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WWW www.habermas.org

Instructor: Jeanne Curran, Ph.D. Emeritus, Esq.
Course:Soc. 370-01. Moot Court: Oral and Written Practice in the Skills of Community-Building
Course Reference Number: 40729
Soc. 370A-01. Field Work for Moot Court: Oral and Written Practice in the Skills of Governance Discourse
Course Reference Number: 40730
You must take both sections of this class for credit.That's because it's an activity class. The activity takes place in field work outside of meeting time. jeanne Academic Credit: 3 units
Scheduled Meeting Times: Wednesday 1:00- 3:45 p.m.
Meeting Room: WH D 176
Office: SBS-B 326
Telephone: 310-243-3431
Office Hours:The class time is set for longer than we would normally meet for 3 units when we have additional activity work required. We'll arrange a shorter meeting time, with the rest allowed for workshop planning meetings and office time at our first meetings. Pat and I will be at school for most of the day on Wednesdays, so that we can arrange to meet you when you can fit it into your schedule.
Teaching Assistant and Community Adjunct: Patricia Acone, A.B.T. Emeritus

Course Description:

This is a course in community building, with an emphasis on oral and written communication skills. The skills we focus on are required for effective outreach in disseminating information to our local service communities on social, economic, political, and spiritual issues that affect them directly. Students in 1987 chose the law school model of Moot Court as most effective in giving them practice in legal or cirtically conscious dialog shaped to create awareness and understanding of the many diverse perspectives in our communities, without falling into an affect-laden debate about any given perspective being "right or wrong," or "better than" any other. Governance discourse is about agreeing to disagree on some perspectives, while trying to make painful, but fair decisions on how to distribute our shared financial and human capital resources. Governance discourse is also about bringing the community, ordinary folks like all of us, into that decision-making process. In a democracy we ARE part of that governance because we vote. That is a freedom and responsibility we seek to protect.

One of our specific objectives is to explore the translation of our study of democratic society and respect for the Other to a real governance context: our communitities in all their diversity. We share our learning on issues of social, economic, political and spiritual concern across age groups, across disciplines, and across levels of formal education. We talk to our friends, our families, our children, our neighbors, and even those we don't yet know in our communities.

We seek not to persuade others to adopt our position on these issues, but rather to explore what we have learned through theory and research, and how that affects our many perspectives on our own community and its diverse members. We share in plain English (or Spanish, if we can) the theories we have studied, like Goffman's front stage and back stage behavior and the similarity of communication patterns to theatre; like Weber's fear of the "iron cage" of bureaucracy. We engage in field work that brings us into contact with many people we did not formerly know and might never have sought out in our communities. And we highlight the importance of art, both visual and audial, in sharing our learning with friends and neighbors. In this whole process the very act of sharing with our community helps create the critically conscious community we seek to develop.

Our Relationship to Law School Moot Court

In law school students argue in moot court to gain practice in oral argument. They study for weeks ahead of time, exploring cases and precedent, and write briefs for the judges, attorneys who went before them and return to help them practice. The big competition is an important annual event in the school. Students argue in groups of four before a panel of three "judges." Those with the highest scores, go on to the final team of four, which argues before real judges, who in the elite law schools are often members of some of the highest courts in the land. It is an exceptional honor that follows the student for life, to win a moot court competition.

Our students chose moot court because of its oral emphasis. Sometimes students don't even write their own briefs; they just argue them before the judges. When students appear before the judging panel, and in real life appellate courts, the judges already have read the briefs, considered the issues, and have their own opinions on the case. They ask questions of the student or real attorneys before them to help them decide issues that have been puzzling them. The students or attorneys must be well enough versed in the issues at bar to presuade the judges that they should decide the issue in favor of the client they represent. That means this is not a debate. Student attorneys can't offer a prepared speech. They must argue on their feet, in the moment, to persuade the judges that they are right. Each student attorney represents one of two issues being argued. Two students represent the plaintiff. Two represent the respondent. Each student attorney is questioned by the panel of judges for approximately fifteen minutes. Time is rigidly controlled. At the end of argument the judges withdraw to render a judgment. In law school moot court, the judges' return signals the announcement of the winning students.

Justice Clinton White, of the Appellate Court, District 1, sat as our first Chief Justice in 1987. He insisted that the Panel would not issue a finding because the case argued was still on the cutting edge of the law: an illegal search by a security guard. Justice White reminded us that the important thing was the skills learned, not the judges' resolution of the issue of law. We honored that tradition ever after. Like the law schools, we used well known jurors on our final panel, and the program, the Stanley Mosk Moot Court Competition was named after a member of the California Supreme Court, who sat many times as our Chief Justice. Derrick Bell, author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well, also sat as one of our Chief Justices, with an audience of 500.

In the last decade, we have preserved the structure and process, while changing the issues from actual legal cases to social justice issues in our communities. This is the first year we have adapted the structure and process to community-building. But these are desperate times as the United States tests its role as the most powerful leader of the world. How shall we live in that role? How shall we regain our sense of who we are and the purpose and goals we serve in this new globalized context? In community-building we engage in critical consciousness, engaging our friends, families, neighbors, spirtiual colleagues in dialogs much like those in which our judges engaged us in the earlier years of moot court. Like the judges, our friends and neighbors have preconceived ideas and beliefs. Like the student attorneys, we hesitate to enter such important dialogs. We have opinions. But we respect that our friends and neighbors are also informed well and differently. Here, we represent only ourselves, not a client we must argue for, and we, like our friends, want to make the best decisions we can. Often we have to vote on those decisions. So this becomes important governance discourse. Moreover, as we suggested earlier, this whole process, the very act of sharing with our community, helps build the critically conscious community we seek to develop.

Texts:

Required Texts: Available Online Free

• Dear Habermas Web Site Teaching web site, access open to and free to all, shared with the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, Department of Criminal Justice.

• Transform_dom Our open discussion group on Yahoo. You must join the group to post (Required for class credit.) But the messages are open to all to read. Once you have joined the group, you can post your messages directly at transform_dom, and you do not need to send them through e-mail. That saves your getting lots of e-mail you might not want. You can choose to receive no e-mail, digests of e-mail, or every e-mail posted at your own e-amil address.

  Recommended Texts: Widely Available, Even in Libraries

  We did not order these books or require them because you will each have unique interests. We include availability and pricing range as of the start of this semester. And since we'll not all read the same texts, you might be able to find it a library. Choose to react to your pick for your creative contribution to our shared reading. Or check with us to substitute one we haven't put on the list. I've given you general summaries, as balanced as I could manage, from the left/right and liberal/conservative continuum. Explore. Just please remember to explore as many perspectives as you can manage. That's a liberal arts education. One that gives you a good sense of how much is out there, once in Western Civilization, now in Global Civilization. jeanne

• Who is Habermas? And How did we get the name Dear Habermas?

  • James Gordon Finlayson, Habermas: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0-19-284095-9. Paperback. Presently available at Amazon.com for $9.95, with more than fifty new and used copies available for less on 8/23/06. This is a very readable and understandable summary, short, but fairly clear until the later chapters. It will give you a good sense of why we named our site after Habermas and Dear Abby. Habermas, because we thought his was a reasonable approach that offers hope of peace and justice one day. Dear Abby, because asking us what Habermas thinks is like using a OUIJI board. How on earth would we know? All we do is read his books and theories.But we answer your questions the same way Dear Abby did, as best we can, with reason and fairness as our guide.

• Who is Freire? And why the emphasis on critical consciousness?

  • Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness. Continuum. London. New York. 1974. Reprinted 2005. ISBN: 0-8264-7795-X. Paperback. #16.95. Available presently at Barnes and Noble.com for $15.95. Used and new copies available from $10.49 on 8/23/06. This is the text in which Freire explains the importance of not teaching to people, but of practicing the learning process with them. He speaks of the closed-mindedness of authoritarianism in which those with powertells those with less power what to do and get away with it. When this happens through belief that only they are right, he calls it sectarianism; when the authoritarianism happens through activism and the belief that only those in power no how to change things for the better, he calls it radical sectarianism. When any authoritarian group insists on demanding that others follow their program or recommendations and deprives them of their voice, he calls it fanaticized consciousness. When governance discourse proceeds with respect for each voice and engages each in responsibility for taking action to improve the community, Freire calls it critical consciousness.

    We chose this text we believe it will help us gain a better understanding of the politicization of so much that we have never seen politicized before the last decade in the U.S. But since we will cover lots of theory and you may have many conflicting demands for your time, consider reading the analysis offered by if you can't get to Freire's writings themselves.

  • Freire, Paulo.Paulo Freire (1973). Education as the Practice of Freedom in Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Continuum. Review by Alison Kreider (UCLA) Available free online at Daniel Schugurensky's Reviews of Paulo Freire's Books.

• Who are George Lakoff and Luntz? And why this emphasis on linguistic frames?

• George Lakoff, Simple Framing Social psychology of the left and right, liberal and conservative. Lakoff's perspective is left. But Republicans have moved this learning into political consulting, and they do not make their theory and research public. If you read Lakoff's book, you'll have the basic learning and can transfer it through what is available on the Internet, where the Conservative Consultants (Like Luntz, see below.) advertise and have web sites. jeanne

  George Lakoff, Sam Ferguson. (c) The Rockridge Institute, 2006 (We invite the free distribution of this article.)

• Respect for the Law and Economic Fainess: Illegal Immigration Prevention Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research. Luntz Research & Strategic Services . The Public Opinion Company . Luntz Corporate . Luntz Worldwide. This is a piece by the man doing most of the Republican linguistic strategy and presentation, as I understand it. jeanne

  Overview: The Four Principles

  "Americans are not only ready for an overhaul of illegal immigration policy, they are demanding it. It has become such an important issue that many are willing to vote against their traditional party if they disagree with a candidate’s position on immigration reform.

  Linguistically, as you enter the debate, there are four key themes that must represent the core of your message: prevention, protection, accountability and compassion.

• Crucial Issues Not Addressed in the Immigration Debate: Why Deep Framing Matters By George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson. The Rockridge Institute "Constructive critics of our paper The Framing of Immigration have suggested that we say more about immigration and American workers. We do that here. Other critics have misframed framing and attacked us for engaging in it. We respond." Available free online.

These recommended texts were listed to give you an idea of the kind of reading we'd like you to engage in. Many more texts will be summarized in lecture essays and suggested for reading, and can be found on our Recommended Reading for Fall 2006. NO, we never even considered the idea that you might read them all.. Choose those that most intrigue you, so that you can make a creative contribution to the process of learning in this class. Read parts of several, or go deeply into one. Your choice to shape your own learning. jeanne

Course Objectives, Outcomes, and Measurement:

1. Banked Education - Familiarity with what has been reseearched and written on the topic.

   1. Objective: You have read and assimilated the material from basic required readings.
   2. Outcome: You will be able to answer the discussion questions that accompany the readings, and help discover critical consciousness rational explanations for different perspectives on theissue.. In discussions in class, or on transform_dom.
   3. Measurement: Since both the questions and plausible answers are included in the readings for your study, you will know in each case what we were thinking when we asked that question. Surely some of you will ask more penetrating questions, clairfy misunderstandings, and add your own feelings, either with an explanation of how you came to those conclusions, or with the request that the discussion group help you with think the issue through.

      Examples:

      • The Women Belong at Home Example

        You may really believe that women belong at home in the kitchen, not working outside the home. You may not know exactly why you believe that, but you may feel it very strongly. If the plausible answer that we have given suggests that women should have fair and equal access to the workplace, post your alternative position. State that you don't know why you came to that conclusion, and the class or discussion group will join in helping you explain your conclusion in terms that fit critical consciousness. For example, we could suggest that you look at the literature on women in their 40s giving up successful careers, either to stay at home with children, or to return home to care for aging parents.

        Some readings we might suggest:

      • Abstract of Aspects of the Development of a Career Versus Homemaking Orientation Among Females: The Longitudinal Influence of Educational Motivation and Peers By Sigrid B. Gustafson, ?Hakan Stattin, ?David Magnusson. Journal of Research on Adolescence 1992, Vol. 2, No. 3, Pages 241-259. We might ask you to consider how you would feel about the effect planning to be a homemaker instead of having a career might have on a daughter's educational aspirations, and how that might affect her ability to function as a single mother in the event of tragedy.

      • "Terry Hekker found fame in her native US as an icon of stay-at-home family values. But then her husband left her after 40 years and she now has a very different message ." You may still prefer the situation of the mother as homemaker, but we hope that you will consider it critically and discuss it with others, long enough to have thought through questions and answers like the ones we have suggested here.

      • 'Good life' elusive for working couples with children "Middle-class working couples with kids are often stretched thin, according to research by Phyllis Moen." University of Minnesota news. August 15, 2006.

      • Policy, Gender Power, and Family Outcomes By Dr. Lynn Prince Cooke, Department of Social Policy and Nuffield College, Oxford University, United Kingdom.

        "The question of women’s economic independence Central to the family debates is the desirability of women’s rising economic independence from a male breadwinner, whether via her employment or state transfers. On one hand, women’s greater economic equality with men (theoretically) encourages men’s greater involvement in the domestic sphere. On the other, women’s greater independence reduces the need for kinship ties and increases the “opportunity cost” of children, thereby (theoretically) encouraging the demise of family. Repercussions of these possibilities ripple throughout society and the state. . . .

        ". . . Analyses using the National Survey of Families and Households support the thesis that in states where the law improves a woman’s economic prospects post-divorce, the husband’s share of domestic tasks is substantively and significantly greater. Some state laws have been enacted only within the past few years, so policy effects on the household division of labor emerge quickly. Policy effects are similar, albeit more muted, for cohabiting couples."

        This report would seem to say that if we want women out of the workforce and into homemaking we wil need to consider the relative power in the sharing of domestic tasks, and the resulting stability of the marriage itself, with the consequences of separated families. Suddenly, the issue is much more complex, isn't it?

      The George Bush and Loyalty Example

      George Bush insists that no matter what the results his decisions are right. He considers it disloyal if one of his staff say otherwise. He knows that he feels very strongly about this loyalty issue, but he doesn't know why. George Lakoff's and Luntz's theoretical analysis of linguistic framing offers an explanation. George Bush is acting in a "strong father image" role, and basing his reactions on his view of that role and how it should be played. That is one plausible explanation, though it is certainly not the only one. But in reaching for such a critical consciousness explanation, we lower the affect and can begin a dialog about whether that's a good linguistic frame from which to govern.

      We might suggest you read Gearoge Lakoff's material on the "strong father figure" and authoritarianism.

      Once you have a conclusion about an issue, a plausible critical consciousness explanation, even one to which others have contributed, you have an A for that task.

2. Process Education. Exploring your own feelings and opinions, discussing them with others in terms of research and genrally available informatiion, coming to tentative critically conscious conclusions with which you are comfortable, and for which you are willing to accept responsibility.

   • Frequently Asked Questions on how to navigate Dear Habermas and what to do to get an A.

3. Generative Education. Using your own current concerns and issues to engage the class and/or discussion group in a broader critical consciousness discussion.

   Together we will choose the order in which we will address topics of community concern, and you will have achance to suggest others.

Academic Assessment:

How will we know what you come away with from this class, either what I hoped for, or something you hoped for? We have to agree on how we will measure what you have learned, if you want credit, because the school is hooked on testing and measurement. Sometimes I can look into your eyes and see the learning happening. But the university won't accept that measure. Here is a list of things that I hope you learn:

1. Meet and exchange ideas with people you did not know prior to this class. I might be one of them. Pat will be another.

2. Use Dear Habermas as a resource for information and for critical analysis of that information. That is, look up a topic, see what you can find on it, and then, draw conclusions from what you find on how you feel about the topic. Then dialog with someone else to compare your conclusions.

3. Having shared your learning with us, share it with your family and friends. Be sure you translate your reading into plain English. Don't expect others who have not taken this class to use the jargon we use in academic texts. Try to come up with a story that might relate to what you have learned about any of our local community issues.

   Talk about how what you learned influenced your thinking on the issue. Use one of our art projects to stimulate the dialog. Try to include a catchy message that will remind them of what you talked about. Maybe even an URL at which they could get more information if they wanted it. Ask about their opinions on the issue, and try to understand what information and reasoning they used to come to their conclusions. If someone you dialog with would like to know more about one of the issues, offer to print such information from Dear Habermas for them, and follow through on giving it to them. Include the URL, in case they want to consult the site themselves.

4. Ask and try to find out how your family and friends feel about this process of sharing what you have learned. Share your findings with us, and look into my eyes so I will know you have learned how it feels to build community.

   That constitutes your field experience. Be sure you share it in a paragraph or two on transform_dom. Otherwise no one will know that you've done it or what you found.

Several old files that might help you

• How to Earn an A

Common Sense:

Permission to enroll in this course is premised on upper division status that should render you capable of performing competently. However, I recognize that crises occur and that you have many conflicting demands as students, family members, and workers. Please remember that A's are earned, not given for the status characteristic of "being a good student who could get an A if he/she made the effort." One way to deal with such crises effectively is to be sure that Pat and I know when they are happening. Because my lectures and your practice are on the site, it's easier to make up missed time over conflicts than you might think.

Nota bene: If you have the flu, or some other highly contagious illness, please don't come and give it to the rest of us. We'll help you catch up when you're well. The bugs are getting stronger and more resistant to medication, and Pat and I are both in our seventies.

If you haven't slept, and are falling asleep from exhaustion, please stay home and sleep. Sleep deprivation is a very real problem. We all drive freeways to get here, and go home often late at night. You can kill yourself and others that way. Please don't.

If you have the privilege of assured income and support and the discretionary time to focus deeply and intently on your academic work, we are happy for you, and delighted to have the extra work you can then do. But in an urban or rural commuter college, such privilege is rare. Please do not denigrate those who are struggling to balance conflicting demands. If you can help someone, please do. If you can help make a silent voice heard, please do.

I do not give specific deadlines, because I want you to use your common sense and your own discipline to study effectively. I am doing my best to respect you as equals as adult humans who want to learn and get the credentials that signify that learning. All work can be made up for me within university-imposed limits.

Preparations Schedule for Moot Court, Soc 370-01, Fall 2006

Notice that the numbers on the weeks don't match up. That's the generative part of your learning. There are many topics we could address. Together, we'll choose and order them. Some of you may want to follow different paths. As long as you follow the topic of the week so you can join in our discussions, you may do so.

• Week 1: Introduction to Dear Habermas

  • Learning to Use a Digital Open-Ended Text Will be up soon. jeanne

  • Frequently Asked Questions

• Week 2: Thinking Before You React

  • Reading: Terror in the City: ATTACK ON AMERICA Journal entry by jeanne, on Dear Habermas Web Site, September 2001.

  • Theory: Allport, Gordon. Prejudice. Checking your facts.

  • Discussion: Prejudice occurs when we make the mistake of considering a social group monolithic, as though they're all the same. Example here: The assumption that all Muslims are the same, have the same feelings, the same values. The assumption that all Americans and all versions of patriotism are the same.

• Week 3: Checking Your Facts or Evidence

  • Examples of Others who share our values.
  • Examples of Others who experience the same fears, joys, and passions as we do. Consider, for example the 18-year-old college student who dislikes her body and calls herself "fat" when others see her as "not fat."
  • The game of rumor; the inaccuracies of informatioin passed through long chains of command.- the left hand may not know what the right is doing.

• Week 3:Messages for Awareness Issues:

  • You only have to spell about 50 words (max) to be a good speller.
  • You have to know the difference between front stage and back stage to know how the measurement of "smart" and "success" differ in the two contexts.

• Week 3: Advocacy and Community Awareness: Women's Heart Issues

  November is Red Dress Month in support of women struggling with heart disease.

• Week 4:Communicating in Plain English

  • British Columbia Teachers' Federation Teaching Resources An extensive list of resources that might help you find how teachers are explaining the messages you'd like to convey to your friends, neighbors, community members to young people in a whole range of K-12 classes. Resources such as this can help you say it in plain English.

  • Examples of Others who share our values.
  • Examples of Others who experience the same fears, joys, and passions as we do. Consider, for example the 18-year-old college student who dislikes her body and calls herself "fat" when others see her as "not fat."
  • The game of rumor; the inaccuracies of informatioin passed through long chains of command.- the left hand may not know what the right is doing.

• Week 5: Becoming a Legitimate Authority to Others

  • Reading:Presentation of Me: "Smart" Tips and Tricks for "Smart" People

  • Theory: Goffman, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

  • Discussion: Speech and writing tricks to maintain status in the interdependent, globalized world of school and corporate enterprise. Differentiation between front stage and back stage behavior.

  Week 6: Illocutionary Discourse on Religion and Its Role in All Our Lives

  • Maria Pia Lara on Illocutionary Discourse, building on Habermas From Moral Textures.

• Week 7: Obesity and Its Role in All Our Lives

• Week 8: Authoritarianism and Prejudice: Politics, Parties, Religious Affiliation, Beliefs, and Values

  1. William A. Scott. Values and Organizations.
  2. The problem with the assumptiion that any human groups are monolithic.
  3. Gordon Allport on Prejudice.
  4. Adorno on The Authoritarian Personality
  5. Lakoff on the strong father figure.
  6. Inclusion and Excusion in American Life
  7. Richard Delgado, Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge; Critical White Studies
  8. History of Colonization of Latin America

• Week 9:Critical Race Theory
  • Delgado on Critical Race Theory
  • Frantz Fanon
  • Omi

• Week 10: The Culture of Silence and Breaking the Silence
  1. Quadraplegic journalist in Iraq. Learning theory chapter.
  2. Freire's culture of silence and circles of certainty
  3. Freire's sectarianism and critical consciousness.
  4. Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language
  5. Women's Ways of Knowing.

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Emeritus means that jeanne is formally retired, though she still teaches in community activism projects.

Esq. means Esquire, and is used to indicate that someone is a member of the Bar, i.e.,a lawyer.
Jeanne, inactive this year, is a member of the California Bar but cannot give you actual legal advice because that could subject the univesrity to liability. Back to top.

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