Category: Civic Atlas

The Civic Arts encompass the knowledge and the the craft of living together in civilization; banding together in common cause – and accepting a degree of subjection to the will, best interest and support of the commons – in order to prosper beyond what we are capable of on our own. These arts are a living, evolving tradition that we together cultivate (or fail to) through our decisions and actions.

Once, civicism was cultivated in an active tradition supported by the lives and homes of people and community. But since the advent of many things – most notably cheap energy, the sprawling of our communities and their anonymization by the automobile and its acceleration and violentization of our public spaces, and the application of Labor theory to education (albeit with good intentions at the time regarding the literacy of the country) – both the formal (schools) and the informal (communities) have ceased teaching these arts, ceased helping multiple generations to understand how we live together and what impacts our actions have on others, and what our responsibilities are to each other and the rest of our environment and world.

This makes it easy for us to be, stand, divided – to be manipulated by those few who truly may mean harm at large, either passively through the improper wielding of fear, or actively through the wielding of power. It allows us to unknowingly be held hostage, daily, hourly, to actions which are counter to our own best interest and that of the world at large, around us. Most people are at core good, well intended, want the same straightforward things out of life, have the same basic values. But politics is the front that power wears to distract you. Don’t equate politics with governance, please. Governanace is an act of civic work, to manage in common, according to the best outcomes for the common, supported by and contributed to by the body of that common. Politics is about the compromises needed to come to a course of action amongst differing opinions. And, increasingly – set loose from any sort of Civic Literacy, it is adrift in a stormy sea of our own making.

Cheap energy has allowed and urged us to construct a society that is overly complex and reliant on things which are both rapidly decreasing in supply and also wreaking havoc on our entire environment in profound ways. Arguably the pursuance of them is warping us and our entire society.

Automobiles have eclipsed the human in all of our pursuits and priorities, and we are all the worse for it. Our communities have been ripped apart and exsanguinated, bleeding out slow deaths over decades and across the countryside. We have been taught to fear each other, and to disengage. We have been pulled from intense civilization and remote wilderness alike – the two cradles of our modern intelligences; social, emotional, philosophical …

We have lost a connection to the things that shaped us at our root, the knowledge that birthed us. And in so doing, we have lost something we can not do without.

Yet.

We have gained much in the interim, things that we would not trade for anything. Things that are already guiding us into the next epoch of human existence, enlightenment and creation.

This is just the barest touch of what I to intend explore, journal, understand and apply with my work, practice, and life; Civilization is the only lens that brings it all into focus for me. Civilization is a living tradition that we cultivate, or fail to. It is time for a renewed understanding of how, what, why and more. It it time for a renewal of Civics.

An Atlas is, traditionally, a collection of maps and information about what they show. The way a people live amongst and interact with each other is primarily interdependent with their environment, though this is by no means the only factor. Knowledge about that environment and how to live in it are of foundational requirement to all of the rest of civilization.

It has been almost exactly 9 years to the day, and a whole lot of life in-between, since I upended my life, quit Journalism as a daily practice (in banging my head against a heartbreaking wall), and took off to gain a deeper understanding of this thing we are doing.

I’m ready to start writing about it now.

Honestly, I was iffy about watching, but am glad I did. All of last night’s debate’s candidates, though I have my differences with each, wowed me with their civility. Here, the New Yorker uses it to take a jowel deep tongue in cheek (yes, satirical) jab at our Politics.

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[Capti: “Calling it a gaffe of historic proportions, many political insiders were still scratching their heads Wednesday morning over Sanders’s bizarre decision to act toward his opponent as if she were a fellow human being.”]

I have major beef with both of this country’s major political parties, however, the democratic lead candidates that took the stage last night are far and away the better of the two parties fieldings.

Or maybe they are just as bad, but can at least talk nice in public, who knows. But, it gave me hope at least.

And, it was Nice to see Martin O’Malley again, I was impressed. My years in Baltimore were while he was mayor and then Governor, and he isn’t awful. Downright solid in some things.

I still think localism is the way to go and expect the devolution of this nation into functional city states and wilds in the next 2-10 years. I still take deep issue with our federal government and consider myself informally seceded, long since. Love this country and it’s people, am heartbroken by its national tyranny and international warmongering to support it.

But, a return to civil discourse and civil treatment of each other is a huge step in the right direction, a necessary one if we are to make any true and lasting change for the better.

Next time you find yourself with a choice between civility and lack thereof, in a situation where your initial tendency is less than civil, less than understanding – take a moment and a breath and reflect on the other’s fundamental humanity, and try the nobler of the two, and see what happens. Not saying it will always give you your desired outcome – in fact that will rarely be the result, no matter your response. However, I bet you will learn something about yourself and the world, and the other – as will they, bringing about greater understanding over all. And really, when we get right down to it, isn’t that what we are all seeking, in so many of our various pursuits?