Based on comments by Jed Atkins, Paul Cartledge, Richard Martin, Greg Nagy, Josh Ober and Dan-el Padilla
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The discussion of civil society in Haiti and elsewhere (blog posting of July 16) stimulated some lively comments, some on the blog (scroll down and see), others as email messages. Here’s a summary of some of these responses.
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No one was optimistic about the future of Haiti, but some people agreed that building civil society offered the best hope. Greg Nagy , for example, urged a “focus on supporting the work of community-based organizations (primarily NGOs), rather than on the counterproductive habit of funneling aid to governmental bureaucracies that, as we all know, are endemically vulnerable to corruption and, in fact, sustain not a “democracy”, but a covert small elite plutocracy – or rather, kleptocracy – that has dominated Haitian politics behind the scenes ever since the days of Haitian independence.”
But what about the concept of civil society itself? Is it too narrow? Too colonial? Too ‘white’? Too tied to a thought pattern rooted in the Enlightenment and more recently in the work of Havel. Habermas and other Europeans?
Dan-el Padilla wrote challenging the dominance of such concepts when applied to Haiti: ” that discussions of building civil society in Haiti will need to be more steeped in and responsive to the work of Haitian scholars: I've been recommending Jean Casimir's The Haitians: A Decolonial History to anyone and everyone who will listen these past few months, as an example of a work that shifts focus away from Ango-American discourses about (eg) civil society and towards more dynamic and finely braided local knowledges and practices of institution-building.”
I find this interesting at the theoretical level Can we can extrapolate from Dan-el’s observation to some wide-ranging questions, whether, for example, we outsiders can even recognize indigenous state-building efforts when we see them Is that why US efforts in troubled areas such as Afghanistan and Haiti so often bog down? Or, more generally, whether concepts such as civil society can be applied cross culturally. If so, students and scholars alike will benefit from reading Aristotle and, as Jed Atkins reminds me, “ Aristotle is a good person to think with here; Tocqueville, even better!” Fortunately, we don’t have to choose between them.
Athens in the fifth century before our era provides a good test case for such question. Was there a civil society in Athens, or simply a direct, unmediated relationship between citizen and state, “direct democracy” in a narrow sense? Or push the conceptual issue one stage further, would we even recognize the institutions of civil society in their Athenian garb?
Paul Cartledge suggests that there was no civil society in ancient Athens but goes on to make an important observation:. “The democratic ancient Athenians had no 'civil society', and they were not in any sense liberal, but they knew how to build from the ground up - from the deme.”
Exactly! Those villages in the countryside and extended neighborhoods in urban settings were immensely important. But other structures may be important as well. That makes me very excited to hear about Richard Martin’s research plans. His email to me quotes the conclusion of my blog post and then starts panning for gold, “ ‘Build Civil Society’--exactly. How, of course, is another question ( I would start with bowling leagues, laugh clubs, and unionizing...). As it happens, the whole issue is on my mind as I am wrestling (still) with writing about Aristophanes with a focus on such groups in Athens, from phratries to demes to thiasoi and "kômoi" (as well as kômai). Comedy, too, builds community and not just in a we-vs- them divide.”
These features of Athenian society stand between individual citizens and their government. They also, I believe, generate knowledge, not grand syntheses or handy maxims, but patterns of understanding that work at multiple levels in the society and account for much of its success..
Was that what Aristotle had in mind when, as Josh Ober reminds us, he discusses: “… the degree to which the parts (say, Attic demes) are strictly subsidiary parts of the whole, they seem to be other than what Havel & Habermas had in mind for civil society. There is some way that democratic diversity adds up to something political and good for Aristotle (at least that’s how I read the famous Politics book 3, chapter 11 on the “wisdom of the many” - but it’s a tricky passage…”
So, back to Aristotle and a treasure trove of other texts from antiquity and modern times . If you really care about the suffering, misgovernment and mismanagement inflicted on people around the world, you need all the help you can get, ancient and modern.
Well, this is not really the promised ‘summary’ of a rich series of responses, but it gives, I hope, a sense of the important issues involved. So, post a comment and if you like the discussion pass it on to others..
,
The discussion of civil society in Haiti and elsewhere (blog posting of July 16) stimulated some lively comments, some on the blog (scroll down and see), others as email messages. Here’s a summary of some of these responses.
--
No one was optimistic about the future of Haiti, but some people agreed that building civil society offered the best hope. Greg Nagy , for example, urged a “focus on supporting the work of community-based organizations (primarily NGOs), rather than on the counterproductive habit of funneling aid to governmental bureaucracies that, as we all know, are endemically vulnerable to corruption and, in fact, sustain not a “democracy”, but a covert small elite plutocracy – or rather, kleptocracy – that has dominated Haitian politics behind the scenes ever since the days of Haitian independence.”
But what about the concept of civil society itself? Is it too narrow? Too colonial? Too ‘white’? Too tied to a thought pattern rooted in the Enlightenment and more recently in the work of Havel. Habermas and other Europeans?
Dan-el Padilla wrote challenging the dominance of such concepts when applied to Haiti: ” that discussions of building civil society in Haiti will need to be more steeped in and responsive to the work of Haitian scholars: I've been recommending Jean Casimir's The Haitians: A Decolonial History to anyone and everyone who will listen these past few months, as an example of a work that shifts focus away from Ango-American discourses about (eg) civil society and towards more dynamic and finely braided local knowledges and practices of institution-building.”
I find this interesting at the theoretical level Can we can extrapolate from Dan-el’s observation to some wide-ranging questions, whether, for example, we outsiders can even recognize indigenous state-building efforts when we see them Is that why US efforts in troubled areas such as Afghanistan and Haiti so often bog down? Or, more generally, whether concepts such as civil society can be applied cross culturally. If so, students and scholars alike will benefit from reading Aristotle and, as Jed Atkins reminds me, “ Aristotle is a good person to think with here; Tocqueville, even better!” Fortunately, we don’t have to choose between them.
Athens in the fifth century before our era provides a good test case for such question. Was there a civil society in Athens, or simply a direct, unmediated relationship between citizen and state, “direct democracy” in a narrow sense? Or push the conceptual issue one stage further, would we even recognize the institutions of civil society in their Athenian garb?
Paul Cartledge suggests that there was no civil society in ancient Athens but goes on to make an important observation:. “The democratic ancient Athenians had no 'civil society', and they were not in any sense liberal, but they knew how to build from the ground up - from the deme.”
Exactly! Those villages in the countryside and extended neighborhoods in urban settings were immensely important. But other structures may be important as well. That makes me very excited to hear about Richard Martin’s research plans. His email to me quotes the conclusion of my blog post and then starts panning for gold, “ ‘Build Civil Society’--exactly. How, of course, is another question ( I would start with bowling leagues, laugh clubs, and unionizing...). As it happens, the whole issue is on my mind as I am wrestling (still) with writing about Aristophanes with a focus on such groups in Athens, from phratries to demes to thiasoi and "kômoi" (as well as kômai). Comedy, too, builds community and not just in a we-vs- them divide.”
These features of Athenian society stand between individual citizens and their government. They also, I believe, generate knowledge, not grand syntheses or handy maxims, but patterns of understanding that work at multiple levels in the society and account for much of its success..
Was that what Aristotle had in mind when, as Josh Ober reminds us, he discusses: “… the degree to which the parts (say, Attic demes) are strictly subsidiary parts of the whole, they seem to be other than what Havel & Habermas had in mind for civil society. There is some way that democratic diversity adds up to something political and good for Aristotle (at least that’s how I read the famous Politics book 3, chapter 11 on the “wisdom of the many” - but it’s a tricky passage…”
So, back to Aristotle and a treasure trove of other texts from antiquity and modern times . If you really care about the suffering, misgovernment and mismanagement inflicted on people around the world, you need all the help you can get, ancient and modern.
Well, this is not really the promised ‘summary’ of a rich series of responses, but it gives, I hope, a sense of the important issues involved. So, post a comment and if you like the discussion pass it on to others..