Our Civic Culture

“Now the trumpet summons us again–not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need–not as a call to battle, though embattled we are– but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”–a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.”

John F. Kennedy

The Civic Culture in concept, “Our” Civic Culture in practice, is just too important to ignore. Other than a few nerdy political scientists focused on the theory, structure, and the ways of governance, who’s heard of the “Civic Culture anyway?”  

For me, it goes back to my undergrad days. My academic focus was international relations (IR) and comparative politics. IR is self-explanatory while comparative politics needs a little explanation. Based upon quantitative and qualitative empirical analysis, it is the study, and comparison, of the socio-economic-political systems and techniques of democratic governance both within and between nations. Since it is a specialization within the greater academic field of political science, its utility, from theory, to organization, to practice, is in understanding how governmental power and authority is acquired, sanctioned, and retained. The moving parts, the process as it were, is what we call politics. In a free, equal, and self-ruling society, aka, a democracy, the resulting effects of politics decides “Who Gets What.”

Ok! I get it. But what about the “Civic Culture?” Where does that fit? The term itself was employed by professors Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba in their 1963 landmark text, The Civic Culture—Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. As it was comparative, it was required reading for us political science majors in 1969. In short, it’s a form of political culture and specific to democracies. 

“A civic culture or civic political culture is characterized by acceptance of the authority of the state and a belief in participation in civic duties.”

“The term civic culture is used to identify the political culture characteristics that explain the stability of a democratic society’s political structure.”

“Political culture is a set of shared views and normative judgments held by a population regarding its political system. The notion of political culture does not refer to attitudes toward specific actors, such as a president or prime minister, but rather denotes how people view the political system as a whole and their belief in its legitimacy.”

“Political culture is the composite of basic values, feelings, and knowledge that underlie the political process. Hence, the building blocks of political culture are the beliefs, opinions, and emotions of the citizens toward their form of government.”

In the spirit of not putting, you the reader to sleep, or at least not just yet, I will save the concepts and conclusions of Almond’s and Verba’s original thesis, their revisited edition published in 1980, and the compendium of more recent critiques as contained in the 2014 publication, The Civic Culture Transformed–From Allegiant to Assertive Citizens, for future discussions.

Given the growing levels of societal consternation within the United States and nations around the world, I believe a working knowledge of each nation’s civic culture is imperative in finding better ways of achieving democratic political stability.  When faith in the foundational institutions, systems, and formerly accepted processes of governance come into question, societies, including our own, risk becoming dysfunctional. That is a downward spiral that needs to be combated sooner than later. As individuals and members of the greater society, we no longer can afford our collective complacency in the name of self righteous indignation. How we collectively move ahead will show our contemporary Civic Culture. Hopefully, it will be shown by mature dialog.

In the meantime, take a look at what Almond and Verba state as some of the characteristics of a civic culture:

• One’s orientation towards his/her political system in both the political and governmental (administrative) sense
• Pride in aspects of one’s nation (Patriotism vs. Nationalism–Pride vs. Notions of Superiority)
• Expectation of fair treatment from government authorities
• Ability to talk freely and often about politics
• An emotional involvement in elections
• Tolerance towards opposition parties
• A Valuing of active participation in local government activities, parties, and in civic associations
• Self-confidence in one’s competence to join in politics
• Civic cooperation and trust
• Membership in the political associations.

Some Thoughts of My Own–

“As most of us are aware, our society is once again at a crossroads. A common understanding of our civic culture, our civic responsibility if you will, has to be integral in the psyche of every American. I would submit, the discovery, or even the rediscovery, of our national identity is a good place to start. This is not about gratuitous flag waving or the all to easy commentary: “Thank You for Your Service.” No, this will take sincere effort. It’s a search for us. A search for America.“

• Our Civic Culture is endangered or at the very least, becoming unrecognizable.
• The nations historic internal struggle between our liberal, illiberal, and even anti-liberal tendencies continue.
• We the people have to find the continuing illusive balance between egalitarianism and equality with freedom and individual liberty. (It’s the central challenge facing all democractic systems)
• Regardless of race, creed, color, or gender, the nation needs to rediscover the strength behind the term “E Pluribus Unum.”
• Historic religious intolerance continues–The Founders were well aware of the consequences of the mixing of church and state.
• Unrelenting vitriol, whether purposeful, thoughtless, or just plane releckless, is a distraction that only serves to demean and weaken society.
• The nation, and those that are active in the various media platforms, have to stop manipulating the past to suit his/her cognitive biases.
• Collectively, the nation needs to celebrate its strengths, victories, and accomplishments while acknowledging and taking responsibility for its errors, omissions, and transgressions.
• Society needs to demand of itself a comprehensive educational system that embraces socratic thinking–This means questioning our assumptions, participating in adult conversations, and placing equal value on the humanities and social sciences with the acquisition of the applied skill sets that are appurtenant to STEM.
• A nation adrift, one that is abhorrently ignorant in the concepts of its own civic responsibility and its own history, becomes rootless and susceptible to the not so subtle nuances of authoritarianism, fascism, and totalitarianism. That same nation risks becoming dysfunctional.

To quote Peter Drucker–

“Man in his social and political existence must have a functioning society just as he must have air to breathe in his biological existence. Nevertheless, the fact that man has to have a society does not necessarily mean that he has it. Nobody calls the mass of unorganized, panicky, stampeding humanity in a shipwreck a “society.” There is no society, though there are human beings in a group. Actually, the panic is directly due to the breakdown of a society; and the only way to overcome it is by restoring a society with social values, social discipline, social power, and social organization.”