This year’s BBC Reith Lectures have been fascinating Professor Michael Sandel the ‘Anne T and Robert M Bass’ Professor of Government at Harvard has delivered a series of 4 lectures on the subject of ‘A New Citizenship’.
Professor Michael Sandel
In the final lecture entitled ‘A new politics of the common good’ he made a case for a moral and civic renewal in democratic politics.
What I felt was particularly relevant to our work was his comments on the problems caused by the increasing inequality of wealth in our society.
This inequality often gets presented as one of a disparity in economic opportunity, however Professor Sandel suggested that the true corrosive nature of this inequality was it’s impact on civil society and the common good.
- ‘Too great a gap between rich and poor undermines the solidarity that democratic citizenship requires. As inequality deepens, rich and poor live increasingly separate lives.’
His argument was both common sense and accurately reflected the world we increasingly live in. As we use separate social and recreational facilities, housing, and transport, the rich have less investment in the provision that the poor and vulnerable rely on. Alongside this different group of citizens become less and less tolerant of each other due to their declining level of contact with each other.
He argues that national and local government must prioritise working with Citizens to rebuild the architecture of civic life. This work must be cooperative, it must take common effort and exertion, he concluded by saying:
- ‘I’ve tried to suggest that the virtues of democratic life – community, solidarity, trust, civic friendship – these virtues are not like commodities that are depleted with use. They are rather like muscles that develop and grow stronger with exercise’.
I feel it is this work that we are embarking on through our work on community sustainability.
If you want to listen to the whole lecture, you can listen to it by following the link to the BBC site BBC Reith Lecture 2009.
Or by listening through the player below.
