What kind of relationship exists between our civic duty, our core values and societal maturity?

A few years back, when confronted with the initial news out of Abu Ghraib, our President reportedly said, "That's not one of American's core values," or something to that effect.

It very much seems that America's definition of its core values needs to include a restoration of the understanding of civics in our society.

We see repeated demonstrations on the part of politicians and broadcasters – and then by mimicry – how the lack of civility impacts all venues of civic discourse nowadays. Politicians and broadcasters obviously should know better and probably do … but  it seems that many have subjected themselves to profit motives based on their own or employer greed at the expense of communication practices and principles so currently undervalued – even denigrated in our midst.

Civics as taught formally prior to college appears almost totally absent or to have been taught so casually as to generate very little appreciation of WHY let alone HOW civic duty is important.

Should we not refocus and re-emphasize a priority of real civics education in this country; not the kind that generates high school grads and/or college students who recently  told poll takers how the government should not let people speak against the president or the government?  A broad understanding of individual civic duty and responsibility is one strong way to encourage better movement toward civility as well as social justice. 

What Does a Civically Weak Society do for Itself Abroad?

Without an understanding of civic involvement, war and the reasons for it are rarely understood but almost mindlessly or indifferently supported.

Civics in its own way can even suppress the brainless jingoism that isolates American morality from global morality.

Whether we like it or not the civic implication is that the American soldier who fights and kills in Afghanistan and Iraq is fighting and killing on our behalf and in our name. Should we not then be willing to shout to the world …  "Good on that soldier for acting in my name!"

Is that not what we should ideally declare during wartime? Is not the soldier doing for us what we can't do for ourselves - defend the nation by physical presence and combat action?

Do we need jingoism to light our fires? Webster defines jingoism as “extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy.”

Jingoism may not have gotten us into Iraq, but it certainly contributed mightily to sustaining of the reason and loyalty for keeping our soldiers and our weapons active there. If one considers the invasion of Iraq aggression as immoral, untenable, un-winnable and a needless drain of America's most precious blood then can we be constant in our love and loyalty to our soldiers but still lament and object to what they are forced to do to other human beings around the globe?

 
Such is more than civic duty. It’s civic maturity.

Exercising civic maturity initiates action that may or may not be agreed with by others. But if agreed with by others - a significantly large number of others - a shift begins. It's a shift sustained by a growing voice of dissent that can only be healthy for a democratic republic.