FROM THE ARCHIVES
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Re: Civil society
[Bruce Frohnen 03/29 11:10 AM]I'm not sure I actually disagree with Mike's point — that it is necessary to get out there and join, or form, real, concrete communities through which we can improve our public life. But Mike seems to share the anti-crunchy view that there is something too "weird" or "countercultural" or perhaps simply too apolitical about the kinds of groups traditional conservatives join, form, and participate in. Homeschoolers are too weird for Mike? But aren't they forming a community that is influencing public policy, educating their kids, and bringing together people who share important values, thought often not the same backgrounds? Okay, you don't like that. . . how about involvement in the parochial school? Or does it HAVE to be the PTA? I quit the homeowners' association board on which I once sat because it became clear that mine was a loan voice for a kind of life different from the search for hermetically sealed houses (with increasing property values, to be sure). Then I moved to a neighborhood in which participation is neither meaningless nor value-less. Or are neighborhood associations too "private" and "self-centered" as well?
I mean this as a real question. What counts? As a cultural conservative I certainly don't think that only political participation counts; indeed, I think it's the LEAST important form of participation — voting being today little more than a statement of abstract support for one interest coalition or another. But perhaps people genuinely think that re-building our towns, rebuilding our churches and educational institutions, and simply following the central vocations of life in work, in daily life, in family, church, and local association aren't that important? I think they are.
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