I touched on civic engagement in Part 1. Here, I look at why civic engagement is important – even crucial – for a republic.
John Adams recognized the need for citizens to engage in the political process, in the heady days of the American Revolution. He understood that citizens could not take to the sidelines and yet have the colonies find success in their struggle to overthrow British rule. In an April 16, 1776 letter to Mercy Otis Warren, Adams wrote, “There must be a positive Passion for the public good… or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty.”
The Greeks framed “civic virtue” as requiring individuals to sacrifice their private interests to the public good. This is a rather reductive view of what should be labeled “civic engagement.” Civic engagement is more expansive, one wherein the good life requires a citizenry to be actively and vigilantly engaged in the political arena to uphold, protect and maintain liberties and sovereignty, increase government accountability and responsiveness, and combat the corruption that undermines citizens’ liberties. In the Founding Era, civic engagement was seen as a crucial and necessary counter to arbitrary authority and power. There is no sacrifice here: Citizens may find they have no private interests if they do not engage.
Liberty is the freedom from unnecessary restraints, to be sure, but it is also the freedom to participate in political action, the initiative that serves to check the ever-expansive political and economic interests that threaten our liberties. Liberty requires responsibilities, and those responsibilities are not only individual, but also civic.
Characteristics of civic engagement include:
♣ The desire for trustworthy information
♣ The virtue to participate
♣ The duty of social engagement
♣ The art of compromise
In the Founding Era, American society placed a low emphasis on personal indulgence, yet the Founders’ prescience regarding the ills of hyperindividualism are eye opening. The Founders did not consider isolated self-interest a sufficient basis for citizenship, nor did the state exist solely for the protection of individual pursuits of private happiness; this was but one of many important roles. “Classical republicanism regards this merely economic man as less than fully human,” observed historian Lance Banning. “Assuming a certain tension between public good and private desires, it (republicanism) will identify the unrestrained pursuit of purely private interests as incompatible with preservation of a commonwealth (e.g., a democratic republic).” In order for a republic to survive, homo civicus must coincide with homo economicus, and Adams recognized this in an 1819 letter to Thomas Jefferson. With his wry sense of humor, Adams inquired into the control of self-indulgence: “Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, Vice and folly?” (for the answer, click here).
Political scientist Isaac Kramnick noted that Americans are fundamentally individualistic and are not devoted to civic engagement. Likewise, political scientist Louis Hartz argued that we as a nation find a predilection towards John Locke because his property-oriented classical liberalism supported the materialistic goals of Americans (assuming one accepts this interpretation of Locke1). These are observations, not unfounded accusations. But to remain attuned to one’s materialistic pursuits and turn an apathetic eye towards our present ills – in our society, government and economy – portends the dissolution of our American republic ideals. (See “Rejection of tyrannical political power” for more details.)
Civic engagement, under our present structure, is difficult. Realities require our primary engagement with the Federal government, yet it takes savvy organizing, national press attention and large amounts of funding to formulate a meaningful challenge. If more of the responsibilities of government were driven to the local and state level, one finds it easier to mount grassroots campaigns for or against issues, allowing the voice of citizens to be heard and reckoned with, but only when that educated citizenry engages in meaningful numbers.
During the Founding Era, the call of anti-federalist republicanism for a minimal central government finds its meaning here. With local and state governments as the primary interface with citizens, the state becomes more immediate, more transparent, and less able to hide behind doors of massive, inexplicable and daunting bureaucracies. (see my page on “Limited central government” for more details.)
In the end, any arguments under the umbrella of small-r republicanism must derive from individual responsibility and civic engagement, not from blind trust in an all-powerful state to address the ills of society while citizens pursue their materialistic goals and abandoned the public forum.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, in June 1783, George Washington wrote a letter to the governors of the States, wishing to set the tone for the next step in our country’s development. He bluntly placed civic engagement into perspective:
“At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be intirely [sic] their own.”
1Locke was not the champion of hyperindividualism many seem to make him out to be. For example, from the eighth chapter, sec. 96, of Two Treatises of Government, we find: “For when any number of Men have, by the consent of every individual, made a Community, they have thereby made that Community one Body, with a Power to Act as one Body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority.” This does not suggest Locke was a closet socialist. However, it balances Locke’s belief in individual, inalienable and natural rights with responsibilities to the community. Locke never supported the idea of an individual’s license – that is, the ability to undertake whatever one desires, regardless of consequences to others or to society – and frequently speaks out against license in Two Treatises.
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