Jerome Kagan on Maintaining the Public’s Trust
The last time America experienced spontaneous outbursts of pure joy like those that exploded across the country on the announcement of your election was in the summer of 1945, when Japan surrendered. Such displays are rare accompaniments to political victories—they symbolize the hope that one-half of the electorate has for your presidency and the responsibility you gracefully accepted.
Although young, middle-class adults and college-trained professionals of all races, as well as African Americans in general, voted for you for very different reasons, they did agree that you were to be the nation’s savior at a time when the problems to be solved are not completely under your control. I assume you realize that you were not elected because of what you said but because of who you are. Hence, honoring the letter of your promises is less critical than affirming the belief that you are a man of virtue who will bring honesty, fairness, and reflection to the Oval Office. It is advantageous to be cast as a “man for all seasons,” for what you accomplish in the first term is less important than not betraying this trust. Humans are capable of a dangerous combination of anger, self-doubt, and cynicism when they deem they have wrongly placed their trust in someone. Therefore, your primary responsibility is to avoid “politics as usually practiced” and to be loyal to the ethical standards your supporters assume you hold.
Although Iraq, health care, and the current economic crisis scream for attention, I urge you to pay attention to the more serious issue of our public schools. The erosion in their quality over the past two generations is dangerous because it contributes to the excessively large gap in income between the top and bottom 25 percent of our families, breeds fatalism in the former, and interferes with our global competitiveness. The actions cannot be cosmetic but must involve a new arrangement with better trained, more committed teachers who earn far higher salaries and enjoy more community respect. The cure is not new curricula, more computers, or fancier buildings but rather a relationship between teacher and pupil that communicates the tutor’s high hopes for the latter while demanding a disciplined perseverance and civility that are absent in too many of our urban schools.
A local newspaper noted recently that once again whites gave a black man a dirty job. But you begin your presidency with an unprecedented group of cheerleaders praying for your success in restoring some faith in government and its elected representatives. This assignment is as pressing as stabilizing the Dow Jones average, bringing the troops home from Iraq, or providing health insurance to the less advantaged. Please don’t disappoint us.
Jerome Kagan, a leading pioneer of developmental psychology, is the Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at Harvard University.
