Abstract: This double issue of The Good Society explores the democratic potential of two things that the democratic citizenry, at least here in the United States, increasingly mistrusts: their institutions and their fellow citizens. National, state, and local governments; schools, colleges, and universities; media platforms of all kinds; workplaces in the private, public, and independent sectors; all are viewed by growing numbers of Americans as creating or exacerbating rather than solving or mitigating the problems afflicting society. Meanwhile, growing numbers of Americans view those of differing views or values with suspicion, fear, and even hate.Simultaneously, however, many Americans—in smaller but also growing ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: We write this introduction as the world has changed in ways that few could have imagined less than ten months ago. Chief among them, the COVID-19 pandemic has tested our nation and the broader global community in immense ways. It has forced us to confront the vulnerabilities of systems that sustain our public health, the price and trade-offs associated with economic well-being, and the way that we care for our family, friends, and neighbors. Adding to this ongoing crisis, civil unrest has shaken the nation as both peaceful protests and destructive riots have swept across American cities in light of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died during an arrest by Minneapolis police. This tragic event—along with ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: We are in the midst of a convergence of social, political, and structural forces and changes in American society that seem to make inevitable the stagnation and decline that results from extreme affective polarization. We are seeing this now in the inability of the American people and political class to generate a unified response to a global pandemic. We see this in the rise of racial and social turmoil translating to political violence in American streets. We saw this in a presidential election whose legitimacy was challenged on partisan grounds. We are on pace for a rapid unraveling of our civic institutions upon a rising tide of social unrest. The solution to the problem of hyper polarization may not seem ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "Civility and Beyond: Institutions as Civic Catalysts," the symposium sponsored by the American Center for Political Leadership (ACPL) and held at Southeastern University January 8–10 2020, anticipated dramatic, overlapping, and cascading crises in American society. It also showed a promising path to recovery and beyond, by dramatically expanding understanding of what is democracy and who are its key agents.Two months after the symposium, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, COVID-19. The economy began to suffer economic decline and unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression. Later in the spring, demonstrations for police reform and racial justice emerged across the country in the ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: In 2015, MIT's Otto Scharmer observed that "as systems collapse, citizens rise."1 This dynamic is now playing out in spectacular fashion, as people around the world strive to reimagine and renew the failing systems on which our lives and livelihoods depend. We are beset by intertwined threats, ranging from invisible infections and inner despair to glaring violence and insidious climate catastrophes—all of which reveal the depth of our interdependence and the reality that no one can be truly safe and thrive while others are struggling and suffering. Moreover, contemporary commitment to America's founding ideals of a dignified and democratic way of life, in which everyone belongs and can contribute, has been eroding ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: In the United States, K–12 schools serve as an essential institution in creating an active and engaged democracy. This mission was born when Horace Mann helped create universal public schools in the late 1830s as part of the Common School Movement; in today's schools, students learn basic skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics, as well as civic skills to function as citizens in our democratic nation; for example, students gain knowledge about the structure, functions, and power of our representative democracy. They also learn the skills to participate as active and responsible citizens in a democracy. Such civic skills are necessary "for critical thinking and collective action, and they include speaking ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: Today the United States wrestles with multiple intense challenges: the COVID-19 pandemic and mass social protests against police violence around black and brown people. These are converging as well in the midst of a deeply consequential 2020 election for the presidency, congressional seats, as well as state and local positions. What makes this matrix of challenge particularly interesting is how deeply they intersect. The pandemic has highlighted the impacts of persistent inequities around access to health and other resources as well as the frailties associated with poverty and even middle-class status that is not buffered by the safety nets of intergenerational wealth. This pandemic has also highlighted the ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: That is the uncommon school we want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.I would like to make some big claims about the social institution in which I work: the university. Those of us interested in connecting university knowledge to a wider public realize we are operating in a time of considerable democratic deficits. In our country these include high concentrations of wealth; low levels of trust in institutions and elites; ideological polarization; and deep rural/urban divisions.1 To engage the public under these conditions we need more than a new app or a new rhetoric, we need to think clearly about how we as educated professionals may have contributed to these deficits. In particular, we have ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: The broad aims of the symposium "Civility and Beyond: Institutions as Civic Catalysts" were to dig deeply into how our institutions could inculcate a new civic vitality in our public lives. Among the influential institutions discussed during the symposium, American colleges and universities are particularly well positioned to develop the civic skills and dispositions for future generations. However, a growing number of reports demonstrate that Americans are concerned about the ideological leanings of the academy. In particular, conservative households hold the belief that higher education has a politically liberal bias that is ultimately detrimental to the country. According to the Pew Research Center, "A majority ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
Abstract: "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."Preparing college and university students to be informed and engaged citizens is imperative for a healthy democracy. Students are being asked to navigate an increasingly polarized landscape where they feel isolated and disconnected from democratic structures and where partisanship impedes their ability to address key public policy issues and be fully engaged citizens. The good news is that a recent survey found that a plurality of Americans ... Read More PubDate: 2021-05-04T00:00:00-05:00
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