the quest for a civil society

THE QUEST FOR A CIVIL SOCIETY

Individuals must regain and abandon the practice

strict terms of

with the discussion of values issues in the

DON E. EBERLY

merica is in the midst of social convulsions at home and global A change of a scale, velocity and

uncertainty that futurists say may be un- precedented in human experience. In the midst of a surging economy, large ma- jorities from virtually every sector of society worry that something very basic has gone wrong at the core of society, something that can not be measured in the traditional terms of Gross National Product growth rates and unemployment figures. Public worries increasingly concern cultural indicators, such as rising teen pregnancy, violence among youth and declining Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores - factors as important to national advancement as a growing economy.

But these social data reveal only the measurable indicators of societal re- gression. The quality of life is more and more shaped by unmeasurable things that have weakened, like basic civility

and manners. Many report finding life coarser, their culture cruder, the public debate angrier, and the treatment of individuals less respectful than when they grew up. There is a sense that Americans have become short-sighted and selfish- obsessed with rights and entitlements - and that quality, excellence and commit- ment to work have all waned.

The mood is peculiar in light of the nation’s successes. For one, Americapres- ently stands taller than perhaps any nation in history. By defeating the forces of totalitarianism, the United States occu- pies the position of undisputed heavy- weight: the only true military and economic superpower. America is still the most coveted destination for immigrants; it is exporting more goods and services than any nation in history; it is employ- ing more of its population than ever; and its technological genius is still unmatched around the world. In sum, it is the rich- est, mightiest and most magnetic of any

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW SPRING 1995 119

BUILDING CIVIL SOCIETY


nation on the globe. For decades during the Cold War,

the need for a well defined identity and moral purpose was reinforced as America led a unified democratic front against communism. The nation’s core principles needed little further articulation. That the East-West conflict and the national resolve it produced held things in equi- librium can not be denied. However, if it is to continue to lead other nations, it must do so less out of moral necessity and more by moral example.

The entire world is free to decide which socio-political system to adopt. America is increasingly being judged glo- bally, not by its military prowess, but by social conditions at home. It is humbling for the world’s most productive industrial nation to have a poverty rate twice that of any other industrial nation, and to be singled out by international agencies as a world leader in child poverty and youth homicides.

While no ideology appears to com- pete with the dominance and increasing popularity of democratic capitalism as the best system to satisfy human aspira- tions, the picture is by no means that simple. The factors leading to human conflict that have re-emerged around the globe - and even at home - in recent years are the ancient forces of race, ethnicity, religion, and nationalism. They represent some of the most vexing fis- sures that have marked the human land- scape since the beginning of time, and are the kind that democracies have proved ill-adept at managing.

Democratic capitalism has vindi-

cated itself in surviving repeated chal- lenges during the 20th century, whether depression at home or ideological challenge abroad. But how sufficient is economic advancement, many are asking, if crime defies control, and if children have lost their innocence in an adversarial culture of violence and banality? When a society becomes completely indifferent to the need to safeguard its own children from harm and lets one in four fall into poverty, it risks losing its status as world leader.

Voicing worry about the status of American society involves risk. One can easily be tagged a pessimist, a declinist or a nostalgist. Such talk seems out of place in America for the simple reason that we have always been an optimistic nation; pessimism is almost un-American. So- cial historians have described America as a country that fundamentally lacks a tragic sense.

The United States has always passed through difficult transitions with unbroken resolve, confident that our civi- lization stands above the immutable laws of history which seem to assure that nations wane as surely as they wax. Ameri- cans have been reminded again and again by their leaders that, come what may, we are a people of destiny; economic prosperity at home and privileged status in the world are assured almost as a matter of birthright. But growing numbers of American leaders are apparently taking exception to this American ”exceptionalism.” In fact, some fear that if our internal vulnerabilities are left un- attended, we may succumb to those laws

120 SPRING 1995 NATIONAL CIVlC REVIEW

of history America has defied for over two centuries. Unlike some of our Euro- pean counterparts, countries held together by racial and ethnic homogeneity, long histories, or strong ancestry, the United States is held together by a set of ideals and values. The glue that holds the United States together is of the kind that, with neglect, could grow fragile.

As we near the end of a century and a millennium, the United States is embarking upon a collective search for its national soul. The country is in the midst of profound changes in demo- graphics, technology and the structure of society. The great projects that stirred nationalist spirits in the past - whether settling frontiers, defeating international communism or launching “great societies” -have either been accomplished or were tried and failed.

The debate for the balance of this decade, and perhaps well into the next century, will focus on a modern paradox: How can a society that has produced more freedom and prosperity than any other in history, and has been so gener- ous in its distribution, also increasingly lead the world in so many categories of social pathology? Many realize that politics alone has not effected what Ameri- cans prize the most: a humane and civi- lized society. Neither the welfare state nor a surging capitalism has solved many of society’s persistent problems; in fact, each has contributed to the corrosion of civil society and its institutions. When the mediating structures of society - families, churches, communities, and voluntary associations - are weakened to

the breaking point, individuals are increasingly left isolated and vulnerable within an ever-expanding state. Neither the conservative mantra of ”more mar- kets” nor the liberal song of stronger ”safety nets” in an expanded state has proved adequate.

Forces of modernity, more than politics, have produced much of society’s fragmentation and rootlessness. Social thinkers have long recognized the pre- cariousness of society. The magnetic forces of cooperation and solidarity can quickly be replaced by the centrifugal tendency to abandon attachment and obligation. These pressures have been particularly acute during our era, a time sociologist Daniel Bell has characterized as “a rage against order” because of its steady undermining of voluntary institutions and restraints.

THE SEARCH FOR NORMATIVE VALUES America, the undisputed military and economic leader of the globe, shows every sign of being under immense social strain, as evidenced by the status of its cities, schools, families, and youth - problems which seem largely unaffected by changes in politics or the national economy. Many observers argue that the crisis that has come to former totalitarian countries may well come to the liberal West as well. Futurist Richard Eckersley attributes social disintegration throughout the West to a failure to provide a sense of “meaning, belonging and purpose in our lives as well as a framework of values. Robbed of a broader meaning to our lives, we have entered an era of




often pathological self-preoccupation.”’ What happens to the society that

has beensevered fromits underpinnings, in which faith, culture and politics have become fragmented and devoid of meaning and citizens have lost a shared basis for a common life together? The result is the loss of community, a declining social order, the erosion of trust in authority, and the increased assertion of human passion through power rather than rea- soned judgment.

As sociologist Peter Berger has said, excessive relativism produces a painful sense of impermanence and uncertainty. When relativism reaches a certain inten- sity, ”absolutism becomes very attrac- tive again” as people ”seek liberation from relativism.”* For growing numbers throughout the Western world, the des- perate search for meaning and belonging ends in the total subjugation of the self in fanatical nationalism and fundamental- ism.

John Gardner states starkly: ”With- out the continuity of shared values that community provides, freedom can not survive. Undifferentiated masses never have and never will preserve freedom against usurping power^."^ The answer, according to Gardner, is to strengthen the intermediary structures of society in order to close the gap between the indi- vidual and state and fortify families and communities which are the ground-level generators and preservers of values and ethical systems.

The challenge is to restore an or- dered freedom and to resist abuses of either freedom or order. Some have used

freedom to advance a radical expressive individualism that completely dismisses concern for the moral ecology of society. Conversely, the abusive reach for order has made its debut in growing cases of warrantless searches, vigilantism, and the National Guard being summoned to po- lice urban housing projects.

This project of restoring anordered freedom will require shoring up personal and civic values and treating the stress fractures on the institutions of civil society. If America suffers from a poverty of spirit, it suffers even more from a loss of language to address declining public life and common values. The language em- bodying the concepts of personal and public virtue has been eradicated. Tradi- tionalist scholar John Howard has docu- mented the broad segment of vocabulary along with the concepts they embodied that have simply been rendered obsolete on American soil. Modesty, decency, probity, rectitude, honor, politeness, virtue, magnanimity, and propriety are words that - along with their opposites, such as shame and disgrace - have dis- appeared from common usage. ”They don’t even enter into the calculus of public discussion and decision making.”4

Perhaps words like probity and rectitude bespoke the mentality of an era that is now gone forever and one to which few would prefer to return if given the choice. But they were words that con- ferred approval or disapproval on be- havior that was thought good or bad for a healthy society. And they embodied respect for others.

The language of the 20th century,

122 SPRING 1995 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW

by contrast, treats personal and civic virtue as though they were purely private concerns. The language of public life is the dialect of the quantifiable, the ratio- nal, the scientific, and the technical - language of calculation and control, but not language of values and meaning. It is a dialect that suits well the designers and managers of the paradigm of the present age.

Americans of good will who seek to escape from the sterility of modern secular society are handicapped by the absence of a shared framework for discussing core American values. While secularism has not supplied public life in America with a sense of meaning and purpose, sectarianism has framed spiri- tual restoration largely in terms of politics and power. Secularists and sectar- ians alike have come to understand and explain social reality in the context of power and, thus, resist attempts to tran- scend politics and find common ground in building a better, less political society.

The emergence of religious and ideological wars in America only points to the collapse of American public philosophy. In reality, Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart. G.K. Chesterton said that America was built upon a unique ”creed,” a creed so domi- nant that it was set forth ”with dogmatic and even ideological lucidity” in our founding documents.

Nations are said to live by their myths. What binds America together are the ideas that live on - its myths, history, and its still unfolding story. Is there an American creed around which Ameri-

cans can unify in the late 20th century, or will centrifugal forces continue to gain strength? What are the myths and stories of America as a land of imagination and opportunity? What informs our attitudes and shapes our political sentiments? Is there an American memory that stretches, as Abraham Lincoln said, like a ”mysti- cal chord” from “every patriot grave and battlefield to every heart and hearthstone in America”? Or have Americans, as is often alleged, become self-absorbed, ani- mated mostly by the promise of more rights and entitlements than by calls to civic duty?

The anxiety about the current rush to debunk the myths that nurture a nation come from across the political spectrum. Conservative Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan decries the ”compulsive skepticism” of the modern mind that only feeds cynicism. Liberal scholar Arthur Schlesinger Jr. worries that “the historic idea of a unifying American identity is now in peril in many arenas - in our politics, our voluntary organizations, our churches, our language.” He believes the end result will be ”the fragmentation, resegregation and tribalization of Ameri- can life.”5 Free societies must be replen- ished with things that classical philoso- phers would describe as ”pre-political,” those things that aremore important than and prior to politics and economics. Given the nature of our dilemma, America appears to be entering one of those phases again.

Even though the visible signs continue to point toward social balkanization, a new paradigm which will draw people




in from across the political spectrum is slowly being born. The Ancient Greek word paradigm means a new model, or framework, for how we “see” problems in society. And so it is with the paradigm that is emerging: It is being constructed almost entirely on the basis of how Ameri- cans and their leaders choose to see and understand root causes of America’s social and democratic problems. People are not moving so much to the Left or to the Right as they are moving out of old categories and old ways of looking at problems. Civic renewal is a different enterprise from that of winning elections for one’s ideological or partisan point of view.

We may assume that in the century immediately ahead, the forces for syn- thesis will gain strength and steadilycom- Pete with the forces of polarization. Grow- ing numbers will turn away from the false choices that are so frequently pre- sented in fragmented, ideologically driven politics: extreme moralism versus extreme secularism, feminism versus traditionalism, individualism versus communitarianism, and so on.

When the realization emerges that what America needs, above all else, is civic revitalization, then growing numbers will also come to accept that what America does not need is a lot more of what is currently being offered in public debate - more capitalism or anti-capitalism, more political Left or political Right, more government or less government. Americans can afford to be partial on all these points, and still conclude that what America really needs is an all-fronts

mobilization of individuals to improve the social and moral infrastructure of the nation.

CONCLUSION Chief among the objectives of this move- ment will be forging a new consensus on the basic values upon which a free society rests. Citizens and leaders from all sectors of society will be needed to re- build American greatness around the tri- pod of character, community and culture.

The task will be difficult. It will, of necessity, involve a debate over values: a debate which can either divide or unify, attract or repel, depending on whether the antagonists in that debate have in mind forging a new American public philosophy or simply winning partisan squabbles.

The objective of ethical renewal is the renewal of people and their social institutions, not just government. It will require reasserting certain core values, which will necessitate doing away with radical, ethical pluralism, which holds that no ideal is superior to another and that building the good society can be done without any basic agreement on the rules. This project will not be accomplished through the heavy-handed power of the state, but through the voluntary value-shaping institutions of America.

America needs a new venue for discussing values, one less dominated by partisan politicians, and a new language, more civic and less sectarian, more civil and less belligerent. Anxiety over public and private morality runs across the po-

124 SPRING 1995 NATIONAL ClVIC REVIEW


litical spectrum, and there is much at stake for everyone, regardless of religion or ideology. The debate concerns the kind of society all Americans, conserva-

c“R tive or liberal; live in.

NOTES ‘Richard Eckersley, “The West’s Deepen- ing Cultural Crisis,” The Futurist, No- vember-December 1993, p. 10.

2Peter L. Berger, A Far Glory: The Questfor Faith in an Age of Continuity (New York:

The Free Press, 1992), p. 45.

3John W. Gardner, Building Community (Washington, D.C.: INDEPENDENT SECTOR, 1991), p. 5.

4John A. Howard, “A Sure Compass,’’ published by the Rockford Institute, 1992, p. 6.

5Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disunit- ing ofAmerica: Reflections on a Multicul t ural Society (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1992), p. 17. I

NATIONAL C M C REVIEW SPRING 1995 125

the quest for a civil society

Documents