Civic Leadership Paper

This was the final paper for my Civic Leadership class in Winter 2018 at Portland State University

    Community leadership is about working with the members of the community you live in to make the place better to live in. There can be struggles in this process, namely from the problems of collective action storming over individual rights and responsibility. The Community Leadership course requires students to engage in leadership in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, as well as read many papers and a book on leadership.

Section 1: Theory and Understanding

Peter Block’s book “Community: The Structure of Belonging” lays out his ideas for community leadership, what it is, how it should be done, and why you should engage in community activism. Block takes an inherently collectivist mindset on community engagement and leadership in general, by focusing only on groups and only once talking about an individual. Block brings up cynicism several times and in very negative ways, he also derrides self-interest, attempting to get the reader to convince others of a more altruistic means of community activism. Without a “what do I get out of it?” Block’s ideas will not work in the vast majority of the United States.

Anand Giridharadas’ article “Athens on the Net” takes a very different view of community leadership than Block. Giridharadas argues through several examples exactly why we should continue the style of representative governance the United States uses and not let the public get too involved in national policy. His argument consists of contrasting what President Obama wanted his policy outline to be, and what people voted was their top policy. Giridharadas states the top voted idea was to legalize marijuana, the top technology idea was legalizing online poker. This, despite being in the midst of “two wars and an economic meltdown”. Giridharadas further argues the internet was used to spread and propagate falsehoods about the healthcare bill and President Obama’s birthplace.  A final warning from James Fishkin, a Stanford Political Scientist, is well-organized groups can impersonate public consensus on the internet easily.

As stated, Block and Giridharadas view the public in vastly different ways. While Block argues groups of people can do great good, Giridharadas argues, especially on the internet, groups are a terrible threat to democracy. Block argues for a leader to be one of a group of equals, where Giridharadas shows how the public has a hard time seeing the larger picture and making good decisions for the whole. Block argues for all “citizens” to be involved (his definition of citizen is another problem all-together) whereas Giridharadas shows what happens when vast amounts of the people living in an area are allowed to vote on what the policy agenda should be. Giridharadas’ article’s view of Block would be dangerous and bad for the nation in the long-term. Block would call Giridharadas’ article that of a cynic who just needs to see the light.

Monsignor Steven Illich gave a speech titled “To Hell with Good Intentions” to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects. In this speech Illich argues the need for all American “do-gooders” to vacate all of Latin America. He argues all the young missionaries, the Peace Corps, are tantamount to a benevolent invasion of Mexico and South America. These people do this work despite their own country being in shambles. He argues the people going to Latin America and Asia have only increased the sales pitch of the American Middle Class. Illich argues the missionaries give a false impression of how good the United States is to these foreign people. 

J. H. Snider wrote an article titled “Deterring Fake Participation” where he explains what fake participation is and how to defeat it. Snider states fake participation is rampant in the United States where the government seeks democratic legitimacy without democratic accountability. The problems that arise from fake participation is the government controls the conversation to the point of any opposing viewpoint never gets raised. Because of actors controlling the narrative, any public support for the narrative seems to be much more widespread than it might actually be in reality. 

These two different pieces do share a great deal in common. When Illich argues the missionaries give a false view of the United States, that is the same as when Snider argues the state is conducting fake participation. The fake participation in this case would be the missionaries not only saying how great the United States is, but also how good their lives are. Illich’s missionaries are controlling the narrative they are giving to the Mexicans they are preaching to without telling them the realities of immigrant populations.

Section 2: Community Based Learning Project

The community based learning project for this term was to work with Green Lents to help make the Lents neighborhood a better place, and learn how to be an active member of a community and a community leader. This term we focused on work in the Green Ring of Lents, which is an area inside four streets which is meant to be “[a] community place-making project that improves neighborhood safety, accessibility, and enjoyment through conversations and collaboration across Lents’ diversity and geography.” We canvassed people who lived in the Green Ring, as well as planted pollinator plants in a community member’s yard. 

    One insight gained this term was a lot of the work done in Lents is done by people who do not live in Lents. The volunteers for the tool library, and the community members we interviewed obviously live in Lents but there was a lot of outsiders coming into the community to do work. This seems to be a contrast to what Block speaks about when he talks about community members coming together and sharing their gifts. 

    A second insight is the canvassing is a terrible method of collecting information from people. With roughly 40 hours of work, we only got 24 responses. Further the canvassing was done on paper and then coded into Google Surveys, instead of having the students just enter the information into the Survey. It would have taken far fewer man-hours to do an online campaign targeting the people of Lents with flyers and mailed postcards and sent some people out to canvas the people who did not take the survey. 

    My third insight was the highly odd final project where we went to a private residence to plant pollinator plants while using (presumably) public funds. While in the grand scheme getting more pollinator plants in the neighborhood is a good thing, planting them into private property with public funds makes me feel weird. Further we had way too many people in both of those yards and not enough tools and not enough to do. There were 20 plants and about 20 student workers. There were a lot of people just standing around so I think it would have been better having multiple projects going on at once with 5-7 students at each site.

Section 3: Practice and Personal Experience in Community Leadership

Here I would like to discuss my good and bad experiences in community leadership. My great experience in community leadership was my first year in student government at Pasadena City College (PCC). That year we had a great diversity of opinion, from conservatives, liberals, and a socialist, we were also headed by a strong leader who kept discussions going in the right direction based on the agenda item. We all knew what the structure was and when the President said discussion was over and we were going to a vote, that was it. The members of the board would bicker and argue back and forth and did not like each other much, but we were able to get things done together. That year’s board was one of the most productive in years.

    To contrast my first year, my second year was a disaster. Our new advisor advocated a Block style of leadership where we were all equals. There was very little viewpoint diversity, except for varying degrees of leftism from moderate to extreme. Further because there was no strong structure, very little got done. We passed very little meaningful policy and were constantly getting pulled back into the prior year’s debates and discussions getting pulled off track. Our president would not control the discussion and it was down to myself or the student trustee to call for votes. That board was one of the least productive in recent memory.

    I would argue these two examples, as well as Occupy Wall Street are examples of why having a hierarchical structure seriously helps in getting things done. Further ideological diversity and controlled discussion gets really good and meaningful legislation passed. 

Section 4: My future

In thinking about the course material and looking into my own future, I will use this course as a cautionary tale. I will advocate for an individualistic society and caution against the excesses of collectivism. While looking at Giridharadas’ article, this is a cautionary tale of why the populous is often not the best gauge of where policy needs to go. I would further cite the California state constitution which is covered in edits of popularly voted in amendments which reflect the ever changing dynamic of public opinion. I will pursue the continued professionalization of politics, so only those who wish to craft and debate legislation do so.

Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018.

Giridharadas, Anand. “Athens on the Net.” New York Times, September 13, 2009. September 13, 2009. Accessed March 18, 2018. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/weekinreview/13giridharadas.html.

Illich, Steven. “To Hell with Good Intentions.” Speech, Mexico, Cuernavaca, April 20, 1968.

Snider, J. H. “Deterring Fake Participation.” Isalon.org 4, no. 1 (January 2010): 90-102.

“Lents Green Ring.” Green Lents, www.greenlents.org/lents-green-ring.html.

 “California Constitution.” Codes: Codes Tree – * California Constitution – CONS. Accessed March 18, 2018. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codesTOCSelected.xhtml?tocCode=CONS&tocTitle= California Constitution – CONS.

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