As our great national holiday approaches, I’m about to (fair warning) write about theoretical politics. I do so with a great deal of shame, because I should have understood this before. My thoughts were sparked by an article (to which I was directed by Ori Pomerantz) at First Thoughts, “Crushing Civil Society,” by Peter Leithart, an article which isn’t even about America but about eastern Europe under communism. Still it sparked a gap in the gap-rich environment of my brain, and helped me crystallize some pre-existing thoughts. In a way I should have done long ago.
The realization I came to while reading, although it involved no fresh ideas, provided me a new, systematic way to think about government. We – or at least I – tend to use the terms “civil society” and “government” almost interchangeably. But in fact they are very distinct things.
Civil society means the associations people naturally form, of their own volition. A church (at least in America) is a civil institution, because it wasn’t ordained by the government, but by a private group. Marriage is a civil matter – indeed, the union of man and woman as the kernel of the family forms the essential center of the civil order, which is why so many of us consider government redefinition of the institution a grave danger. Through most of history, people have gotten their “social welfare” from civil society – from their families and their churches (I’m speaking of the West. Other institutions dominated elsewhere in the world, though the family is pretty much universal).
But in order to get along with others in a civil society, that society must establish what we call “laws.” Our English word “law” (as I’ve mentioned here before) comes from an Old Norse word – “lagu” – which originally meant “layers.” It conveyed the idea of something that lies evenly on everyone – the rules by which we agree to work when we’re cooperating, whether on a Viking raid or in running our petty kingdom. Continue reading Of civil society