The United States has accomplished something rare among the history of nations: establish a government based on the idea that every citizen has a stake in society. To do this, its citizens were called to maintain civic literacy and civility toward one another. It hasn’t been easy, but it has worked — and can work again to restore the kind of respectful public culture that characterizes America at its best.
From before our country was founded, people with strongly held views had to learn to get along, to govern together, and to live in peace. The writings of the founders before the Declaration of Independence speak about people being able to govern themselves. This became one of the principles of the Declaration. Self-government was something Americans did out of necessity.
The founders prized the marketplace of ideas where freedom of speech and freedom of conscience strove to provide space for participants to speak without fear of reprisal. This freedom was tempered by civility born of character. It conveyed, “If you and I disagree, we can have a difficult conversation to understand each others’ viewpoints whether we end up agreeing or not.” While conflicts still arose, often those engagements resulted in people either being persuaded to change their opinions or being further confirmed in their position - but through respectful dialogue the society was better off.
That’s a skill we must regain as a society, where we listen and share our own viewpoints without making enemies of one another. It is part of citizenship, the value of which finds expression in Concordia University Irvine’s own motto: to develop “wise, honorable, and cultivated citizens.”
Some years ago, Concordia’s Center for Civics Education was created to promote civic literacy, civility, and civic engagement. Its founder, Keith Curry, was deeply involved in public service and served for a time as the mayor of Newport Beach. He brought together people of widely divergent views — from labor unions to the business community, and elected representatives from both major parties. They held panel discussions, not debates. In a debate, someone has to win and someone has to lose, but in panel discussions people attempt to cordially find some agreement, some common ground.
The Center addresses an overarching concern about low levels of civic literacy in our country— which is simply knowledge of why and how our public institutions work — and civility. Civility is respecting and attempting to understand each other. However, the fabric that holds us together is rooted in character traits like moderation, temperance, and loyalty, even if those threads have somewhat frayed.
In representative government, where we make policy together, that also means learning to compromise. Compromise doesn’t mean abandoning our principles; it means that legislatively none of us gets our way one hundred percent of the time. When we live in a country with different kinds of people, we must find ways to accommodate one another’s views, and that seems to be happening less and less. The climate of our culture and politics isn’t very healthy right now. Yet we have been here before at times in our history where conflict seems rife. However, it is always worth remembering that America is the perfect idea; The United States of America is still a work in progress.
At the Center, we do our part by educating people about our founding documents, increasing civic literacy and promoting civil engagement with one another, and advocating for robust participation in government and public life. The Center convenes panels and offers podcasts on the nation’s founding documents. The Center’s website is full of resources for the interested citizen.
These days, many wonder how they can affect the course of our country. But in our own history we find dozens of examples of a person, or a group of people, making a historic difference in spite of small numbers. It all begins with knowledge and commitment to civic literacy and civil engagement. That’s how our Founders arrived at our founding documents which have stood the test of time for nearly 250 years. Those same principles will take our country forward from here into an era that can once again be characterized by higher levels of understanding, civility, and appreciation of each other and our common heritage.