Sunday, April 29, 2012

Mandatory Public Service: Reviving Civic Responsibility in an Age of Bread and Circuses

In my spare time between work, sleep, commuting, diaper changes and an occasional meal, I have been slowly reading two books. One is Larry Sabato's "A More Perfect Constitution" and Bret Stephenson's "From Boys to Men: Spiritual Rites of Passage in an Indulgent Age".

The ideas in each of these books have found a happy home in my gray matter.

In "A More Perfect Constitution", a well written book by Larry Sabato which advocates for a new constitution, Sabato pushes the idea that every able-bodied able-minded citizen serve two years performing public service for their country at minimum wage and housed in public housing. His thinking is that such a program that requires everyone from all walks of life to live together and make the same wage may help each citizen better understand their fellow citizen. Furthermore, it may serve as a training ground for citizens to learned leadership skills that can further benefit the nation as a whole.

I find it an interesting idea. And it may serve two other purposes that Sabato didn't think of. The first is that it can serve as a modern day rite of passage. We don't have many or really any true rites of passage in our culture any more -- earning the right to vote and acceptance as an adult at 18 years only requires that you are capable of breathing long enough to see your 18th birthday. Rites of passage generally require you to remove yourself from your adolescent environment, experience some kind of hardship that "kills your childhood ego" and upon returning to your community some kind of community acceptance that you are now an adult. A nationally administered public service program can serve the purpose.