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Course Module 1: Values and Beliefs (July 22-28)
The
first module, Values and Beliefs, will equip you to grasp the philosophical
and practical underpinnings of the remainder of the Institute's course work.
You will learn about the values and beliefs European settlers brought to
the New World and the political culture this established as the American
state was forged and developed. Early sessions will stress the universal
rights guaranteed by the “American creed,” using documents from
the Declaration of Independence to President George W. Bush's 2001 inaugural
address. We will visit Independence Hall in Philadelphia to consider the
debates and compromises the American Framers made in their quest to build
a state strong enough to do things for individual rights—but limited
enough not to do things to them.
We will also
trace the exceptions to the creedal rights carved out in practice (especially
as concerned African-Americans, Native Americans, and women). For example,
we will study the rationale for the Carlisle Indian School where Jim Thorpe,
among many others, was sent to be educated.
We will then
examine what the individual rights stressed in liberal democracy mean
in practice. What does the Bill of Rights say, and mean? How do Constitutional
rights balance individual rights and the need to protect the broader society?
This question is at the heart of criminal law, and on a courtroom visit
we will hold an extended discussion with Constitutional law expert H.L.
Pohlman. You will grapple with the question, what do Americans believe
is just? How does the judicial system implement that justice? (Obviously
there are excellent opportunities here for a broad discussion comparing
different cultures' ideals of justice.)
Another good
example of “rights in practice”—and one citizens of
other countries frequently have in their conception of the U.S. as lawlessly
violent—deals with the right to bear arms. We will hear from both
proponents and opponents of gun rights. Yet another deals with the place
of religion in American life and the separation of church and state; here
we will hear from a cross-section of local religious leaders. Later, during
the Institute’s trip to New York City, you will see how religion,
politics, and entrepreneurialism have merged in the contemporary United
States.
Finally, we
will discuss, as political scientist Samuel Huntington has put it, how
the gap between American ideals and American institutions matters to American
life. For example, how did women use the rhetoric of guaranteed rights
as a tool of “moral superiority” in their quest for suffrage?
Likewise, we will examine the Civil War—in part, on-site at the
National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg and at the battlefield of Gettysburg—in
the context of the values and beliefs both sides thought worth fighting
for: state autonomy, personal freedom, and the role of union. In terms
of the Institute's theme: how did the battles over the kind of society
people wanted for the United States impact the kind of state that resulted?
This question has relevance beyond this historical period, to be sure.
Thus, the beliefs
discussed at the start of the module will be linked session-by-session
to an illustrative part of American history, cemented where possible by
a sense of place.
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