All of you:
GIVE US THIS: An operational definition of “change”, “experience”, “democracy”, “conversation”, “the office of president”. You may need to refresh your understanding about “operational definitions”. Such a definition describes all the actions you take, the behaviors that go into the word you are trying to define.
In the first order of business is the question, how will you behave as president, specifically? Pack those actions into an itemized statement of aims, goals and objectives (in order of increasing specificity).
I recomend this: FACE THE SCHOLARS!
The “conversation people”, the journalists, do not have the seminnal questions to ask. They are interested in the horse race of campaigning. They give us the conversational base. By their actions in moderation of the many forums, they do not know what “debate” is. They are focused on what is happening, what has happened, but ignore what will happen. Think of the word “politics”. The stem of that word is policy, policy setting, guides for future action. What will happen rests on a deeper understanding of history and human behavior.
The talk of “change” has been superfluous. The biggest change is the advent of candidates of race and gender, different from the past. What can a woman bring to the office that no man has ever brought? What can a black man bring to the office that white men have never brought? Must a woman be judged like a man would be? Must a black man be judged like a white man would be? Separate out those contributions that come in addition to the basic human qualities of intelligence and personality. Has our female candidate separated herself from male expectancies? And the same for our black candidate. What makes them, their perspectives, unique? Then add that uniqueness to their human qualities and we, as a nation, have a chance to break the ice for future people who may continue the shut-out.
We also need to change the forum as presently defined. We need to open the door for those among us who have book-length “opinions”, which are something greater than opinions, that is, reliable knowledge, not anecdotal. We need our candidates to stop reading the tea-leaves of public opinion and answer the probes of questions on a higher plane, those posed by the scholars and scientists who are telling us what our solar system is really like now, how it was, and how it will come to be. We need our leaders to perform on a grander stage than that of journalistic, pulse-feeling, public opinion. Not just “who-what-when-where” but more on the “why and how”. That higher plane is that of “discussion”, not “conversation”. In addition to the scholars, we should ask the candidates to be tested in interaction with a circle of foreign diplomats, for that is an important arena of presidential action. How would they behave in a discussion of issues pertinent with scientists? CEOs? Union leaders? Financial experts? We were disappointed to hear that the incumbent does not ask questions when he is engaged with specialists, showing an absence curiosity about problems.
Must we always have the journalists on stage!?
Is the gender disadvantage greater than the race disadvantage? I have seen the shameless and obvious ganging up of the male candidates on the female candidate, Hillary Clinton. I have seen her express sincere emotions with watery eyes. They have made her dress a topic. Need she play the men’s needling game? It does not bode well for her. That’s what happens when the issues for debate descend to irrelevancies, BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW WHAT A DISCUSSION OR DEBATE IS, especially the journalists and columnists who play a major role in this campaign season.
We are not well served.
Face the scholars. Programs like Jim Lehrer’s, George Stephanopolous’s, Chris Matthews’s, Charlie Rose’s, Tim Russert’s, etc., need to impanel more scholars, and others, for the stacks of history and scientific books they have written on the issues that most concern us. (Bill Moyers has done that.) Scholars and scientists have strong tendencies to proceed with tested and substantiated and qualified conclusions (reliable knowledge), compared to newspaper columnists’ anecdotal historical allusions and opinions, which may be selectively chosen or tinged with the medium owner’s bias; they may have read history or science but never conducted historical investigations or scientific studies. Perhaps an analogy comparing a butcher shop and to brain surgery is not a good idea here, but it is tempting. (Wouldn’t be prudent.)
Moderators should have credentials for moderating from, for example, the National Communication Association. Argumentation and debate is superior to “conversation” and different contexts for discussion would really test of a leader’s mettle. After all, this is for the presidency of a world power. Our highest ranked leader should never shame the people she or he represents in all the contexts of this globe.
When the human race makes an advance, this is one area to watch in order to gauge the advance.
