Sundays with OBX Dave: A Civil Path Amid Incivility

In which our man at the beach gives Jean-Jacques Rousseau a nickname.

One worrisome aspect of current American society is the gradual ebb of unity and lack of empathy among the citizenry. We can still work up a collective cheer during an Olympiad and a group hug for Ukraine and victims of natural disasters, but for most folks beyond arm’s length – not so much.

Almost two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) think the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to an aggregate of recent polls compiled by RealClear Politics. Only 27 percent think the U.S. is headed in the right direction. The public relations firm Edelman has run an annual “trust barometer” for the past 22 years, surveying tens of thousands of people worldwide. Twenty-six percent said that since the start of the pandemic they’re less trustful of people from other countries, and 22 percent said they’re less trustful of people from other states and regions within their own country. Not asked was how many already were mis-trustful of fer’ners and people outside their circle.

Sixty-four percent said people lack the ability to have constructive and civil debates with others about issues with which they disagree. More than 60 percent think they’re purposely lied to by reporters and the media, government and business leaders. Almost half of respondents said government (48 percent) and media (46 percent) are divisive forces in society. Only 43 percent of respondents expressed trust in American democracy, down five points from last year and 10 points since 2017. Only 40 percent of Americans surveyed think that they and their families will be better off in five years.

Grim as all that sounds, there’s a path forward. It’s not easy, but democracies aren’t potted plants that you can stick in a corner and water now and again. It requires people to hold government and media and business accountable. It means re-establishing trust in our institutions and each other and leaning into our American-ness. Not some tinpot, American Legion, love-it-or-leave-it patriotic litmus test, but a broad, grounded idea such as civil religion – a set of tenets that provides guidelines for being good citizens. 

Civil religion, or at least parts of it, dates to ancient Greece and Rome. Enlightenment-era philosopher and Big Brain Jean-Jacques Rousseau coined the phrase and wrote about it at length in his seminal 1762 work, The Social Contract, whose memorable opening is, “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.” For him, civil religion was a way to foster sociability and the embrace of public duties by citizens. The more stakeholders, he figured, the healthier the society. It contained religious underpinnings, as well as the idea that a country’s laws would be administered evenly and fairly, with those who lived honorably happy and those who committed evil punished. It condemned religious intolerance.

Former Harvard and Cal-Berkeley sociologist Robert Bellah conceived of a distinctly American version of civil religion in a 1967 essay. He used John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address as the launch for the notion that Americans have a particular set of ideals, symbols, sacraments and rituals that both distinguish and bind us, often rooted in religion and faith. Liberty, equality, justice and opportunity. Documents such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Washington’s first inaugural and more recently, MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech. The Fourth of July and Memorial Day. Free elections and the orderly transfer of power.

JJ and Bellah were under no illusions that it all couldn’t go sideways, depending on who was in power and how ideas were executed. JJ worried that established religions could undercut citizenship and operate independently of societal good. Bellah acknowledged that the country’s history with slavery and race relations and its treatment of Native Americans don’t exactly jibe with routinely invoking God and believing ourselves a Chosen People. He wrote that, “With respect to America’s role in the world, the dangers of distortion are greater and the built-in safeguards of the tradition weaker.”

(Side note: Apologies that this is more dark and dense than what y’all come for to this here digital tree fort. I mean, if you wanted this kind of stuff, you could go to a poli sci lecture at the local community college or tune in to current affairs public radio at 4 a.m. These are ideas and essays that crossed my path, and I have too much free time. I will try to be a better goofball going forward.)

Which brings us to today. We’re divided along numerous lines: economic, ideological, geographic, educational, age. Division and conflict sell, mostly to society’s detriment. If people believe that their voices aren’t heard and their votes are irrelevant, it preserves a minority, moneyed ruling class. Now, if you want to argue that a sprawling, ethnically diverse, multi-cultural nation of 330 million grounded on liberty and a big, fat middle finger to monarchy and divine rule is beyond a cohesive identity, well, that’s a more than fair point. If I’m being honest, there are days when I’m less than optimistic about how it plays out.

But I believe it’s at least worth the effort. We’re better collectively, flaws and all, than fractured and everybody left to themselves like a clothed version of “Survivor.” Otherwise, we’re no longer a nation and more like a loose collection of tribes spread between two oceans. As JJ wrote in The Social Contract: “As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State: what does it matter to me?, the State may be given up for lost.”