Author Richard Haass is an expert in diplomacy and international relations, who's worked under four different presidential administrations. He’s written or edited more than a dozen books, on topics like economics, war, and foreign policy.
For his latest work, Haass turned his attention to home soil, and focused on the everyday habits of good citizens that can help support our democracy — like getting informed, and practicing civil discourse.
Its title, “The Bill of Obligations,” is a reference to the “Bill of Rights” — and it’s about what we owe to each other, not just what our country owes to us.
Reporter Kaya Williams spoke to him in advance of his tour at Colorado Mountain College campuses this week. Haass spoke at CMC Aspen and Spring Valley on Monday, and will travel to other locations in the coming days. “The Bill of Obligations” is the latest book featured in CMC’s Common Reader program, which shares the book with community members and engages them in dynamic conversations.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed.
Richard Haass: Think of it as a coin. One side is rights. We're very familiar with it. But the other side is obligations, that a democracy only works if we have a sense of our obligations to one another. We're all members of a society, if you will, a community. And second of all, we all have obligations to this country of ours, to this government of ours, and we've gotten so obsessed with rights, which, to use a social science framing, are necessary, but not sufficient. And I want people to reimagine, to rethink citizenship as not just rights, but also a large dose of obligations.
Kaya Williams: Do you gather that people actually have a sense of their obligations? Do we know what we're supposed to do in society?
Haass: The short answer is no. If everybody knew it and were living it, I wouldn't have taken the time to write this book, because it wouldn't have been necessary.
This November, we're going to have an election. A third of the eligible people, who are eligible to vote, won't. A big chunk of the two-thirds who are eligible to vote, who will vote, won't be informed. It's increasingly hard to pass legislation to deal with the big challenges facing this country.
What I wanted to do was suggest a number of obligations that didn't require legislation or Supreme Court rulings: the things that you and I and others could simply — many of which probably eight of the 10 — we could do now. I can provide guidance about how to get informed, to get involved, to be civil, to be open, to compromise, to reject violence.
Two of the obligations are a little bit different. One is to get civics, the teaching of civics as a staple in our middle schools, high schools and colleges. And second of all, I want Americans to get involved in public service, not just to give back, but it's public service. One of the great things about it, whether it's the military, the government, Peace Corps, teacher groups, climate groups, what have you, is it brings together Americans who normally wouldn't come together.
Williams: Do you think that there's a willingness and a receptiveness to fulfill these obligations once people learn about them and are aware of them?
Haass: I think at times, you run into resistance. People are reluctant to see any infringement on what they see as their rights. And we saw it a lot during the pandemic: the right not to wear a mask, or the right not to get vaccinated, and so forth. Problem was, it potentially caused problems not just for yourself, but for others. And how do we balance that?
We know this democracy of ours is imperfect. Reforming it — which, a lot of people have suggested, ‘do this with how we draw congressional districts,’ or “(do) this about the Electoral College,” what have you — there's a zillion ideas out there, some of which may be good. But there's no ability to get anything enacted.
Inevitably, those who believe that they would be disadvantaged by a change will resist it. But the kinds of things I'm proposing, for the most part, can be done. And just maybe, if they are absorbed, if they are adopted, if they are embraced, over time, that'll create a slightly different context or society in which some of these other more ambitious things have a chance of being done.
Williams: One of the things that you touch on in your book is democratic backsliding — you know, the sense that things are not as hopeful or democratic as they once were. Can you speak a bit about the factors that you think have contributed to that and also what you think we could do to undo it?
Haass: Few reasons: One is, these have been difficult times economically, and when people suffer economically, lose confidence economically, they often turn against the political system of the day. That's the explanation of things like populism. I also think we don't do a very good job in our schools of teaching why democracy is inherently of value and what it takes for one to succeed.
I think social media has made it brutal, much more difficult to build consensus, because anybody can pop up and do his or her podcast, can do his or her Tweet. The problem is that a lot of those mechanisms or individuals or institutions — there's no fact-checking, there's no quality control. And in our schools, we don't often prepare people for how to be discerning. “Well, how do I know what's a fact?” And what's, what I call, good information hygiene? “How should I go about interacting with the information space?”
So there's any number of reasons that have led to democratic backsliding, recession, deterioration, but it's real in this country. And we've seen lots of evidence of it. It's harder to get things done. We've seen much greater political violence.
Democracy is hard. It takes a lot of work, takes a lot of renewal, and part of what I wanted to do in writing this is impart a sense of urgency — that this democracy of ours is worth keeping, but also, it’s in trouble.
Williams: Speaking of that, you've had a very lengthy career in diplomacy, foreign policy. Why write this book now versus any other point in time in your own life?
Haass: This is not a book I thought I'd be writing, but what happened was, increasingly, when I'd be asked, “What worries you the most, what keeps you up at night? Is it China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, climate change?” I'd say, look, those are all real concerns. But the last 70, 75 years showed that when America is more united than divided, when we discuss or debate issues in a serious, civil way, we'll end up doing the right thing or something that approximates it, and we can deal with our challenges.
But what worries me now is as our democracy has gotten somewhat “broken,” — I guess I'd use that word — or more divided, that our ability to come together to deal with our external challenges is much more questionable.
So if you're a foreign policy person like me, it turns out that what happens here is critical for our ability to be effective in the world. By the way, what happens in the world also has a tremendous impact on here. So I got to this through the back door of foreign policy, but I actually think what you and I are talking about is the biggest national security challenge facing the United States.
We're not going to have the bandwidth to look at the world if we're at war with ourselves. We're not going to be able to agree on the allocation of resources for the military or anything else. We're not going to be able to take tough decisions if our democracy isn't functional. So we shouldn't kid ourselves. What's at stake is not simply the future of American democracy as the way we run ourselves, but also our ability to act and lead in the world. So there's an enormous amount at stake here.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Richard Haass' last name and the subtitle of his book.