IS 'CIVIC CONSCIOUSNESS' WHAT MAKES US MODERN? IF SO, WHAT OF ITS ABSENCE?

Donald W. Hanson, From Kingdom to Commonwealth: The Development of Civic Consciousness in English Political Thought (Harvard Political Studies)(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U. Press, 1970) ("This books deals with political ideas and practices in late medieval and early modern England. Its major preoccupation is an effort to discern and evaluate the lines of continuity and change in the relation between medieval and early modern political perspectives and styles, especially as these bear on the development of constitutional politics. Its offers a political interpretation of a body of evidence which has been treated primarily in legalistic terms. The stress therefore is on the world 'political.' This springs from two convictions which the reader is entitled to know about: that legal ideas are not and cannot be radically removed from political ideas and interests, and that political behavior embodies and is affected by political and legal ideas, as well as affecting them. In short, conviction and act are much too closely related to be dealt with fruitfully in isolation. But it is a fact that the political side of medieval and early modern thought has too often been frozen and interred in the abstract and timeless categories of legal historicism" Id. at vi. "All would agree that the difference between the modern world and the medieval are may and profound, but there is little enough agreement on the content of the contrast or when it may be said to have appeared. The main argument of this book is that in the realm of politics the most meaningful line of division lies in the seventeenth century, and that the essential mark of the transition to modern political perspectives was the appearance of what maybe called civic consciousness and loyalty. The essence of that alternative is simplicity itself: the development, or better, perhaps, the recovery of consciousness of a uniquely public dimension in social life--public in the sense of general or common to the social order as a whole. The idea of civic consciousness refers to the elementary perception that there is a public order, that the social order is in part a network of shared problems and purposes, and to the installation of that recognition at the center of political ideas and conduct. [T]he achievement of this civic focus constituted a radical alteration in political vision. It involved not only the recognition of a novel framework, but a fundamental restructuring of assumptions concerning the nature and purpose of political authority, a wholesale redefinition of the rights and duties of citizens, and a critical shift in the primary focus of loyalties and interests. Moreover, once the centrality of civic consciousness and loyalty is appreciated, it is clear that it was the necessary precondition to the achievement of constitutional government. For constitutionalized politics rests in the last resort on self-conscious and sustain purpose at the public level. " Id. at 1-2. "In the seventeen century the medieval subject became a citizen. His relationship to political authority was no longer that of an individual occupying a rank somewhere in the universal hierarchy and a role preordained by his parentage. This hierarchical idea of an order, graded universe, in which the really vital levels of authority are personal and immediate, while the government of the kingdom is the remote apex of an ascending scale, was overturned by the widespread adoption of alternative approaches to the problems raised by reflection on politics. Id. at 27. "Constitutional government made its first appearance on the stage of European history in seventeenth century England. The essential precondition of that achievement was the development of public consciousness and civic loyalty, as contrasted with the fragmented and local preoccupations and personal loyalties of the traditional political order of the Middle Ages. The formation of a civic focus in politics was accompanied by a drastic alteration in the fundamental assumptions of political thought. For the consciously nontraditional values of contract theory--individual liberty and equality--were employed to combat the ideas of status, hierarchy, and degree which ha satisfied and justified the medieval social order, and thus they provided a systematic and permanent alternative to the status values of a landed aristocracy. It is this dramatic transformation of the premises of political thought which has attracted the attention of modern observers, and there is obviously good reason for this. On the other hand, it is less important to appreciate these doctrinal changes, significant as they are, than to recognize that both old and new ideas were revolutionized by the perception of the public scope of politics. This meant that the focus of both practice and idea came to be channeled to the public level rather than deflected to questions of proper local and personal apportionment of governmental rights and duties." Id. at 336. Query: In the context of policies of policing African Americans and other peoples of color, and the essence of the saying, "Black Lives Matter," perhaps the point is that peoples of color are treated as "subject" rather than as "citizens." That is, they are politically perceived and treated as being outside modernity (and citizenship) and relegated to the medieval (subject-ship). Or, to put it another way, the civic consciousness of the majority does not extend to certain minorities, namely, the poor and peoples of color. If 'civic consciousness' is what makes one 'modern,' perhaps there is telling evidence that twenty-first-century America is something less than completely, or truly, modern.).