Mai Asano
Question: What are the implications of liberal citizenship for the kind and level of education that citizens should have? Does multiculturalism change or qualify these implications?
1, Introduction--- Wisconsin v. Yoder
The decision of Wisconsin v. Yoder offered some questions against the ultimate principle of liberal democratic society. The problem, which the Amish suggested, is how to deal with and shelter the endangered minority cultures in the world, which has rapidly liberalized. This is not only the problem of continuance of endangered minority cultures but also the problem, which can deny the liberal principle itself. Amish parents’ claim includes some arguments, which are against the implications of liberal citizenship.
Liberal theory implies that each individual has right to choose and also should have duty to be a member of citizens and to be educated as a liberal citizen. Multiculturalism theory sometimes opposes liberal theory because it emphasizes cultural rights more than individual rights. The case of Wisconsin v. Yoder reveals conflicts between liberalism and multiculturalism over the demands of the illiberal culture. In this essay through an examination of Wisconsin v. Yoder, i.e., conflict between liberal culture and illiberal culture, and different positions of liberal theory and multiculturalism theory over illiberal culture, the question what kind of education each individual should have is questioned.
Although liberal culture should accept the rights of illiberal culture, liberal culture should not accept that illiberal culture restricts individual freedom. About the problem of Amish, Amish children should be offered the opportunities to have liberal education. To consider this problem, firstly, some liberalists’ theories about education of Amish children are examined. Then by comparison with it, the similar case, the case of deaf people, is examined. Lastly, through the possible risk which liberal theory can fall into, the way of dividing between liberal culture and illiberal culture is reexamined and the liberal principle is criticized.
2, Yoder decision and theory of supporting liberal education
Wisconsin v. Yoder was triggered by three Amish parents withdrawing their children from a public elementary school. Amish people “reject the modern world in all its essentials, preferring a simple agricultural or semi-agricultural life geared to a subsistence existence.” (Arneson and Shapiro, 1996) By age of fourteen, Amish children have to acquire knowledge to live successfully in Amish community. As a result, Amish parents oppose further schooling at elementary schools. However, this religious belief conflicts with liberal implications that liberal citizens should be offered opportunities to choose and that liberal parents should offer liberal education to their children. As Kymlicka states, liberalism is commited to supporting the view that individuals should have the freedom and capacity to question and possibly revise the traditional practices of their community. (1995) In theory, Amish children do not become members of church until they choose to be baptized late adolescence, however, adult Amish go to any length to ensure that Amish children will join the church. Arneson and Shapiro deny the Amish parents’ authority over children saying, “the Amish educational system is designed to prepare children for life in the Amish community, not the outside world.” (1996) The State of Wisconsin also advanced two primary arguments in support of compulsory education. It notes that;
Some degree of education is necessary to prepare citizens to participate effectively and intelligently in our open political system if we are to preserve freedom and independence. Further, education prepares individuals to be self-reliant and self-sufficient participant in society. (Burger, 1972 in Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205)
The Supreme Court majority opinion is that “children are educated in a way that prepares them for the responsibilities of democratic citizenship.” (Arneson and Shapiro, 1996) As has been shown in the statement of Chief Justice Burger, The Wisconsin Supreme Court is afraid that after growing up in the Amish community, Amish children cannot choose the option to get out from the community or the possibility of choosing the liberal option becomes bare.
The problems here are that parents’ and public authority over children education are overlapped and that these two options cannot coexist. It means if a child decides leaving Amish community, s/he cannot be a member of this community any more and if s/he decide staying in the Amish community, s/he cannot choose other liberal options. Liberal theory says decision-makers are children themselves not parents so parents have no right to withdraw their children from public schools. However, the difficulty here is that at that time, children are too young to decide their futures and even if they can decide, after spending their childhood in Amish community, their options are influenced by value of the community and it is difficult for them to choose the liberal option.
Burger defends education as a shield against tyranny from a viewpoint of Thomas Jefferson. (in Arneson and Shapiro, 1996) Although his implicit theory of citizenship is that “a good citizen is law-abiding, stays out of trouble, and stays off the welfare rolls,” Arneson and Shapiro suppose that a good citizen has the capacity to vote in an informed way in elections that determine the membership of legislative assemblies, hence the content of the laws, as well as the identity of public officials and judges who execute and apply the laws. They also add that citizens should have the capacities to keep themselves briefed on current events that are relevant to governmental decisions to be made and that citizens in a democracy have rights to vote and to influence the opinions of others through practices and these rights give each citizen a small amount of political power over other citizens. In conclusion, “in a democracy, the responsibilities of guardians of children include the duty to educate youth so that they become competent to exercise the powers of citizenship in ways that do not wrongfully threaten to impose harm on others.” That is why if parents are regarded as inaccurate to perform this duty, the state not parents has the obligation to educate children.
3, Similar case, the deaf community
There are some similar cases to this situation. The theory that deaf people are regarded as minority cultural group has deserved attention recently. The deaf announced in 1995 that being deaf is not disability but individuality. The core concept, which supports deaf identity, is that sign language is a respectable language, which has equality of value to sound languages. They assert that they are proud of being deaf and enjoy their lives. From this point of view, cochlear implant means the way of rejecting their individualities and their cultural rights. If a deaf person get cochlear implant and improve the hearing ability, it means that s/he inevitably leaves the deaf community and becomes one of the members of sound community. This option is the same thing for Amish children to leave Amish community and choose to live in the liberal society. Like situation offered Amish children, these two options cannot coexist. The difficulty here is again after growing up in the deaf community, the deaf can hardly choose to get cochlear implant. So automatically, the decision whether the deaf child gets cochlear implant or not is made by parents. However, it is true that parents, especially who are not deaf, sometimes have stereotype about the deaf community and lack of information about the deaf community. National Association of the Deaf states that adult deaf, when given the option of getting cochlear implant, overwhelmingly decline them. “The parents who make the decision for the child are often poorly informed about the deaf community, its rich heritage and promising futures, including communication modes available to deaf people and their families.” (in Zak, 1993)
The criticism, which is constructed by deaf people, is that cochlear implant is a kind of exertion of cultural imperialism, which marginalizes and at last endangers deaf culture. (Kanazawa, 2001) It seems that there is an arrogance to think that to be able to hear is normal and that the deaf are inferior citizens. According to National Association of the Deaf, there is no evidence that children with the implant will enjoy greater educational success, that early-implanted children will do better at acquiring English than they would with noninvasive aids or with no aids whatever and that early-implanted children will have greater educational success than is currently experienced by children of similar circumstances who do not undergo this invasive surgical procedure. (in Zak, 1993)
4, Demands from endangered minority groups
The problem that applies to both cases is that decisions are made by parents not by children. This is not acceptable from the viewpoint of liberal self-determination. However, from the viewpoint of the deaf community, cochlear implant not only makes community marginalized but also denies the existence of the community itself. As has been explained in Kymlicka’s theory, individual identity depends on societal culture, which is determined by language used in that society and history, and most decisions, which individuals make, have inevitably strong influence with societal culture. (1995) It means that membership of such group is an important identifying of feature to show each individuality. To accept cochlear implant for the deaf means to encourage the members of community to leave the community and what is more, to deny their fundamental principle. The demand of Amish parents to withdraw their children from school shows the same implication. There is a strong petition for continuance of community and of their origin of identities beneath this demand. The defendant, Yoder says,
If the Old Order Amish sent their children to the public school, they would not only expose themselves to the danger of the censure of the church community, but...endanger their own salvation and that of their children. Forcing them to do so would clearly violate their free exercise rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling should be allowed to stand. (in Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205, 1972)
Being opposite to Arneson and Shapiro, Sandel defends the right of the Amish parents to withdraw their children from school. (in Kymlicka, 1995) He argues that freedom of conscience should be understood as freedom to pursue one’s constitutive ends, not as freedom to choose one’s religion. His argument is that people’s religious affiliation is so profoundly constitutive of who they are that their overriding interest is in protecting and advancing that identity, and that they have no comparable interest in being able to stand back and assess that identity. Therefore, he also asserts that there is little or no value in teaching Amish children about the outside world.
5, Liberal theory as a cultural imperialism
His assertion could be associated with the fact that some Aboriginal children and native American children cannot speak their native language any more because of over-extended English education. During the 19th century, most of colonization is executed, justified as a way of teaching colonial people liberal principle. This process is retraced as cultural imperialism now. The conflict between liberal culture and illiberal culture, which is often explained as liberal toleration, has been discussed in liberal and multiculturalism theories many times. As Levinson stated (1997), the question where to draw a line is difficult to answer. The problem here is that the decision-makers, who drew a line, have been always in the liberal side. It means that the world order is always decided and maintained by liberal culture. The way of evaluating the world is only from the viewpoint of liberal communities and there is no room for recognition of illiberal communities. Even in the culture which is recognized as liberal, as long as citizens cannot avoid the compulsion of being citizens, there is no guarantee that the state does not put any political pressure on citizens. In other words, there is no liberal culture, which is completely liberal and vice versa. Moreover, it is possible that community, which is generally recognized as illiberal, manifests more liberal political policy. Therefore, the liberal fundamental principle that individual should be offered the right to choose reveals itself as not universal principle, which everyone should obey, but merely one of the local cultural values, which has no difference to that of illiberal culture, which liberal culture assumes.
Kukathas argues that in the case of discussing the possibility of liberalizing certain community, which does not possess liberal nature and does not admire individuality either individual autonomy, the community’s culture will be inevitably endangered. (1992) These demands from illiberal culture, which are concerned above, offer the skeptical notion that the exercise of liberalizing illiberal communities is merely a process of forcing a paternalistic way on these communities. To have freedom as a citizen of liberal community does not always mean to have freedom as a human. It seems to be inevitable to conclude that to generalize the value of individual autonomy and of self-determination, which was born by Western liberalists like Locke and Mill is a kind of cultural imperialism. However, it could not be said that generalization of liberal culture always means denial or containment of illiberal culture. The most important thing is not to confine each cultural member in illusion that the cultural principle, which each member is taught, is fundamental. To recognize the right of diversity is the first step to seek a common principle beyond the cultural differences.
Regarding the problem of Amish children again, children should take rather compulsory education than Amish exercise not because the Amish community is illiberal but because compulsory education supplies them with more options in the future. Kymlicka states, “liberal principles are more sympathetic to demands for ‘external protections,’ which reduce a minority’s vulnerability to the decisions of the larger society.” (1995)
6, Conclusion
The implication of liberal citizenship is that each member can be guaranteed to enjoy the freedom in the liberal society, however, at the same time, s/he should own the duty which liberal society imposes. Multiculturalism theory has a different implication. Multiculturalism theory supports cultural right and sometimes tends to admire superiority of cultural right to individual right. The conflict between these views represents an attitude toward illiberal culture. Through research into the problems of Amish education and of deaf education, skepticism about liberal principle occurs. The demands from illiberal culture include the argument, which has great possibility for overthrowing liberal fundamental principle. To accept the right of illiberal community, which multiculturalism support, means the possibility for destruction of liberal community itself. The question how to deal with illiberal culture is hard to answer because two principles of liberal and illiberal culture are extreme and cannot coexist. However, in the situation of bipolar conflict like this, the common principle should be searched and conversation with two cultures should be attempted. As a result, liberal policy seems to be proper to educate children to cover as many options as possible.
- Arneson, Richard, J. and Shapiro, Ian “Democratic Autonomy and Religious Freedom: A Critique of Wisconsin v. Yoder,” Nomos38: Political Order (New York: New York University Press, 1996)
- Kanazawa, Takayuki “The Deaf Culture” (Tokyo: Akaishi-shoten, 2001)
- Kukathas, Chandran “Are there any cultural rights?,” Political Theory, Vol.20 (1992)
- Kymlicka, Will “Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
- Kymlicka, Will “Liberal Individualism and Liberal Neutrality,” in ed. Avineri, Shlomo and de-Shalit, Avner “Communitalialism and Individualism,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
- Kymlicka, Will and Norman, Wayne “Citizenship in Diverse Societies,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
- Kymlicka, Will “Politics in the Vernacular,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
- Levinson, Meira “Liberalism Versus Democracy? Schooling Private Citizens in the Public Square,” British Journal of Political Science, 27 (1997)
- Parekh, Bhekhu “Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory,” (London: Macmillan, 2000)
- “Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205,” http://www.radford.edu/~mfranck/images/439casebook/yoder.pdf
- “Find Law for Legal Professionals,” http://laws.findlaw.com/us/406/205.html
- Zak, Omer “Cochlear Implants- Opinion,” http://www.zak.co.il/deaf-info/old/ci-opinions.html