One of the abiding themes of Catholic social teaching has been subsidiarity. As the Compendium says (s185 here):
It is impossible to promote the dignity of the person without showing concern for the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth. This is the realm of civil society, understood as the sum of the relationships between individuals and intermediate social groupings, which are the first relationships to arise and which come about thanks to “the creative subjectivity of the citizen”.
This week we'll be looking at civil society, used in the sense of those intermediate bodies and institutions that exist between the State and the individual. In totalitarian societies such as Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, these intermediate communities were reduced to mere tools of the State, while in modern capitalism, there appears to be a gradual reduction of such community life in favour of individualism.
Questions to think about:
a) Do you think the community life of civil society has changed over your lifetime? If so, has this been for the better or worse?
b) Does it matter? Can't small communities be rather oppressive at times? Isn't there a welcome freedom in individualism?
If you've got time, you could have a look at this interview with Robert Putnam. (Here.) Putnam's book, Bowling Alone, is a classic study of the decline of the sort of social networks involved in civil society.
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