Beneficence: Civil Society and Civil Conversations

July 13, 2004

Civil Society and Civil Conversations

Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber has started an interesting little conversation on civil society in America today. While I think his commentors are raising some terrific objections to his framing the institutions of civil society in Left/Right terms, I wanted to speak to this little piece of the whole, in which he writes:

the enthusiasm of the conservative right for outsourcing social services to civil society is equally a product of the social dominance of religious organizations. How many of them would be keen on this, if, say, there was a thriving set of social democratic third sector institutions that could compete with religious groups to provide services (and perhaps smuggle in a bit of indoctrination along the way?) Not many, I imagine.

To which I would respond, "more than he might imagine, and fewer than I might hope."

I recently had the opportunity to meet Tracy Gary, a co-founder of Changemakers, and to explore with her our shared interest in donor education and voluntary action.

I'm pleased to discover that despite what I know to be some sharp experiential and political differences between us, there's clearly a lot of common ground for us to learn from one another about helping those with wealth use their resources freely and effectively to fund the causes about which they care most.

Sure, some of my Conservative Right friends might shudder at the thought of listening and learning from someone across the public policy chasm, but there are many others who would share my belief that we must be afraid neither to take good ideas where we find them nor to engage the battle for heartshare and mindshare in the open marketplace. Which "side" actually believes that competition works, anyway?!

As for the suggestion by Farrell's former professor that the "Left" failed to build viable institutions in the U.S., I might add that Tracy's resume alone begs the question!

Still, 'twould be nice to think that we might actually move beyond the Left/Right dichotomy when talking about community organizations and begin to talk together more about the efficacy of these groups for fostering more vibrant and vital communities of more caring and competent individuals. Ooops, gotta wipe the mud out of my eye, I suppose...

July 13, 2004 in Gifted Philanthropy | Permalink

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Great post by Lenore Ealy on "civil society and civil conversation." One of the high points of the Open Space Giving Conference, for me, was seeing her and Tracy Gary knee to knee, discussing civil society, not with guarded good [Read More]