-invented it from its root meaning of “citizen.”

Around 1384, John Wylciffe used “civility” when translating this Biblical passage (Acts 22:26-28):

26 And when this thing was heard, the centurion went to the tribune, and told to him, and said, What art thou to doing? for this man is a citizen of Rome.

27 And the tribune came nigh, and said to him [Paul], Say thou to me, whether thou art a Roman. And he said, Yea.

28 And the tribune answered, I with much sum got this freedom. [Wycliffe's original version: "I with moche summe gat this ciuylite," Wycliffe's note: "cyuylitee, either fraunchise, either dignite of citeceyn."] And Paul said, And I was born a citizen of Rome.

Wycliffe first wrote “civility” for the New Testament Greek word politeian, and then revised it to “freedom,” meaning the rights enjoyed by a Roman citizen. The King James Version simply says: “And Paul said, But I was free born.”

In 1598, an English author helpfully explained, “Policy is derived from the Greek word politeia which in our tongue we may term civility; and that which the Grecians did name politic government, the Latins called the government of a civil commonwealth, or civil society.”

These meanings were political and related to republican government. However, Shakespeare used “civility” to mean something similar to “tameness” and “patience” and as the opposite of “distemper” (Merry Wives of Windsor iv. ii. 23).

In short, people have coined or re-invented the word “civility” several times to capture aspects of what they imagined Roman citizens to be like. Some of their associations involved politeness, and others involved equal rights. It is a shame to remember only the former.

Sources: My translation of Machiavelli. English references from the Oxford English Dictionary with my modernized spellings. See also learning from the Florentine republic; civility as equality; civic republicanism in medieval Italy: the Lucignano council frescoes; what does the word civic mean?;

teaching Civic Studies in Kyiv

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This reflection is originally published on From Many, We the Charles F. Kettering Foundation blog series that highlights the insights of thought leaders dedicated to the idea of inclusive democracy.

I went to Kyiv, Ukraine, June 2–7, 2025, to offer a short course on Civic Studies at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).

I wanted to do something useful in Ukraine. Ukrainians earned their democracy by accomplishing massive nonviolent popular revolutions in 2004–2005 and 2013–2014. Their republic stands as a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has tried to destroy it for more than a decade. In addition to wanting to express solidarity, I also wanted to learn from them and to understand more about civil society in the context of war.

On the Ground in Kyiv

As I traveled toward Kyiv, the tempo of the conflict was increasing. First, the Russians intensified strikes on civilian targets. Then Ukrainian special forces achieved a remarkable attack on Russian strategic bombers, which form part of the Russian nuclear triad. President Putin swore to retaliate—a threat that President Trump repeated without any criticism. Some retaliation then unfolded while I was in Kyiv, although Putin may still be looking for ways to do far worse. The Thursday of my visit was the second-most intense night of strikes on Ukrainian civilians in the war to that date.

I was safe, in part because my hotel had a massive, three-story underground garage. From the bottom level, with heavy summertime HVAC running, I couldn’t even hear the strikes on our district, Solom?yan?sky, or the Ukrainian air defenses. I then left Kyiv after the planned five days, which is a blink of an eye compared to the experience of living with this war for three years so far. Most Ukrainians seem resigned to an indefinite future of the same.

Air raid alerts sound several times every day. Mostly, an alert does not result in an actual attack. The Russians send up a MiG (military aircraft) to cause an air alert and disrupt everyone’s day. We are all familiar with disruptions, but it is different to face a hostile state that is trying to maximize inconvenience for years on end. The Russians choose the times and methods of their attacks for that purpose. My class had to relocate to a bomb shelter while we were doing our introductions on the first day and when the participants were offering their final reflections at the very end. Of course, this was a coincidence (Putin did not know or care about my course), but the point is that anything one tries to accomplish is subject to disruption.

Often, the raids are real. The Russians deploy swarms of Iranian shahed drones that buzz around the city, threatening civilian targets. I am told that they sound like Vespa scooters. Most Ukrainians do not have deep basements under their homes—some say they have no shelter at all. So, they listen to the drones’ buzz and the Ukrainian air defenses.

At a certain point, the shaheds crash into apartment buildings, power infrastructure, schools, or any targets that the Russians choose. Meanwhile, MiGs are launching cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away. The popular Telegram channels (with automatic English translation) are used by civilians to report drones or missiles flying overhead. “Chernihiv, heading south!” “The cruise missile is turning west!”

Ukrainian civilians face constant choices: Go to the subway station or wait this one out? Try to move to an apartment on a lower floor? Try to emigrate? And many have relatives on the frontlines.

They report handling stress in various ways. One confident young man told me that he had thought he was fine until his first night on a trip to Poland, when there was a thunderstorm and he found himself trembling and weeping. His guard was finally down. A clinical psychology professor told me that PTSD is a misnomer, because the trauma is not “post.”

I wanted to understand whether such a violent context would require changes in the course material that I usually present.

The Course

With colleagues in the United States and overseas, I have developed a syllabus for an introductory course in Civic Studies and have offered it many times before in several countries. Indeed, I had helped to lead a version in Ukraine in 2015.

I hoped that the course would be useful for Ukrainians who are active in their own civil society—or who want to act—and who struggle with specific challenges, such as the disruptions of war, endemic corruption, and the difficulty of holding robust public debates in full view of a foreign enemy. I was interested in whether Ukrainian civic leaders had changed their thinking since the full-scale invasion of 2022.

Although my course was open to undergraduates, the participants turned out to be professionals who work for Ukrainian nonprofit organizations, plus some entrepreneurs. At least three participants had free time for studying civics because they had recently lost jobs that had been funded by USAID.

In essence, the course addresses three questions that arise for anyone who wants to preserve or improve society.

  • First are questions of collective action: What kinds of rules and norms help groups to coordinate individuals’ action so that they can accomplish goals together?
  • Second are questions of dialogue and deliberation: How should people discuss disagreements about values and make wise decisions together?
  • And third are questions of exclusion. When institutions (or even whole populations) refuse to collaborate or deliberate with us, how can we compel them to engage constructively without using violence? This last topic turns our attention toward nonviolent social movements.

Our curriculum represents a respectful challenge to definitions of “civic education” that emphasize the national government and its constitution. In Civic Studies, we treat any sovereign republic as one venue among many for deliberation and collective action, and we see citizens as people who may choose to belong to many overlapping groups at various scales.

For the most part, my course unfolded as usual. Near the end, at least two participants wanted me to say how different I had found them from the other people I had taught in other countries. My honest answer was that they were not too different. Active participants in civil society everywhere seem to have generally similar concerns and perspectives.

Perhaps this group was a bit less adversarial than the participants in my previous courses. In the last segment, I always give students instructions for organizing an advocacy effort, and I play the “target” of their advocacy. This group asked me to role-play the chair of the board of KSE. They then chose to present me with a rather good idea for a new program. I do not know whether their gentleness toward a hypothetical authority-figure was representative of Ukrainian civil society, but I found it unusual.

In general, my experience in Kyiv reinforced my confidence in the Civic Studies curriculum, but it did challenge me in some valuable ways.

For one thing, the curriculum presumes that the public sphere should be free and vibrant, full of debate about conflicting values. On the surface, Ukraine is not having a very robust, public debate about existential questions, such as whether it would be worth a vast sacrifice to try to regain occupied territories or whether Vladimir Zelensky is the best available leader.

One explanation is that the answers are clear; the government enjoys a broad consensus. Another explanation is that people are voluntarily keeping diverse opinions to themselves because debating and disagreeing feel wrong; it undermines solidarity. Particularly while the government negotiates with a foreign enemy, it may seem wiser to leave such matters to leaders and not to publicly discuss what Ukrainians would be willing to concede. (After all, the Russians could watch the debate.) Finally, to some extent, the Zelensky government may discourage dissent, not through censorship and violence but by dominating the Parliament and media.

I did not press the class to tell me what they thought about the quality of their national debate because the question did not feel sufficiently respectful in the moment. I am still pondering the appropriate role of debate when a nation is under attack.

Another assumption of the Civic Studies curriculum is the value of nonviolent civil resistance, something that Ukrainians experienced in 2004–2005 and 2013–2014. I can testify that it is difficult to talk about nonviolence in wartime. When I emerged from the shelter on Friday morning, I was not exactly in the mood for reconciliation with Russians.

That said, participants seemed open to my point that their relationships to their own fellow citizens and to Ukrainian institutions must almost always be nonviolent, and therefore it is important to learn nonviolent methods for social change.

Finally, I noticed that concepts of patriotism and honor were more prominent in my own mind than usual. Patriotism is often a central value in civic education curricula that are required around the world, including in the US. In contrast, the ideal of patriotism is less prominent in Civic Studies because the nation-state itself is not our focus. In fact, patriotism can rationalize unjust favoritism for people who hold legal citizenship while excluding others.

Nevertheless, I believe that American patriotism was my most basic motivation for going to Ukraine (along with curiosity about what Ukrainians would tell me). I consider our government’s current betrayal of Ukraine to be a stain on our honor. I feel dishonored because I love my country. If I lacked patriotism, then this shame would not attach to me. It was a privilege and a source of satisfaction to be able to tell Ukrainians that many Americans stand by them.

Peter Levine, a Kettering Foundation board member, is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Service in Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life and the director of Tufts’ Civic Studies Program. He most recent book is What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life.