Civil society has been described as an “immune system against cultural disease.” But much of it has been infected by the same virus that produces the disease—a loss of moral integrity and purpose. What is required, then, is not only the revitalization of civil society but its reform and remoralization—the reform of those institutions that parody government agencies, and the remoralization of those that have lost their moral focus.The distinction between civil society and the "state" seems to be a recent one, coupled to the development of the modern nation-state. Is it at all a useful tool in the analysis of polities? Or does the science of politics need to start at, well, with the principles, rather than with the assumption of the nation-state as an ideal form? The classical distinction would be between the community and the ruler(s), no? How are they united into one body? Why should we accept Lockaen liberal political theory as the basis for our analysis of what ails us? Reading Locke should be on my list of things to do, but I can't muster the enthusiasm for it.
This is a formidable challenge, inspiring us to recall those to whom we are indebted for the idea of civil society and whom we now cite in support of it. It is to Locke, of course, that we owe the distinctively modern concept of a civil society that mediates between the individual and the state. But it is not quite the individual and the state that figure in Locke’s trinity. It is the “state of nature” and “political society” that are on either side of “civil society.” This is not a trivial semantic point. The “state of nature,” as Locke describes it, is more fearsome than the “individual,” and “political society” less formidable than the “state.” Moreover, in Locke’s account, civil society has a close relationship to political society, almost overlapping with it, as opposed to the state of nature, which is always in sharp contrast to civil society: “Those who are united into one body and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another; but those who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature.”
Similarly, Tocqueville’s “voluntary associations,” which we sometimes equate with civil society, are not as exclusively within the domain of civil society as we might suppose. Tocqueville has the highest regard for these associations which are unique to America—but not unique to civil society. On the contrary, the genius of American democracy is the proliferation of “political associations” as well as “civil associations,” and, more important, the intimate relationship between them, the civil being dependent upon the vitality of the political. “In all countries where political associations are forbidden, civil associations are rare. . . . Thus civil associations pave the way for political ones, but on the other hand, the art of political association singularly develops and improves this technique for civil purposes.”Tocqueville may be admired by some American "conservatives," but was he not also a liberal? (Just as they are, I suppose.) Can his observations of American society be said to be from the viewpoint of a liberal? In his native Europe was he already born into the loss of true, rooted communities formed through shared history and life? That is to say, does he recognize that a polity must be exist in accordance with the proper scale?
Today, in our anxiety about the excesses of individualism and statism, we may find ourselves looking upon civil society not merely as a corrective to those excesses but as a be-all and end-all, a sanctuary in itself, a sufficient habitat for the human spirit. What our forefathers impress upon us is a more elevated as well as a more dynamic view of civil society, one that exists in a continuum with “political society”—that is, government—just as “civil associations” do with “political associations,” “private affections” with “public affections,” and, most memorably, the “little platoon” with “a love to our country and to mankind.” This is civil society properly understood (as Tocqueville would say), a civil society rooted in all that is most natural and admirable—family, community, religion—and that is also intimately related to those other natural and admirable aspects of life, country and humanity.Civil society refers to families, communities, churches, workplaces, formal and informal associations, in distinction from the state. But is there one sort of community which is superior to the rest? Himmelfarb wants to say that some problems cannot be solved by civil society but must be addressed by the state, and that "civil society itself has turned out to be a more complicated and ambiguous entity than might be supposed. Indeed, it is sometimes complicit in the problems it purports to solve." Are these problems not due to "civil society" but because of the loss of community and any power that it might have within the modern nation-state?
AmConMag: Tyranny of Merit
ecp gives a summary of the constitutional issues behind the WBTS. Meanwhile PR for Steven Spielberg's Abraham Lincoln movie continues to unfold --
Twitch: SPIELBERG'S LINCOLN LOOKS VERY ... HISTORICAL
Film School Rejects
From last year: Spielberg Talks ‘Lincoln’ Timeline & Planned Release Date
We should be getting a trailer soon?
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