00:00:01
00:01 Rogers Smith: When we've made progress
toward greater racial equality, greater racial
00:00:06
justice in America.
00:00:08
And we made the argument that the pattern
has been that America has made progress only
00:00:15
when there's been a combination of domestic
and international political pressures during
00:00:20
a time of crisis.
00:00:21
00:25 Jed Macosko: Hi, this is Dr. Jed Macosko
at AcademicInfluence.com and today we have
00:00:29
another special guest with us today, Professor
Smith, who is a political science professor
00:00:34
and one of the most influential political
scientists in the United States today.
00:00:39
So we are truly honored to have you, Professor
Smith.
00:00:42
And first, we'd like to find out how you got
involved in your particular discipline, because
00:00:47
there's a lot of young people who will be
watching this interview and they'll be trying
00:00:50
to sort out what their future major should
be, so can you tell us a little bit about
00:00:54
how that all transpired?
00:00:56
00:57 Rogers Smith: Yes.
00:00:58
I grew up in Springfield, Illinois, a state
capital.
00:01:02
I was actually born in South Carolina, but
my family moved north shortly thereafter,
00:01:08
and Springfield is also the hometown of Abraham
Lincoln.
00:01:12
01:12 Jed Macosko: That's right.
00:01:13
01:13 Rogers Smith: So it was an environment
with a lot of politics in the air and the
00:01:20
grandeur of the Lincoln legacy, and this was
in the 1960s, the Civil Rights era.
00:01:26
And I got involved in politics as a teenager
quite extensively.
00:01:33
And my father was a business man, and I was
active as a Republican.
00:01:40
I was the state chairman of the Illinois teenage
Republicans.
00:01:43
01:43 Jed Macosko: Wow.
00:01:44
01:44 Rogers Smith: I saw the Republicans
as the party of business, yes, and Dad was
00:01:48
a business man, but also as the party of Lincoln,
the party of Civil Rights, and in Illinois,
00:01:56
as the party of good government, because the
Democrats were the...
00:02:00
Had a club machine in Chicago, they were supporters
of segregation.
00:02:04
Well, so that is how I felt entering political
activism, but at the same time, this was the
00:02:14
beginning of a transition in Illinois, and
eventually the nation, in which the Republican
00:02:20
Party began to shift on those issues.
00:02:23
And by 1970, I realized that in Illinois,
the Republicans were not really for civil
00:02:32
rights nor were they actually always the party
of good government, and I came to feel my
00:02:37
understanding of politics was significantly
defective in pushing for a lot of things that
00:02:45
were going the wrong way.
00:02:46
And so I decided I needed to begin to study
politics more deeply, and I chose an institution
00:02:56
that would allow me to do that, a teaching-oriented
college and that focused on politics and issues
00:03:05
of political history and political philosophy,
and I made what was initially the devastating
00:03:13
discovery that I actually liked studying,
thinking, and writing about politics more
00:03:18
than I did doing politics.
00:03:19
[laughter]
00:03:20
03:21 Jed Macosko: Oh no.
00:03:21
03:21 Rogers Smith: And I came...
00:03:22
I'm fundamentally a nerd, but I came to terms
with that, and I advise students to this day
00:03:31
to try to figure out what they enjoy doing
on a day-to-day basis and then try to pursue
00:03:38
that.
00:03:39
You'll probably make more of a contribution
that way than any other way, and that's the
00:03:45
decision I came to, I really enjoyed being
a scholar of politics, so I made that choice
00:03:53
and I've been happy with it ever since.
00:03:54
03:55 Jed Macosko: That's really cool.
00:03:56
Now, when you decide that you like studying
and teaching and learning about, you've decided
00:04:01
that you're a nerd, how far of a stretch was
it to understand that you'd be a good professor?
00:04:07
Was that kind of at the same moment you realized,
I like all the studying and being a nerd and
00:04:12
I wanna be a professor, or did you think maybe
about going into political think tank or...
00:04:16
Tell us a little bit about how you became
a professor.
00:04:18
04:19 Rogers Smith: I actually went to graduate
school without a clear sense of what would
00:04:24
come after graduate school.
00:04:27
I joke about it, but the truth is, I was profoundly
troubled by the developments of the late 1960s
00:04:34
that required me to challenge a lot of my
beliefs that I had grown up with.
00:04:41
So there were big questions that I wanted
to pursue, and while I thought, as an undergraduate,
00:04:48
I made a little progress, I really went to
graduate school just to give me an opportunity
00:04:53
to continue to study and think more deeply.
00:04:59
And I knew that that could lead to becoming
a professor, but I didn't give that a great
00:05:06
deal of attention really.
00:05:11
And it was only when I began as a graduate
student to teach for the first time, which
00:05:16
is not something I had focused on, I was gonna
try and answer these big questions and...
00:05:22
But then I got in the classroom and I started
engaging with the students, and I discovered,
00:05:29
just my surprise, not my horror, but my surprise
that I loved engaging with students and...
00:05:35
05:36 Jed Macosko: That's great.
00:05:36
05:37 Rogers Smith: And I also did feel in
my graduate work, I found the intellectual
00:05:40
and political direction I was looking for,
and so then at that point, I loved the scholarship,
00:05:46
I loved the teaching.
00:05:47
What else was I gonna do?
00:05:48
05:48 Jed Macosko: That's right.
00:05:49
That's kind of what happen to me.
00:05:51
So now you found what you wanted to head in,
the direction you wanted to head, tell us
00:05:54
a little bit about that and how that led you
to what you did for your career.
00:05:59
06:02 Rogers Smith: I came to think in my
teens that American political principles and
00:06:15
the American political community had some
severe deficiencies.
00:06:21
We were supposed to be for liberty and justice
for all, but we had these enormous racial
00:06:28
inequalities, these intractable problems of
poverty, this overseas war in Vietnam that
00:06:33
people saw as imperialistic.
00:06:35
And my question became, is there a kind of
version of American political principles that
00:06:46
I think I can find morally defensible, but
that I can also claim to have some authentic
00:06:55
authority in American life or was America
fundamentally flawed?
00:07:01
There was a song when I was a teenager.
00:07:04
America, you become a monster.
00:07:07
And that haunted me.
00:07:09
I thought is America a monster?
00:07:13
And I ended up working on American constitutionalism
and American political thought.
00:07:18
And in my dissertation, in my first book,
I made an argument about a kind of understanding
00:07:27
of American liberal democracy as an ongoing
project of expanding meaningful possessions
00:07:37
through our institutions and practices, meaningful
possessions of the basic liberties people
00:07:41
need to lead a flourishing life.
00:07:44
07:46 Rogers Smith: And I thought I saw a
way to argue that that was the direction the
00:07:50
nation could and should pursue.
00:07:53
Subsequently I began working more extensively
on American citizenship and its history in
00:08:01
order to see how far I could claim American
principles were embodied in our conceptions
00:08:07
of citizenship.
00:08:09
And there, I became far more vividly aware
of how America had been efficiently structured
00:08:16
as a white man's society in privileging the
Christian religion above others, privileging
00:08:25
male governance amongst others.
00:08:28
This is not something that was treated through
most of our history as an exceptional or marginal
00:08:35
view as I had been taught in my graduate studies.
00:08:39
But when Stephen Douglas runs against Abraham
Lincoln for the Senate in Illinois in 1858,
00:08:44
Stephen Douglass says, "I believe this nation
was made by the white man, for the white man,
00:08:49
and it is to be governed by the white man
and not any inferior race."
00:08:53
It's right out there and Douglass is elected
senator.
00:08:59
This is...
00:09:00
09:01 Jed Macosko: Unbelievable.
00:09:01
Wow.
00:09:02
09:02 Rogers Smith: Right.
00:09:03
Well, I did not realize how pervasive this
was, and that led me to a further rethinking
00:09:10
of how I wanted to understand American political
principles and American constitutionalism
00:09:14
that has really shaped my work ever since.
00:09:21
So ultimately, I did think I could argue that
there are deeply embedded and valuable traditions
00:09:33
in American life, but not that they define
the true meaning of American identity.
00:09:39
How we define the true meaning of American
identity is a political struggle that we engage
00:09:42
in all the time.
00:09:44
It's up to us to decide what the meaning of
America will be and being able to contribute
00:09:49
to that is something I have found very worthwhile.
00:09:52
09:53 Jed Macosko: Yeah, that seems incredible.
00:09:55
So if you were to chart the virtue of the
United States from its inception until now,
00:10:04
there is obviously different parts of the
country, different things going on, but you
00:10:08
mentioned the Douglas Lincoln debates as a
point where you could really see a low going
00:10:15
down and clear as day people being discriminatory
and seeing the United States as a place for
00:10:22
whites to government.
00:10:23
Do you see prior to that some little blips
of hope where things were done in a more open
00:10:30
way, or were there times in the past where
people just weren't even thinking about whether
00:10:36
America was dominated by white men because
it was just sort of the water that they lived
00:10:43
in.
00:10:44
So just bring us up to speed with that because
we haven't gone through the same disillusionment
00:10:49
that you went through when you realized all
of this, and help us see.
00:10:53
I hear for example about [inaudible] saying
that America is great because she's good.
00:10:58
What part of it was good if there was so much
bigotry going on back then?
00:11:02
11:03 Rogers Smith: Well it was always a contest,
and so there were always good things as well
00:11:07
as things that are not so good, and some things
were horrible.
00:11:12
And they were often deeply intertwined in
ways that means that you can't line up history
00:11:19
neatly, here are the good guys and the bad
guys.
00:11:22
On some issues you'll be in favor of some
and on other issues others.
00:11:28
But some years ago I wrote a book with Philip
Klinkner called The Unsteady March, which
00:11:36
looks specifically at when we've made progress
toward greater racial equality, greater racial
00:11:44
justice in America.
00:11:46
And we made the argument that the pattern
has been that America has made progress only
00:11:53
when there's been a combination of domestic
and international political pressures during
00:11:58
a time of crisis in which it seemed necessary
for America to embrace its more inclusive
00:12:07
and egalitarian self-understandings in order
to prevail, and that has led to bursts of
00:12:13
reform lasting 10 to 15 years, followed generally
by about three quarters of a century of stagnation
00:12:22
and retrenchment.
00:12:23
12:22 Jed Macosko: Right.
00:12:24
Kind of like a boa constrictor constricting
back down, right?
00:12:26
12:27 Rogers Smith: Not all the way back down
though.
00:12:28
We say there's been cumulative progress.
00:12:29
12:29 Jed Macosko: Okay, good.
00:12:30
12:32 Rogers Smith: So how the American Revolution
led to the first emancipation in the North,
00:12:34
the ending of slavery in the north, and African-Americans
voted in the state of North Carolina up until
00:12:41
the 1830s, free African-Americans did even
while it was a slave state, but they lost
00:12:47
the vote then.
00:12:48
They lost the vote in much of the North too.
00:12:50
There was a retraction, and that got worse
and worse until ultimately we got the Civil
00:12:56
War.
00:12:57
And the Civil War produced another period
of racial reform lasting through the end of
00:13:02
Reconstruction, but then we had a period of
stagnation and retrenchment that really lasted
00:13:09
till the modern Civil Rights era.
00:13:10
13:11 Rogers Smith: Which we argue was incubated
by a combination of the pressures of the domestic
00:13:15
Civil Rights Movement, but also the Cold War,
which created international pressure to show
00:13:21
that we really were the democracy we claimed
to be.
00:13:25
And communist nations were quick to point
out to the many nations of color that were
00:13:32
gaining independence after World War II, look
how Americans treat their people of color.
00:13:37
So that was a big liability, and that led
to another period of reform that lasted about
00:13:45
10 or 15 years and we have been in a period
of some stagnation in retrenchment sense I
00:13:51
fear.
00:13:52
At least that's what I concluded in the 1980s.
00:13:56
The election of Barack Obama, the first person
of modern African descent ever to be elected
00:14:02
the leader of any predominantly European descended
nation was certainly a significant step forward.
00:14:08
It was followed by the election of Donald
Trump, who professes to believe in racial
00:14:16
equality, but it was clearly inspired a resurgence
of white nationalist movements in the US,
00:14:22
even if that's not his personal position as
he claims.
00:14:26
14:27 Jed Macosko: Interesting, fascinating.
00:14:28
Well, this has already been a real lesson
for all of us who don't study Political Science
00:14:33
in what's been going on in the United States.
00:14:36
My only real taste of what you're talking
about is a book by Garrison Keillor's brother.
00:14:42
I'm from Minnesota so Garrison Keillor carries
a lot of cache in Minnesota and his brother
00:14:47
wrote a book called This Rebellious House,
and it talks a little bit about how there's
00:14:51
good and bad in every aspect of the forming
of the United States and the progression of
00:14:57
the United States.
00:14:58
And a lot of what you were saying sounds a
bit like that, that there's bursts of good
00:15:02
but overall, we're sort of a rebellious house
so to speak when it comes to the principles
00:15:07
that we would all espouse to be true, equality
and things like that.
00:15:12
So very interesting the way you talked about
it.
00:15:16
Now as sort of to finish this off, what do
you think you will be known for as a political
00:15:21
scientist?
00:15:22
You've already risen in our rankings all the
way up to the very top, but is it this understanding
00:15:30
of racial equality that you're most known
for, or what other aspects of your political
00:15:34
science career will people remember about
you?
00:15:37
15:37 Rogers Smith: Well I don't know what
people will remember, if they remember very
00:15:41
much at all, but certainly the argument that
I've re-capitulated that it's not true that
00:15:52
America is simply in its DNA fundamentally
dedicated to democracy and human rights, but
00:15:59
that instead, American civic identity is contested
and it can go in different directions depending
00:16:08
on who wins that contest.
00:16:10
I think that's an enduring lesson of my work
that at the moment people are taking more
00:16:16
seriously than they did when I first started
making that argument.
00:16:21
Connected to that argument, there's a strong
temptation across the political spectrum that
00:16:29
hard-headed social science looks at material
factors at the economic pressures, aspirations
00:16:39
to power.
00:16:40
I've argued all that's true, but what will
lead to economic well-being, what will lead
00:16:46
to power, and what to do with power, these
are all things that need to be interpreted
00:16:52
through ideas, and I have argued that social
science needs to study ideas as well as material
00:17:01
factors, and in relation to material factors,
sometimes against the grain of my discipline
00:17:07
but with some impact over time.
00:17:12
17:13 Rogers Smith: It may well be though,
I've done lots of work with graduate students,
00:17:18
have advised over 60 PhD dissertations, and
been on about 150 dissertation committees,
00:17:27
as well as teaching thousands of undergraduates,
and it may be that my teaching will have more
00:17:35
impact.
00:17:36
It did lead some graduate students to do dissertations
that paid more attention to ideas, like for
00:17:43
example Rogan Kersh who wrote on the idea
of union and American political thought, a
00:17:50
great dissertation and then he went on to
do greater things.
00:17:52
17:53 Jed Macosko: That's right.
00:17:54
And so let's talk a little bit about our friend
Rogan Kersh who's the provost at my university.
00:17:59
You mentioned that he lampooned you with a
little video skit that was called Rogers and
00:18:05
Me, taking your first name and the play on
the Michael Myers movie.
00:18:09
So do you wanna just give us a little treat
about what that was about, and why it was
00:18:14
so funny?
00:18:15
18:15 Rogers Smith: Well, it's Michael Moore
that...
00:18:17
18:17 Jed Macosko: Oh sorry, Michael Moore.
00:18:18
18:18 Rogers Smith: The documentary guy, right.
00:18:20
Although it had a Michael Meyer's quality
to it.
00:18:23
It really made Michael Moore famous when he
did this documentary Roger and Me about how
00:18:29
the president of General Motors then, whose
name was Roger Smith was being so cold and
00:18:36
heartless towards the automobile workers in
Michigan including Flint, Michigan where Michael
00:18:41
Moore was from.
00:18:42
And so I was teaching a DL then, and at the
end of every year the graduate students would
00:18:50
have skits and shows where they mocked the
faculty, a very healthy activity, and Rogan
00:18:58
got the idea of shooting a video called Rogers
and Me.
00:19:03
He got all of the graduate students involved
in making it, and its theme was that in addition
00:19:10
to being cold and heartless, my vision of
political science was destructive of the career
00:19:15
of graduate students, and it was very funny.
00:19:23
I like to think his subsequent career has
shown that it's not entirely true.
00:19:27
19:27 Jed Macosko: Okay, good.
00:19:29
Well good.
00:19:30
It has just been a pleasure to be with you
today, Professor Smith.
00:19:34
I like that you are trying to bring more of
the ideas of freedom, unity, whatever it is.
00:19:42
The ideas make a difference in political science
and politics and it's not just the cold hard
00:19:48
facts of economics and who's at war with whom.
00:19:52
So I like that, and I think that that's probably
one of the reasons that you are one of our
00:19:56
most influential political scientists, and
we really appreciate you taking some time
00:20:01
with us today.
00:20:02
So thank you.
00:20:03
20:03 Rogers Smith: Thank you, Jed.
00:20:04
It's been a pleasure.
00:20:05
[music]
