Civic Virtue and Civil Society

For decades, the idea of civil society was of interest mainly to scholars. Now quite suddenly, the term has taken on political importance. Whatever the problem, from fragmenting families to declining voter turnout, Democrats and Republicans increasingly point to civil society as the solution. But while strengthening civil society is certainly part of the answer, there is more to our cultural and moral devastation than even a vibrant society can solve.

Civil society refers to those aspects of society that are independent of both the state and the market. Examples include families, civic and religious associations, unions, political parties and so on. For centuries, social thinkers have argued that a vibrant civil society is a good thing and, for a democracy, even a necessary thing, for it helps us to achieve two essential social objectives: Citizens coming together as groups help temper the power and reach of the state; and, while these groups have their own identities and aims, they also help cultivate the norms of the larger society, including the habits of good citizenship.

Historically, a vital civil society accounted for our nation’s exceptionalism and much of our strength. But America’s civil society is not what it used to be. In the past generation, families have disintegrated and participation has fallen dramatically in neighborhood groups, civic and political clubs, churches, PTAs and volunteer organizations. Many therefore conclude that the collapse of civil society is largely responsible for the sorry state of American society. Intractable problems of crime, drugs and the underclass; escalating violence in the media and our streets; a shrill and belligerent political climate; rising tensions between races and classes; the evaporation of even the most basic social courtesies--all these examples of our unraveling social fabric ostensibly result from a collapsed civil society.

Politicians of all stripes now argue that we must renew civil society in order to renew American society. This argument takes two distinct forms. One can be seen in the Republicans’ political agenda, which holds that government has taken on too much power; it has assumed tasks that it cannot do well and compromised the strength and spirit of those nongovernmental institutions that can do them well. Only a devolution of federal power and the simultaneous rejuvenation of civil society can restore the proper alignment, the Republicans argue.

The second objective relates to the decay of our nation’s moral core. If, despite our differences, we cannot agree to a common foundation of virtues, values and norms, our society literally cannot function. We must therefore rebuild those institutions which reinforce and cultivate that foundation. A recivilized, remoralized American culture requires a restored civil society.

Civil society advocates believe that these two goals are of a piece: A robust civil society will secure pluralism and instill civic virtue. Unfortunately, I doubt that a rebirth of civil society can possibly live up to this billing.

The Michigan Militia and the Nation of Islam are certainly examples of civil society. To say the least, these organizations stand against the power of the state. But despite their self-professed moral rectitude, they do not foster what most Americans would call civility, let alone advance a public moral consensus. There are any number of neighborhood associations that reflect the call for a “new localism” but are organized around a barely hidden segregationist agenda. In both instances, the dynamic expression of civil society not only does not alleviate our society’s moral failings, it manifests and reinforces them.

Examples like these have always been around. But in the past, regrettable expressions of civil society were tempered by, or at least contested by, a shared set of values and beliefs. In the 1850s, Lincoln invoked the moral principles in the Declaration of Independence to repudiate the anti-immigrant position of the Know-Nothings. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to the very same principles to bring down the social ethos of Jim Crow.

These examples show that the institutions of civil society have never been sufficient to maintain a healthy democracy. Americans also need a set of regulative moral principles, a shared moral sense that can help us distinguish between good and bad civil society. These principles constitute the American public moral consensus.

Like civil society itself, this consensus has also fallen on hard times; it is no longer the moderating and sustaining force that it was. But if the American public moral consensus itself is anemic, civil society cannot be expected to revitalize it. The institutions of civil society cannot produce civic virtue without a strong common notion of what civic virtue is.

Certainly, we must strengthen American civil society. But in order to renew American society, our nation’s core of values and beliefs must be rearticulated and inforced. This means, among other things, that we must acknowledge and accommodate the religious language and imagery that is abundant in our nation’s moral heritage. In the contemporary climate, this is a daunting task. Indeed, an air of ideological division and frenzied sectarianism may help to explain the unrealistic hopes now associated with the idea of civil society. But we have no choice. The renewal of American society requires that we attend not only to our institutions but also to our deepest beliefs.