What is America's "Civic Man"

One day a few weeks ago, one saw a striking contrast. If one watched the news about protests in Greece, one saw cars burning and actual fighting in the street. Protests outside London also contained a certain amount of violence and looting. In several Arab spring protests, protests lead rather quickly to the toppling of regimes or violent crackdown on protests. The news in Bahrain, for instance, is quite scary.

For the most part, increased civic activism in this country has not led to violence, either in the form of looting or in the form of vast police brutality. While I don't mean to suggest that neither are present in this country, for the most part, thousand of Americans have engaged in protest during the past few years without fear of violence or prison.

We should not underestimate a fundamental reason for this. Americans, by in large, believe in the concept of the "civic man."

The notion of America's "civic man" was first described by DeToqueville's "Democracy in America," in which he wrote about township life: "Americans rightly think that patriotism is a sort of religion strengthened by practical service. Thus daily duties performed or rights excerised keep municipal life constantly alive. There is a continual gentle political activity which keeps society on the move without turmoil.” DeToqueville, Democracy in America, I, v.

In other words, for DeToqueville, the patriotic "civic man" is one actively involved in municipal life. Elsewhere in "Democracy in America," he indicated that he has in mind the New England town council as the optimal example of civic engagement, where all members of the community gather to sort out communal matters.

However, as DeToquiville points out, it isn't just the government's constitution that makes a democracy or the participants. It is also a "feeling that pervades the most trifling habits of life." Thus, he refers to debating clubs as the American substitute for theatrical entertainment.

The Declaration of Independence goes further in installing the concept of the civically engaged man. It says: "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Thus, as I have previously discussed in this blog, the Declaration defines the anticipated social contract between Americans and their soon-to-be-formed government. It describes an individual freely instituting government, with others, to seek safety and happiness, and to alter that government when such a government fails to meet the ends of safety and happiness.

Thus, America's civic man is one who is vigilant of his social contract and actively aware of his natural rights to alter his government, with the consent of others, to the extent that his safety and happiness is not met by the regime in existence.

DeToquiville, thus, in his seminal work "Democracy in America," describes how this work, and describes how America's civic man sees his ability to actively shape his society and government, engaging in civil civic action with others, patriotically engaged in civic life, and patriotically and peacefully seeking the alteration of institutions not meeting the citizen's current needs.

Thus, unlike in Egypt and in other places around the world, America's engaged civic man is no threat to the government at large. Toppling of "the regime" is not a concern. The American civic man cares deeply about the thriving of his citizen government. Thus, no matter how much radical change he advocates, he has no interest in disbanding the civil society that provides for the existence of democratic institutions.

This post is not designed to say something new, merely to reflect on what we already know, that serious democratic engagement is no challenge to our democratic society, but instead is an essential part of it, and when done propertly, reinforces our social contract and the very theme discussed by Jefferson and DeToquiville over two hundred years ago.