Foster a culture of national serviceI’m a devout follower of Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, who has devoted much of the last twenty years to documenting the decline of civic engagement in the U.S. His 2000 masterwork Bowling Alone is a comprehensive piece showing how Americans, with the rise of suburbs, commutes, and prime-time television, have become more insular and civically disengaged.
Putnam’s research, I’d venture, goes a long way to explaining the eroding of confidence in American political institutions and our society’s relative unconcern for marginalized groups in urban and rural areas. We need a more civically-minded, less material, and more responsible culture, an argument too often solely associated with conservative thought but towards which Obama appears receptive.
The president-elect’s national service plan includes the formation of a green job corps, expansion of the Peace Corps, and tax credits for college students who volunteer 100+ hours per year. He will make good on these promises, but program expansion is the easy part. Obama’s real challenge will be to foster the culture of national service required to sustain these programs, something only a gifted leader can do through leadership.
G.W. Bush pledged in his 2002 State of the Union address to create “a culture of responsibility” through the creation of the USA Freedom Corp. and expansion of both the AmeriCorps and Peace Corps programs. While he enjoyed modest success on the programmatic side, Bush failed to provide the moral leadership needed to change the culture, in part due to his administration’s myriad catastrophes.
Obama, on the other hand, can talk and has walked national service. In his commencement address at Wesleyan in May, Obama said,
Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story.”
Hopefully Obama will provide that missing ingredient, leadership, that can jumpstart the service culture.
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