This year, I will stand before my civics students and talk about garbage and how my wife, Sharon, is an amazing person. Don’t worry, it will fit in with approved curriculum. Allow me to explain.
Sharon and I love to take walks in our neighborhood with our trusty pal Leo (our dog). We live in a pretty rural area of Concord, but there are some roads that get a fair amount of traffic.
Recently, as we walked happily along these beautiful streets we began to notice a lot of garbage on the side of the road. We were both appalled, but here is where Sharon outshines me and earns one of her many reasons for being amazing. She did something about it. She grabbed a bag and started to pick up the garbage. At first she just brought small bags, but those filled up so quickly that on subsequent walks, the small bags turned into multiple full-sized bags and even a wheelbarrow at times. Our kids and I sometimes helped her, but I give Sharon the credit. She inspired us, and to this day she cleans up the roadside on her own and more often than all of us.
So how does this relate to civics? During the time of the Roman republic (when they still elected leaders and had no emperors), their system of government was based on classical republicanism. One of the key ideas of classical republicanism was “civic virtue,” which is a willingness to set aside your own personal interest in favor of promoting the common good. Sharon’s act of picking up the garbage is quintessential civic virtue. She is giving up her time, energy (and the cost of the purple bags) to better our community.
One of the key debates at the Constitutional Convention and in the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates that followed was about the best way to promote civic virtue. The Anti-Federalists believed that civic virtue would occur naturally if power was kept at the local level. In essence, small uniform communities would have shared interests and so they would tend to agree on what should be done and they would act for the common good.
The Federalists believed it was naive to expect that people would set aside their personal interests on their own and act for the common good. Instead, they felt that local, uniform communities would act as self-interested factions and not for the larger good of the community or the nation. So the Federalists favored empowering the government to promote civic virtue. For example, the Federalists supported the tax power that allows government to take money from individuals and use it for the betterment of the community.
Today’s libertarians (and others who generally prefer limiting government involvement in the lives of the people) would likely agree with the founding-era Anti-Federalists. They would point out that Sharon did not need to be told by the government to do what was right for her community. Her work is a great example of locally inspired civic virtue.
Today’s progressives (and others who generally feel that government intervention can better the lives of people) would likely maintain the point of view of the founding-era Federalists. They would point out that there are tens and maybe even hundreds of people who drive through our neighborhood and throw trash out of their car windows (which is an act that is just about the polar opposite of civic virtue). They would also ask whether other people in other neighborhoods have taken action on their own, like Sharon did, to pick up the garbage.
Regardless of who is correct, it does seem clear that the more people act on their own to do the right thing for their communities, the less we need to rely on the government to mandate policies to promote civic virtue.
My school district’s superintendent gave an opening day speech this year that focused in part on the ripple effect that teachers have. Her point was that teachers influence their students, hopefully in positive ways, and those students go on to spread that influence to others and so on. I hope that by writing about my amazing wife and telling my students this year about her unselfish actions as part of our discussion of “civic virtue,” it will have a ripple effect and bring positive change. So many of our problems can seem overwhelming, but if just one person who throws garbage out of their car window becomes instead someone who picks up garbage from the side of the road, our society will be a better one.
(Dan Marcus, a one-time lawyer, is a social studies teacher. Dan teaches the civics course and competition “We the People” at John Stark Regional High School in Weare and is a resident of Concord.)