Signs of a Decaying Civil Society in the American Social Imagination...

    

 

    A very interesting article was put out by the JEC, Joint Economic Committee on December 18, 2019 called -  Introduction: The American Tradition of Association. What is the JEC? The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) was created when Congress passed the Employment Act of 1946. Under this Act, Congress established two advisory panels: the President's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) and the Joint Economic Committee. Their primary tasks are to review economic conditions and to recommend improvements in economic policy. It is a mix of Democrats and Republicans. 

    Here is what that article had to say about the American Tradition of Association. 

    In the fall of 1727, a dozen young men—most of them tradesmen and artisans—began meeting on Friday evenings at the Indian Head Tavern in Philadelphia. They met to debate philosophy and current events and to exchange information and resources in the name of “mutual improvement.” They called themselves the “Junto Club” and were led by an ambitious, twenty-year-old printer. His name was Benjamin Franklin.

    ...The practices that Franklin popularized in colonial Philadelphia not only made the “City of Brotherly Love” worthy of its name. They have continued throughout the history of the United States. For more than two centuries, Americans have organized themselves voluntarily to address their common problems. Many of the most consequential social movements in the United States, from abolition to temperance to civil rights, have been outgrowths of the American instinct to associate. It is one of American society’s most striking qualities.

    During his visit to the United States in 1831-2, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the associative patterns of American society. In the first volume of Democracy in America, he observed that,

Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general, and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Finally, if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you perceive an association in the United States.

    Instead of patrons, Americans sought peers. In this bottom-up, participatory form of civic action, Tocqueville found that the institutional form of association could “fix a common goal to the efforts of many men.” American associations acted in lieu of government and private industry; they provided a place for the exercise of freedom, secure against external intrusion and individuals’ atomizing tendencies and dedicated to the proposition that a whole could be greater than the sum of its parts. Above all, they instructed citizens in the art of self-government, instilling the democratic habits necessary to maintain the American republic. In sum, associations provided the space between government and markets in which Americans, and the communities they formed, could flourish.

    Tocqueville, however, saw associations as not merely useful or beneficial for democracy, but essential to it. Association alone was responsible for the myriad functions of a democratic society: “[T]he progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one."

    Even in our twenty-first-century American society, associational life ought to be at the center of thinking about our social order and public policy. As discussed in “The Wealth of Relations,” the Social Capital Project is focused on expanding opportunity by revitalizing families, communities, and civil society. This report is an overview paper for one of the five policy areas identified as a priority: rebuilding civil society. It lays out the nature of our diminished civil society, documents trends in its decline, and charts a path to its renewal

    There are several American mediating institutions named that used to maintain civil society in the United States:  neighborhoods, churches, schools, voluntary associations, philanthropy i.e. We should ask ourselves who is really in control of those mediating institutions today looking at the state of emergency regarding civil society and yes, that is the state of our civil society. 

    The JEC of course had their recommendations for recognized a diminishing civil society in America. In their recommendations, they point out Stuart Butler who wrote in To Empower People, “[t]he deregulation (as in top down restrictions) of mediating structures may well be much more important to these institutions 'rather' than finding new ways to fund them.”And, I would add... rather than restructuring them. This is after all, a grass roots nation. What Alexis de Tocqueville observed over one hundred years ago still holds true. 

    Wake up America, get out of your stupor [stop following the piped piper] and get back your right to freely associate and to rule as a country for the people and by the people.

 

 

 

*Online Sources ~ https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/analysis?ID=78A35E07-4C86-44A2-8480-BE0DB8CB104E

 

 https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/

Civil Liberties and American Democracy in the Social Imagination...

In 1984, John Brigham wrote a book called, "Civil Liberties and American Democracy." In chapter 7, Brigham writes about threats to American democracy. He states that threats to democracy in America appear to be from three sectors: the elites, the people and the experts. It is so worthwhile to read that instead of completely summarizing, short excerpts will be used.

The first threat comes from the top - elites. Who are they? They are people who occupy the higher tiers of society because they have either money or power or prestige or they have all three.  Brigham points to them first as they are truly the ones who hold the balance of economic and military power. Among themselves they compete for more money, power and prestige which effect everyone else.

There is no open competition in this scenario and because of that there is an ever constant threat to democracy as they feel that their established order is under threat. Thus, Brigham asserts that we should always be alert to the usurpation of state power, whether it is by unaccountable private interest or under the justification of military emergency.

The second threat comes from the people. Really? Yes, really. Largely because, there is no truth in the masses as Kierkegaard noted. Such a threat comes from those who have no share in the top and what goes on up there. They lack information from the top and form groups of like mindedness because of that. Hence, no truth in the masses... 

The threat from the bottom should be taken seriously. It is out of alienation from the top, a feeling of hopeless and helplessness. This feeling creates the illusion (real or not) that there is something bigger and menacing that is out to get the little guy, something that wants to take his job, his family, his faith and his life; and unless he/she goes along to get along he/she is doomed.

The third threat comes from experts. Who are they? In America, Brigham firstly points out lawyers and even judges mostly influenced by elites and politicians and or including other kinds of experts: university administrators, think tank groups, foundation/association/org lobbyists, and even today- journalists that are paid to pull strings for the all the others just named.  Experts can be 'made people'; made by the elites who want to keep their status and or position of power and thus control the people with their so called 'expertise'.

Today, we can observe these three threats underway, undermining American democracy. And, a kind of internal shaking is being felt nationwide and worldwide. Is America a democracy for the people and by the people? It should never be doubted lest America decays and disappears into the history pages. 

What really makes America and its democracy unique is that it is a republic inspired by life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those words inspire us, they move us to aspire to something greater. Sure,  there can arise problems wherein someone takes advantage of another. But, with a system of checks and balances, innocent until proven guilty, private property, property taxes and a grass roots polity, America has offered more to the people who have come here, been born here and imagine coming here than any other nation. It is and shall remain a country for the people and by the people... if the people want it to be so.

 

Coercive Methods for Enforcing Compliance in the Social Imagination...

 

In the previous blog post, the discussion was about the so-called melting pot in America. In that discussion, the question was put forward...  "So, where is the so-called division coming from in our free society?" And, the answer postulated... likely the 1% ... which is composed of the corporate wealthy and or political power global elite. 

Such people actually want to create a harmonious whole to control. They don't actually want diversity, they say they do, but they don't. They want control over you because they want to save lives, right? They have their methods; here is one idea posited years ago by psychologist Albert Biderman.

 

In 1956, Albert Biderman, developed a framework for understanding the methods foreign armies used to extract false confessions from prisoners of war. Psychologists now believe that abusers in many different situations use the same methods to achieve control over their victims. For example, victims of domestic violence or childhood abuse often report having experienced similar treatment. These methods include:

 Isolation

 Monopolization of perception

 Induced exhaustion / debilitation

 Threats

 Occasional indulgences

 Demonstrating ‘omnipotence’ and ‘omniscience’

 Degradation

 Enforcing trivial demands 

Let's look more closely at the first item on the list... isolation. What is its purpose? The purpose of isolation is to deprive victims of all social support of their ability to resist. It capitalizes on the developing intense concern with self (this could be home environment) making the victim dependent. Complete solitary confinement or partial isolation fixes attention upon immediate predicament and thus eliminates information not in compliance with demands.

It punishes independence and /or resistance. Physical isolation and restricted movement makes resistance more ‘costly’ than compliance. Resistance is further punished with demeaning insults and thus weakens the mental and physical ability to resist. Threats create anxiety and despair especially threats against family.

To encourage resistors, occasional indulgences are put into action... positive motivation for compliance.  As well as occasional favors and or rewards for partial compliance demonstrates the futility of resistance in light of the omnipotent leaders with their omniscience in context of the desired goal.  This enables the abusers to introduce total compliance as in enforcement of ‘rules’... JP of the current admin just told us that the rules are now being discussed and laid out in terms of forward strategies. 

We have just heard that there will be possible informants as in surveillance operatives for businesses that halfheartedly comply or not at all.  

To enforce President Joe Biden’s forthcoming COVID-19 mandate, the U.S. Labor Department is going to need a lot of help. Its Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn’t have nearly enough workplace safety inspectors to do the job.

So, the government will rely upon a corps of informers to identify violations of the order: Employees who will presumably be concerned enough to turn in their own employers if their co-workers go unvaccinated or fail to undergo weekly tests to show they’re virus-free. Mmm, doesn't say cv one niner free... but virus free. No man or woman on the face of the earth has been or will be virus free. So, coercive methods will be ongoing.

 

 

 

References

• Biderman, A. D. (1957). Communist attempts to elicit false confessions from Air Force prisoners of war. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 33(9), 616-625 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov archive.org

Online Sources ~ https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/coercive-methods-for-enforcing-compliance/

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/whistleblowers-play-key-role-enforcing-vaccine-mandate-81059518?fbclid=IwAR1_1-cEPd7S5UkDhY2KD8Aphex1fX9R8NIXEvVraUc4GQJUNzM3ahBJEH0

https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject/socialwork/documents/eshe/Bidermanschartofcoercion.pdf. and https://www.strath.ac.uk.

 

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