A Brief Look At Civic Values

Civic Values As Components Of Institutionalization

Civic values are very important components of institutionalization that are not discussed enough so in this essay, our objective is to introduce you to civic values. In this introduction, we will do a brief conceptualisation of civic values as being a social fact, then summarise our conceptualisation into a definition that highlights the essential components, and then briefly discuss why civic values for nations-states in the western milieu are homogenous.

Every civic society has norms and values that guide its people to a standard way of being within that polity. They are supra-individual and are collectively validated and acknowledged as transcending control that dictates the standard for all manner of being within the polity. Many sociologists have over the ages, endeavoured to conceptualise these supra-individual terms, and one of those is Durkheim who conceptualises them as social facts (1982).

Now, we acknowledge the flaws in the data and methodology in Durkheim’s work with respect to social facts as pointed out by phenomenologists and postmodernists but that does not negate its ontological case within which limits our essay dwells. Moreover, we are approaching civic values as a unitary of values so we may address it as a singular noun in some cases within this essay.

According to Durkheim, (1982), social facts are “way of being” (p.58) that “consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him” (p.52). He further states, “What constitutes social facts are the beliefs, tendencies and practices of the group taken collectively” (p. 54).

Therefore, we can understand social facts to be “collectively” accepted “way of being” portrayed in “beliefs, tendencies and practices” of a society, and these facts transcend the individual and control their “manners of acting, thinking and feeling.” However, “consist of” and “constitutes” as used by Durkheim in this case are not synonymously represented. They represent characteristics and forms respectively.

This means, there are characteristics or manners of behaviour that a person must manifest to meet the standard which is the expected ideal and principal way of being or in clear terms, the ideals and principles that define what is virtuous and morally acceptable manner of being. Hence by characteristics, we are connoting values. Moreover, the need to maintain defined boundaries for these characteristics and convey these beliefs, practices and tendencies calls for guidelines which are ordered in forms such as rituals, scruples, laws, taboos, mores, and folkways. And these forms pertain to norms.

Putting all in clear terms, we can understand social facts as norms and values acknowledged by the collective as supra-individual and necessary for maintaining the acceptable manner of being within a particular group. The manner of being or as Durkheim would say, “the way of being”, pertains to how one perceives and orders self to experience social actions and structures within their discernible space.

Therefore, if your discernible space is a civic milieu, then the actions and structures are civically arranged so your perception and ordering of self should meet the expectation of that civic polity. Hence to meet these civic expectations, there should be ideals and principles i.e., values that the collective of the supposed civic milieu acknowledges as the supra-individual facts necessary for fostering acceptable manner of being of the individuals. And these ideals and principles are what we deem as civic values.

Hence, we can define civic values as ideals and principles collectively accepted and practiced as the standard virtuous social behaviour to maintain orderliness and wellbeing of polity and subjects.

Civic in its original sense, pertains to townsfolks or citizens of cities and municipal territories. However, the rise of centralized nation-state especially in the European territories and the commonwealth of nation-states in the western milieu means the civic arrangements, representations and expectations have become centralized. Therefore, ideals and principles deemed necessary to foster the acceptable manner of being within cities and nations-states under these centralized territories have become homogenous.

Also factors such as immigration, globalization, intermarriages, commerce, technology, and cultural appropriation are also responsible for the homogeneity of civic arrangements around the world especially within the western milieu. For instance, in the western milieu the homogeneity has advanced so much to the point where what is deemed as civic values for Buchan in Scotland is the same for Brown in USA, Koen in Netherlands, Katie in Canada, Beck in Australia, and Marcin in Poland.

Notwithstanding, civic values are still regional but not universal. What one region may accept as virtuous social behaviour may not be the same for another. This is because civic values are cultivated from an ultimate heritage. For instance, the western world (or the occident as the French call it), until the rise of the ant-establishment era, cultivated its civic values on Catholicism and Protestantism. However, in recent times, the ultimate heritage for civic values in the western world are more rooted in ancient Asian spirituality, western esoterism, paganism, and animism.

The list for civic values is inexhaustible so it is much safer to put them in categories. Even still, there is no limits to the categories because as stated above, civic values are regional, so it varies in various territories. But among some of the examples of civic values in the western milieu are, service, philanthropy, responsibility, respect, enterprise, acceptance of otherness, appreciation, solidarity, fellowship, equity, and equality.

So, in recap, civic values are social facts and as such, very ultimate in the fostering of the acceptable manner of being among citizens of any given polity. And they are regional, but the western milieu has a homogeneous civic values arrangement.