Christopher Beem, author of The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy; Richard Haass, author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens; and Lorraine Pangle, author of Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy, discuss the concepts of civic virtue and citizenship in democratic societies. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This program was originally streamed live on March 30, 2023, as part of our America’s Town Hall series.
This program was made possible through the generous support of Citizen Travelers, the nonpartisan civic engagement initiative of Travelers.
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Today’s episode was produced by Tanaya Tauber, John Guerra, Lana Ulrich, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Emily Campbell, Sophia Gardell, Liam Kerr, and Lana Ulrich.
Participants
Christopher Beem is the managing director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, where he is also an associate research professor and affiliate faculty with the Rock Ethics Institute. He is the author or co-editor of several books, including The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy.
Richard Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House under four presidents, Democrat and Republican alike. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.
Lorraine Pangle is professor of government and co-director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Political Philosophy of Ben Franklin and Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Excerpt from Interview
On how citizens can practice civic virtue for the betterment of society.
Richard Haass: Businesses will often make provisions for people in the military reserves, which is great. I'd love to see the leading corporations in Silicon Valley or the Fortune 100 or anywhere else say, "Okay. Go work in state government or city government, or a federal government for two years. Your job will be waiting for you when you come back. You'll actually be better at your job because you've had this experience, but in the meantime, you can give something directly to government." So I think that would be a way that things can do it. Look, everyone, anyone is involved in schools as parents. We’ve had all these bad stories about school board meetings, but school board meetings can also be wonderful venues. And alumni and parents can talk about, going to universities and say, "Why aren't we teaching at Stanford coming next winter?" It's going to require that every freshman, all 1,700 freshmen, take a module, a winter module, in civics. Okay. So other schools can and should do the same thing.
I actually say public education is in some ways the most important ladder in our society for mobility but we've got a problem right now. We talk about equal opportunity in this country, the fact is we don't have equal opportunity. Public schools are not equal and we've got to improve public educations. That has got to become a priority for our citizens. And again, every person listening to this, watching this, Jeffrey, has the ability to spend a little bit more time getting informed, and to go out and vote in elections. That's to get involved in the political process, to work at a polling place, to encourage others to vote, drive people to the polls, make it easier... A democracy can't be a spectator sport. We have all got to get involved and I would simply say we do it, not simply because it's the right thing, but maybe that's not enough of a motive for everybody. Then do it because it's good for you, if others do it. That we all have, if you will, a collective self-interest in this democracy working and others looking out for the common good because you're part of that common good.
So I think there's a virtue dimension here but there's also a self-interest virtue here, which will hopefully click, and none of us will do well as individuals if this society, if this democracy, deteriorates. So we all have, if you will, a collective stake in collective action.
Jeffrey Rosen: A collective stake in the effective action. Very, very well put and thank you for those powerful suggestions. Christopher Beem, some concrete suggestions for our audience about how to practice civic virtue.
Christopher Beem: Let me just pick one thing. Justice is one of the four cardinal virtues, I don't use that, I chose consistency instead. But I use it in a very similar way, which is to say that we are all biased. None of us see the world as it is. None of us. And so we need a discipline that pushes us to challenge our biases. And that's what I mean by consistency. So if we think that some action is good when it's performed by someone who's on our part of our tribe, part of our political party, then we should say the same thing when it's performed by somebody in the other party. And if we think that there's something bad that the other party is doing, then it is incumbent upon us to say that that same thing is bad when we see it in our own party. And it's only through citizens developing a more refined and, again, disciplined sense of what the virtues mean, and what kind of demands they make on us. And willing to affirm the fact that those virtues are not merely within our own tribe, that they extend beyond that.
And if and when people are able to do that... I'm not saying it's easy, it's really challenging and it's a habit that requires practice, it is absolutely essential if the virtues are going to have cache, are going to have impact, in how we run our country. And so that's what I would challenge people to do. If you say that here, would you say the same thing here? And if not, why not? And if we can all do that, then I think our country is better off.
Jeffrey Rosen: Practice consistency. A very, very powerful suggestion about practicing virtue. Lorraine Pangle, last word in this wonderful discussion is to you. One concrete suggestion for how to practice civic virtue.
Lorraine Pangle: So my suggestion would be that we lean into another aspect of citizenship, which is not political per se, but that's essentially for a thriving democracy and that is our local and voluntary associations such as our schools and our churches, and the various charities that Franklin was so good at starting and exemplifying. That Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America says are the school for democracy in America. Jefferson talks about the importance of getting parents involved in local schools and running the schools as much as possible as a way not only of training the children well, and encouraging the parents to put energy into this and to take it seriously, but for the parents to actually learn the habits of self-government, the habits of compromise, and give and take, and civility, and so on. And I think this could be extended by expanding charter schools where parents are often quite involved, where different small communities come together around different visions of what it means to live a rich life.
And I think we should be encouraging everybody to understand that, as citizens, it's important to have our individual freedom and exercise our rights and to vote. But one of the most important ways to be citizens is to be part of a smaller community of meaning where we not only exercise virtues but find meaning in life in different ways in this pluralistic community. And that one of the best things that our free society does is give us a framework for supporting and protecting different kinds of communities of meaning and thoughtfulness as fellow citizens.
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This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
Additional Resources:
- Richard Haass, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens
- Christopher Beem,The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy
- Lorraine Pangle,Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy
- Lorraine and Thomas Pangle, TheLearning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders
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