BEYOND THE TWILIGHT OF REASON
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communities, religious institutions, private enterprises and organizations -
the "voluntary associations" that Tocqueville believed to be the unique
feature of American life. (I don't often have the occasion - or the temer–
ity - to quarrel with Tocqueville, but I think he was not doing justice to
England, where such voluntary associations were quite as plentiful and
important as in America.) In any case, it is to this civil society that many
of us now look for surcease from some of the troubles that affiict us.
It
is
here that we look for a revival of individual responsibility, family stability,
communal commitments, and, not least, civility in manner and conduct.
Civil society, to be sure, is no panacea. For it itself has been enfee–
bled, not only by an overzealous government that has usurped the natural
functions of individuals, families, and communities, but by a culture that
has permeated and corrupted many of the institutions of civil society.
Thus some of the most influential educational innovations of recent years
have been initiated and promoted by the most prestigious and powerful
institutions of civil society - private foundations, teachers' unions, even
universities. The most controversial projects funded by the National En–
dowment for the Arts have been proudly exhibited in local museums and
staunchly supported by the cultural elites of those communities. Local ca–
ble channels routinely bring hard-core porn into the living room. And
even churches (mainstream as well as new-age) have contributed to the
moral laxity of society. Nor is the family, the bedrock of civil society, in
better shape; witness the prevalence of illegitimacy, divorce, and transient
"relationships," of neglected or over-indulged children, of
"dysfunctional" families and households in which the main cultural vehi–
cle is television with its incessant promiscuity and violence. Moreover,
civil society has been so fragmented and polarized, as a result of mul–
ticulturalism, affirmative action, radical feminism, and racism (black and
white), that there is little coherence or commonality left in that society.
Instead of being a common ground for the working out of common
problems, it has become an arena ofwarring interests and groups.
What is required, therefore, is not only a restoration of civil society
but a re-moralization of civil society. The
Federalist Papers
enjoin us to
find "a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to a republican
government." The revival of civic virtues - republican virtues, the Foun–
ders would have said - is just such a "republican remedy" for the
disorders of our time. It is not an easy remedy, but then the Founders
never believed there were easy remedies for difficult problems.
This is why Mr. Crouch's tragic optimism - or, it may be, my
cheerful (at least intermittently cheerful) pessimism - is so pertinent to–
day. We are heartened by the fact that finally, reluctantly, more and more
people are facing up to the disagreeable realities of our society. There are
