Civic Engagement
It can have a dark side if not combined with responsibility

The death notice appeared in a corner of the New York Times: “The 81-year-old League of Women Voters stumbled, announcing that its financially strapped New York office would close.”

It was a sad – if largely unheralded – moment. It reminded us that, although Americans are still joiners, their participation is diminishing in those institutions long associated with the civic good – the Rotary Club, Kiwanis and League of Women Voters. All are losing members. Some are closing shop.

One beleaguered League member told the Times that the group’s refusal to endorse candidates and its reputation for studying issues thoroughly made it less sexy to younger, would-be joiners.

The Times report noted that the average age of the dwindling membership is over 50.

Armies of researchers and writers are agonizing over what all this means. And those of us in the business of community revitalization are wondering as well. Kentuckians, and all Americans, seem to be joining more than ever. But the participation apparently is coming in pursuit of those limited causes that are of greatest personal interest and, in most cases, of benefit to our bottom line.

I recently sat next to a young woman who successfully fought an effort to build a jail near her neighborhood. She subsequently ran for the city council, and is a real-world example of civic engagement – early 21st century style.

Her passion was obvious when she spoke of her experience. She had, quite simply, become enraged at the thought of a jail being located next to her neighborhood and began to recruit like-minded people to her cause.

They gathered information and developed strategies in regular meetings and rallies. Better organized than supporters of the move, her group backed up its arguments with such statistics as the increased costs of driving prisoners to the new location. The eventual decision kept the jail in its original downtown location. My final question: “What did the downtowners think of the decision?” went unanswered.

The situation is played out regularly across the nation. California’s energy woes, we are told, result in part from the difficulty of locating power plants in areas where they are needed. Our gridlock in air travel is exacerbated by the inability of airports to expand or build new runways.

The implication is that citizens have grown more sophisticated and have learned ways to stop anything they oppose. Whether true or not, clearly the NIMBY (not in my back yard) state of mind is alive and well and may have even transformed into BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere any time). Suburban minivans sporting bumper stickers that cry out to save our land deliver children to soccer games in neighborhoods built on recently converted farms – and no one sees the irony.

Those of us who advocate and believe strongly in citizen involvement have begun to nibble around the edges of what could be described as “the dark side of civic engagement,” although we’re afraid to admit that such a thing could even exist. After all, what could be bad about a citizen’s passion?

But is it inconceivable that what we are now seeing is passion without responsibility, or passion that is unable or unwilling to empathize with the position of others?

The League of Women Voters was founded on the principle that people should come together to learn about issues and debate their outcome. The League was the epitome of civil discourse on subjects of great interest.

Is such an approach out of style, or are people too busy to engage in such detailed analyses? Have we finally arrived at a time when public policy making is best described as a “ready, fire, aim” exercise? Do the people with the loudest voices, the best polls and the most money win?

This is a difficult issue. Those of us most engaged in promoting citizen involvement simply must be about the business of restoring responsibility to public debate. Our big picture always will be colored by difficulty and dilemma, but that is the stuff of leadership. It never has been and never will be easy to lead. But it is imperative that we do not lose the will the try.

Sylvia L. Lovely is executive director and CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities
editorial@lanereport.com

Back to Perspective Index

Back to April Issue

Copyright 1996-2001, by Kentucky Business Online.  All rights reserved.

Editorial content is copyright 2001, Lane Communications Group
All editorial material is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without prior permission.

The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.