Growth of Interest in Civil Society

I read with interest and amusement in “New Movement Plots More Civil Way of Living” (Dec. 15) that the Brookings Institution wishes to study “what ... has government done to erode ... neighborhood and community insti- tutions.”

Is it the government that wants to push wages so low that people must work two jobs or heavy overtime just to get by, and so are forced to neglect their families? Is it the government that keeps rents and property values as high as the market will bear?

Is it the government that exports jobs to low-wage countries, leading to wage slavery overseas and poverty at home, with attendant crime and disorder? Is it the government that fills our media with shallow entertainments that glorify violence, and with incessant ads for useless expensive consumer items, liquor and cigarettes?

Is it the government that sees the environment as nothing more than potential profit, to be exploited to the last cent? Is it the government that sees medicine as a foundation of profit rather than of civilization?

No, it is business.

Perhaps the Brookings Institution could better direct its energies toward seeing what the corporate world has been doing to destroy our culture, and how we can stop it before it takes over the government--if it hasn’t already.

RICHARD RISEMBERG

Los Angeles

* Finally, the long-standing erosion of community and “civility” has made front-page news. But how can we hope to make even the slightest dent in “shattered communities” or ending violence if we do not start by teaching children during their earliest years to care about, and for, each other?

Empathy is the key to a sense of community, to ending violence and war. Yet, empathy cannot be fostered as long as we persist in teaching our children by forcing them to compete with one another. In schools, children are either “winners” or “losers,” a child who is an “A” student is “better,” and therefore more worthy of our attention and love, than his/her neighbor, the “C” student.

Rather than spending millions on commissions to study the problem, let’s make a commitment to community by committing ourselves to cooperative, rather than competitive, learning. After up to 20 years of teaching children they belong in a hierarchy of value, how can we possibly expect them to be civil members of a “community”?

JEANNIE A. BREWER

Calabasas