Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Agent of Democracy
A vital, broad (even world-spanning?) liberal civil society with
its invitation to professionals to become coproducers of public
goods, might signal an acceptance (without question or reflection),
that the forces of neoliberalism cannot be stopped. What could
function better to support a particular vision of the good life defined
by liberal capitalism, than a deep acceptance that you are perpetually
on the move as a worker and citizen? So get over it! As with
paid labor, keep your skill-set fresh, your civic muscles toned.
Prepare yourself for civic life by carrying on your back from community
to community, job to job, a civic mind-set that can be
deployed in any community rather like a paid career that under
neoliberal assumptions, demands perpetual spatial and temporal
catch-up. And, like the country club for the upper-management
family of the 50s, or the PX for those soldiers on the fringes of
empire (any time), civil society should be up and running everywhere
you go and look a lot like the civil society you just left. Listen:
If a movement promises to expand partner relationships
spatially, so to speak, it also promises to multiply
pathways for the development of civic careers over
time. A movement that can enlarge our mental maps
of kindred forms of democratic work enables citizens
to locate opportunities for continued contributions as
they move through the life course, change jobs, relocate
to different communities, or shift their issue focus and
priorities. 11
Like the paid worker tuned up and ready to pack that U-haul,
this broadening civil society will make sure citizens will be less
likely to lose their civic identity and “motivation” as a result of
“substantial gaps in civic activity.”
Time carved out for a rich life embedded in civic associations
in one place is less and less available to more and more people,
including those in professions whose certification standards keep
ramping up. Though people do still try to remain attached to
whatever community they parachute into, and HEX is filled with
examples, the way in which paid labor presses in on family, persons,
11 Sirianni and Friedland, The Civic Renewal Movement, 128.
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