Civic Engagement
Religion and American Civil Society
The exercise of faith serves many functions, but its paramount role is to function as the foundation of civil society.
Tag: Civil Society
Civic Engagement
On Shared Vision and a New Social Compact
Civic engagement and community voice make up the secret sauce of US democracy. We need a new, community-generated social compact to assert the vision and policy framework for an inclusive 21st-century America.
Civic Engagement
Civic Virtues and the Healing of Partisan Divides
In a time when many are drawing a line between communities and ideologies, the best line to draw is one that goes right through every human heart—a line that leads to five essential civic virtues.
Nonprofits & NGOs
Does the Tax Code Define Civil Society or Vice Versa?
Civil society wasn’t invented by the tax code, but changes in the law can have serious, if unintended, consequences on the public good. Nothing is final, however; with change comes new opportunity.
Civil Society
What Motivates People to Participate in Civil Society?
Every year tens of millions of Americans sacrifice their personal time and resources to participate in civil society in some way. Why do they do it? The answers are varied and intertwined, but it might boil down to this: Civic-mindedness starts early, runs deep, and aims higher.
Leadership
Who Defines the ‘Good’ in ‘Common Good’?
If a “good” is held to be common, then surely that decision must come from community. Too often the community’s role is unexamined in this regard, but the intentionality of one Native culture in defining and protecting the common good might serve as an example to us all.
Civic Engagement
Civil Society and Authentic Engagement in a Diverse Nation
Discourse and dialogue have always been the hallmarks of civil society, but when the power of government is used systematically to divide and exclude, it is the stinging conversations and actions at the leading edge of civil society that will reestablish the democratic ideals of an equitable democracy.
Civic Engagement
Parallel Universes? Lines and Ties in Civil Society
The history of America’s Hispanic community shows how civil society can create a refuge for those excluded from society at large. But allowing such demarcation lines is never good enough. For a civil society to be effective, sustainable, and worthy, it must tie together all who reside in that society.
Civic Engagement
The American Context of Civil Society
In both the conservative and progressive imagination, civil society is valued—for opposite reasons—as an arbiter between the individual and the national state. But by viewing civil society as the core of America’s social life, we can see our way toward a politics that might overcome some of the dysfunctions of our day.
Civic Engagement
Looking to Civil Society for the Values that Shape a Culture
Culture is born of values, and civil society is where people live values most urgently. Amid growing social isolation in the United States, a new set of values is emerging around community, healing, and belonging, and they will likely define an era.