American Civil Society

Finally, the practice will include exploration of a renewed civil religion through the formation of new habits of thinking, feeling, and acting. The social sciences, psycholinguistics, neuroscience, and various therapeutic modalities suggest that certain affects and cognitive habits can build a better and safer society. The new brain sciences also offer insights into refashioning and inspiring more group belonging that is fully inclusive and democratic rather than based on the domination and exclusion of some by others. Rituals and habits of individuals and whole cultures play a key role in the formation of the good human being and the good society. They can foster the kind of social belonging and commitment that enable nationwide and local creative problem solving to flourish.  Moreover, a commitment to science; to rational, scientifically-informed solutions; to social and public health and other common problems ought to be publicly articulated and symbolically embraced. But conceiving of and promoting those habits is hard work and takes a collective effort.

The task is to work together through compassionate listening to our great diversity as a nation, together with the power of reasoning among those who are listening and studying together. We need to revisit the emerging best practices of global peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and compassionate reasoning, and then direct their lessons to the troubled United States.

The project’s members will think through concrete recommendations of new or renewed American rituals, practices, and symbols to induce the creation and recreation of the good society, but one of unprecedented diversity and cleansing of past wrongs. These recommendations will be subjected to the scrutiny of peacebuilding and social change practitioners who work across the globe for justice and peace, for healing and reconciliation, and for sustainable social change.

With this intention and methodology, we will gather great thinking and compassionate analysis of the American situation and then subject these explorations to the experience of practitioners of human change – from psychologists, social workers, and doctors to practitioners of peacebuilding the world over.

There has also been an erosion of identification with basic principles of justice, equal rights and responsibilities, as well as equality of opportunity and freedom.  These are principles at the heart of America’s founding ideals, those that Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “a promissory note” to future generations.  They both inspire our patriotic love for the best in America, our ongoing hope to work toward coming ever closer to a founding vision of justice, while also connecting us to all of humanity’s universal human rights.

The purpose of a renewed civil religion is threefold: First, to revitalize a sense of public belonging, public commitment, and public good. Civil religion can bring together citizens from diverse backgrounds, histories, and regions at appointed times and places. It can engage symbols and rituals that inspire a commitment to each other, to the public good, and to the entire society across diverse lines and identities. The aim is to commit ourselves as citizens from diverse backgrounds and histories and regions to each other and to the society, renewing our stake in protecting and promoting the good of all.

This renewal should involve the telling and retelling of stories to reflect and expand the inclusion of all American voices and experiences. It is a process of coming to identify all voices and stories as American ones that we all identify with – E Pluribus Unum. Second, it is a recommitment as Americans to our founding values and principles of justice and equality. It is a re-envisioning of these values for the present and future via the best science and the largest array of American experiences and voices. And it should also include educative practices through which new habits of thought and behavior can be formed. Justice and Liberty for All.  Finally, a renewed civil religion should also include a public commitment to and symbolic embrace of scientific knowledge and solutions to common public problems.

We see those who claim hierarchical white racial entitlement joining with those who rationalize corruptive greed in ideologies of plutocracy flirting with fascist demagoguery.  A rampant and ruthless form of capitalism has merged with a religious quasi-nationalist approach to claim the public arena as its own and to attempt to dominate the nation with an imagined community of religious nationalist conformity, bereft of diversity and shared values across pluralist and regional lines.   We need to step up and reclaim the United States for the pluralist and multi-region nation of immigrants we are by engaging in common rituals, symbols, and ethical practices that will speak to the minds and hearts and inform the actions of each and every citizen. We need many correctives in order for citizens to build a truly representative democracy where the human rights of all flourish and equality of opportunity and justice are celebrated and enshrined.

The social sciences, psycholinguistics, neuroscience, and various therapeutic modalities suggest that certain affects and cognitive habits can protect against the dangers of fascism, and can help build a better and safer society. The new brain sciences also offer insights into refashioning and inspiring more group belonging that is fully inclusive and democratic rather than based on the domination and exclusion of some by others. Rituals and habits of individuals and whole cultures play a key role in the formation of the good human being and the good society. They can foster the kind of social belonging and commitment that enable nationwide and local creative problem solving to flourish.  Moreover, a commitment to science and to rational, scientifically informed solutions, to social and public health and other common problems, ought to be publicly articulated and symbolically embraced.

This project explores the challenge of looking at American history and thinkers, at American experience, at what we have learned from a number of disciplines focused on generating the nonviolent and just society. The task is to work together through compassionate listening to our great diversity as a nation, together with the power of reasoning among those who are listening and studying together. The goal is to conceive and propose rituals and habits that may be the basis of experiments in creating the good American society, a society in which citizens come to feel a renewed commitment to the public good and the happiness of all, moral commitment to each other, and to a common future.

There are many citizens, some academic and some not, who have spent a lifetime working with troubled peoples, people in the midst of war and genocide even, and conceived with them with extraordinary creativity how to reestablish the good society. Many societies in recent decades have emerged from a long legacy of perpetual wars and limited lifespans to create less violent societies with more coexistence among tribes, ideologies and religions. We need to revisit the best practices emerging, and then direct their lessons to the troubled United States.

We suggest an intentional process of thinking through concrete recommendations of new or renewed American rituals, practices and symbols, to induce the creation or recreation of the good society, but one of unprecedented diversity and cleansing of past wrongs. Then these recommendations need to subjected to the tests of peacebuilding and social change practitioners who work for justice and peace, for healing and reconciliation, for sustainable social change, across the globe.

With this intention and methodology, we will gather great thinking and compassionate analysis of the America situation, but then subject these explorations to the experience of practitioners of human change, from psychologists, social workers, and doctors, to practitioners of peacebuilding the world over. America needs help before it sinks further into chaos. There has been developed, however, a great deal of collective human wisdom and experience across the globe on these matters. A strong dose of humility, a moral commitment to antiracism and embrace of all, are core ingredients of this effort. Experience across the world in times of trouble suggests that this would be a wise path of innovation, consultation, and public education.