| advancing community |
good society |
| public policy for pacing progress
gary e. davis |
October 11, 2020 |
Manifold good at the level of discursive prospecting (earlier pages of “...politics of virtue”) entails systemic practices that would be very interdomainal, in the normal sense of special policies across governing agencies, whatever the apt systemic level, yet also relative to the scope of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. That is, the departmental structure of a leading university reflects the interdomainity of society served. Relative to such a sense of “political institutions,” I would read Strategy 3 of “Reinventing American Democracy,” on “Ensur[ing] Responsiveness,” in solidarity with the humanistic motives of the Committee, expressed by the AAAS President’s letter introducing the report: Our charter states that… the “end and design” of the American Academy is to “cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”That makes “democracy” primarily a cultivation of humanity, while preventing domin-ation; and doing so through legitimate tradition (hallmarked by the university) and promising innovations. Perpendicular, so to speak, to a pragmatism of ideality and realism about near-term feasibilities, properly progressive trends deserve balance with properly conservative reticence. On the one hand, being conservative is at best cautioning that advancement must not be faster than we can broadly accommodate. To be in the right lane isn’t as such traditionist; it’s a reticence toward rapid change. On the other hand, being liberal is at best confidence that advancement can be rapid and that we can broadly accommodate it. To be in the left lane isn’t as such radical; it’s an enthusiasm toward rapid change. Senses of prudence and feasibility aren’t ideological. Programs have apt system regulatives, derived from good policy, which have normative stature for a program. Normativity isn’t as such ethical (though always also congruent with ethical norms). Normativity is a matter of valid regulative, which pertains to one’s life/career (in its own way: good_) and pertains to systems (in its own way: goodG). Aptness is an ecospherical matter, where openness (thus progress) remains relative to a zone of feasible rate of development (analogously as individual learning is always in an age-relative “stage” or “zone of proximal development”), which calls for flexible admin-istration (the pragmatic interplay of leadership and management). Accelerating complex-ity is a continuing challenge for organizational learning (and professional learnability). We can’t have community-based human development (broadly conceived education and human services) without community development, which depends on the human devel-opment which makes it. We can’t expect medical systems to sustain the entire burden of preventive health care (which reduces medical system costs), yet community-based public health leadership can’t work without affordable medical care. Learning and re-learning how systems must evolve congruently probably does much to keep schools of public policy thriving. |
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