Friday, September 21, 2007

Civically Disengaged















Frank Staheli said...

My dad and a lot of people were involved in the Lions' Club when I was growing up. I don't even know if it exists anymore. I know of one person in my city who USED to be a Lion, but I don't think he is anymore.

In the information age, I feel such a bombardment with a need to know everything (internet news and blogs, books, newspapers, etc.) that I don't think I would have time to be in such an organization. I've been invited to be in the Sons of Utah Pioneers, and it's a really neat organization, but so far, I've only been able to make it to one meeting in the last several months.

y-intercept said...

Those fuddy duddy old civic clubs will all die out soon. Civic mindedness is best manifested by mass protest demanding services from a centralized government than by groups that go out and does stuff.

Once we have socialized medicine, the need for all of the groups you named will mysteriously vanish. You just wait and see. It will be a paradise on earth.

Instead of leading balanced lives where we are involved in our communities. I think we should be burdened with really high taxes and have the government take care of us.

That getting involved in the community thing is best left to professional government paid employees.

Charles D said...

While I agree that Americans have become civically disengaged, that is hardly responsible for an increase in the desire to have government provide assistance to citizens. A cursory look at history will prove the exact opposite: the more Americans have been engaged with one another and in the political process, the more they have demanded that government respond to the needs of the people.

Charles D said...

To continue my prior comment, I think it is clear that the periods of strongest pressure from the citizenry to have government actually serve their needs (as proven by the fact that government responded) were during the Great Depression and during the height of the civil rights movement. Both eras exemplified citizen civic involvement at a high degree.

Civic disengagement does leave the political class without adequate checks and balances. However, the political class at present consists of those who fund the elections of our alleged representatives. That political class opposes further government assistance to individual citizens because it diminishes their potential profits. We appear to differ here in who we think is a member of the political class.

I would submit that the political system is run by those who pay for it, not by its consumers.

y-intercept said...


I am happy to see you figured out one of the paradoxes of big government. There is a moment of great civic involvement followed by a strong push for a single solution. Everybody is happy for a bit, then the next generations find that they are disenfranchised living with an oppressive system that cannot influence.

It is difficult to find something that is sustainable through the generations.

Charles D said...

Not so fast, Y. The oppressive system that cannot be influenced by the public is not a result of government programs to help the public. It is rare for an ordinary citizen to consider himself oppressed by a program that provides important benefits to him.

The programs are generally reversed because the public disengages again due to the fact that their lives have improved due to the government programs. Then the corporate lobbyists and right-wing ideologues move in and start cutting the program funding, appointing political hacks to run them, making it more difficult to obtain benefits, etc. Once they ruin the program through these efforts, they all yell "See, big government doesn't work" and kill the program.

Then the cycle begins again.