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Community, Diversity, and Civic Education: Toward a Liberal PoliticalScience of Group Life*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Stephen Macedo
Affiliation:
Political Science, Syracuse University

Extract

Although liberals too often forget it, the health of the liberal publicorder depends on our ability to constitute not only political institutions and limits on power, but appropriate patterns of social lifeand citizen character. Liberal character traits and political virtuesdo not, after all, come about “naturally” or by the deliverance of an “invisible hand.” Even Adam Smith did not think that, as we will see below. Harry Eckstein gets closer to themark by suggesting that “stable governments…are the productof 'accidental' (extremely improbable) conjunctions of conditions which do sometimes, but rarely, occur in actual societies.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1996

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References

1 Harry, Eckstein, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Monograph No. 10, 961), p. 47.Google Scholar

2 Plato, , The Republic, trans. Allan, Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968)Google Scholar;Rousseau, Jean–Jacques, On the Social Contract, trans. and ed. Donald, Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983).Google Scholar

3 Tocqueville's, Alexis de well–known argument is found, ofcourse, in Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, ed. Mayer, J. P. (New York: Doubleday, 1969).Google Scholar

4 Burtt, Shelley, “The Politics of Virtue Today: A Critique and Proposal,” American Political Science Review, vol. 87 (1993), p. 363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 I have made this argument at greater lengthelsewhere; see my “Liberal Civic Education and Religious Fundamentalism: The Case of God v. John Rawls?” Ethics, vol. 105 (April 1995), pp. 468–96.

6 This section is greatly indebted to Samuel Fleischacker's searching criticisms of two earlier drafts, for which I am extremely grateful.

7 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Campbell, R. H., Skinner, A. S., and Todd, W. B. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), vol. 2, V.i.f, pp. 782, 781.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 788.

9 Ibid., p. 785.

11 Ibid., p. 786; ibid., vol. 2, V.i.g, p. 796.

12 Ibid., vol. 2, V.i.f, pp. 786–88.

13 Ibid., p. 788.

14 Ibid. Smith uses the term “sect” broadly to include “antient and established systems” (p. 789), as well as Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism.

15 Ibid., vol. 2, V.i.g, p. 794.

16 Ibid., pp. 794–95.

17 Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Raphael, D. D. and Macfie, A. L. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), I.iii.2.2, p. 51.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 55.d

20 Ibid., I.iii.2.7, p. 57.

21 Ibid., I.iii.2.2, p. 51.

22 Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.i.g, p. 795.

23 Ibid., pp. 773–74; Smith, Theoryof Moral Sentiments, VI.ii.1.10, p. 222.

24 Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.i.f., p. 771.

25 Ibid., vol. 2, V.i.g., p. 796; see also Smith, Theory ofMoral Sentiments, VI.i.4, pp. 212–17.

26 Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.i.g, p. 789.

27 Ibid., p. 790. The term “hussars” refers to members of European light cavalry units.

28 David Hume, History of England (1778), iii.30–31, quoted in ibid., p. 791.

30 Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.i.g., p. 806.

31 Ibid., pp. 792–93.

32 Ibid., pp. 798–99.

33 Madison, James, “Federalist No. 10,” in The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton, Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961), p. 77.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., p. 84. Later in “Federalist No. 10,” Madison hearkens back to Smith even more closely (though I cannot say consciously) when he says that “a religious sect may degenerate into a political faction” in a small political unit, but a “variety of sects” dispersed across a large nation are less to be feared (ibid.).

35 Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.i.f, p. 767; ibid., vol. 2, II.V.i.g, p. 796.

36 Ibid., II.V.i.g, p. 793.

37 Ibid., p. 795.

38 Ibid., p. 796.

39 Ibid., pp. 810–12. I owe this observation to Samuel Fleischacker. One might also worry, of course, that Smith here points (albeit unwittingly) toward today's rather sharp divide (sometimes called a culture war) between university professors and other intellectuals on the one hand, and common people more closely aligned with a popular clergy not associated with elite educational institutions.

40 Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.i.g, pp. 802–3.

41 Ibid., p. 798.

43 This policy is not, of course, neutral with respect to religious beliefs; but then I do not believe that the liberal state should be committed to neutrality, and I argue for this in Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 260–63. I discuss these conflicts at greater length in “Liberal Civic Education and Religious Fundamentalism” (supra note 5).

44 Durkheim, Emile, Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1957), p. 65.Google Scholar

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46 Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society, p. 32, and see, more generally, pp. 30–62.

47 Ibid., p. 62.

48 Kornhauser here builds on Durkheim:

[O]ur political malaise is due to the same cause as our social malaise: that is, to the lack of secondary cadres to interpose between the individual and the State. We have seen that these secondary groups are essential if the State is not to oppress the individual: they are also necessary if the State is to be sufficiently free of the individual. And indeed we can imagine this as suiting both sides; for both have an interest in the two forces not being in immediate contact although they must be linked one with the other. (Durkheim, Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, p. 96)

49 Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society, pp. 43–49.

50 Ibid., p. 81. Kornhauser also emphasizes (ibid., pp. 65–66) that citizens actively involved in local group life are less apathetic and more self-confident, as Tocqueville claimed (see Democracy in America, passim).

51 Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society, pp. 80–81.

52 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 319–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, p. 517.

54 Ibid., p. 520.

55 See Coleman, James S., Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 300–21;Google Scholar and Putnam, Robert D., Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch.6Google Scholar

56 Putnam, Making Democracy Work, pp. 167–68.

57 Ibid., p. 169.

59 Ibid., pp. 171–72.

60 Eric M. Uslaner, “Trends in Comity over Time” (unpublished manuscript).

61 I discuss this problem in Liberal Virtues, pp. 133–42.

62 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 163.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., p. 49. There are other aspects of reasonableness for Rawls (see ibid., pp. 81–82), but they are not germane to my argument.

64 Ibid., pp. 49–50; see also pp. 16–17; and in Rawls, , A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971),Google Scholar“the basic idea [of reasonableness] is one of reciprocity, a tendency to answer in kind. … [T]his tendency is a deep psychological fact” (p. 494). Reasonable people are what Margaret Levy describes as “contingent consenters,” in her important workin-progress about the nature of social cooperation, Contingencies of Consent.

65 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 86.

67 Ibid., p. 163. Experiencing the benefits of cooperation on fair terms aids the transition from a “modus vivendi” to a principled political settlement.

68 Ibid., p. 157.

69 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 475, 470.

70 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 84.

71 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pp. 525–28.

72 Putnam, Robert D., “Bowling Alone: Democracy in America at the End of the Twentieth Century, ” Journal of Democracy, vol. 6 (1995), pp. 6578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Uslaner, “Trends in Comity over Time.”

74 Duneier, Mitchell, Slim's Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 96100Google Scholar and passim.

75 Beito, David, “Mutual Aid for Social Welfare: The Case of American Fraternal Societies,” Critical Review, vol. 4, no. 4 (1990), p. 711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 Ibid., pp. 712–13.

77 Before the Depression, fraternal societies dominated the health-insurance market (atleast among the working classes). Lodge doctors were hired to care for members for a set fee (ibid., pp. 716–17).

78 The Illinois Health Insurance Commission estimated in 1919 that 93.5 percent of black families in Chicago had at least one member with life insurance – followed by Bohemians (88.9 percent), Poles (88.4 percent), Irish (88.5 percent), and native whites (85.2 percent). Rates of insurance coverage for blacks were even higher in Philadelphia (ibid., pp. 718–19).

79 Ibid., p. 713.

80 Ibid., p. 722.

81 Ibid., p. 720.

82 Ibid., p. 722.

83 Ibid. See also Beito, David, “Mutual Aid, State Welfare, and Organized Charity: Fraternal Societies and the ‘Deserving’ and ‘Undeserving’ Poor, 1890–1930,” Journal of Policy History, vol. 5, no. 4 (1993), pp. 419–34, esp. p. 429.Google Scholar

84 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pp. 520–22.

85 See Ranney, Austin, “The Political Parties: Reform and Decline,” in The New American Political System, ed. Anthony, King (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1980), p. 247.Google Scholar

86 Alexander, Christopher et al., A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 43, 50Google Scholar, and passim.

87 Coleman, James S. and Hoffer, Thomas, Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities (New York: Basic Books, 1987), p. 217.Google Scholar

88 See Hill, Paul T., Foster, Gail E., and Gendler, Tamar, High Schools with Character (Santa Monica: Rand, 1990), pp. 1520, 54–56Google Scholar, and passim. Reform could allow public schools to develop the norms of small societies and the kinds of mechanisms we associate with Catholic schools: uniforms, strict rules about lateness and attendance, and a distinctive sense of mission that is shared by administration, teachers, and students. Of course, the power of teachers' unions is one major obstacle to reform: principals must be freer to select and dismiss staff. Hill et al. suggest that low teacher pay is also a feature of schools with a focused, rather than generalized, sense of mission: it helps insure that teachers share the mission of the school and are not doing the job simply for the money (p. 20). All of this parallels the findings of some important studies of bureaucratic effectiveness; see Wilson, James Q., Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), esp. pp. 109–10, 366–68.Google Scholar

89 Chubb, John E. and Moe, Terry M., Politics, Markets, and America's Schools (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1990).Google Scholar

90 See the helpful discussion in Hardin, Russell, Morality within the Limits of Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 2.

91 Of course, one could say that the gains from cooperation are expected to come in the afterlife, and that the cooperative scheme is between sectarians and God.

92 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pp. 444–45; see also vol. II, Part II, ch. 14.