BRONX TIMES REPORTER, MARCH 5-11, 2021 13
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BY BRONX TIMES
Following the insurrection
at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and a
particularly vicious partisan
campaign against U. S. government
institutions, there
is an invigorated discussion
about the meaning and instruments
of democracy. Many
ask, why do we create roadblocks
to voting? Why are our
political divisions so severe?
Why do so many people feel
alienated? Why aren’t people
better informed about our history,
about government function
and traditions?
Twenty years ago, the
scholar Robert Putnam argued
in Bowling Alone that
United States society had experienced
a large decline in
social cohesiveness. He cited
research showing that the individuals
born before 1930
who had experienced the
Great Depression and World
War II were more trusting
and community-minded than
the generations that attained
adulthood during the years
of Vietnam, Watergate, and a
general coarsening of popular
culture. With this decline
in trust and civic engagement,
he found a diminished commitment
to the needs and welfare
of those beyond immediate
family members, friends,
and neighbors.
In the 1830s, the French
journalist Alexis de Toqueville
visited the United
States to study the values critical
to a constitutional republic.
In his analysis, he focused
on those he considered especially
important: liberty and
egalitarianism. He believed
that equality was the great
political and social idea of his
era, and that the United States
offered the most advanced example
of equality in action.
He admired American individualism
but warned that too
much emphasis on individual
liberty over the common good
of society could be a threat to
democracy. He saw schools
and education as essential to
community and institution
building.
Some of his premonitions
have come to pass, with a substitution
of nationalism for
patriotism and falsehoods for
facts as well as a demeaning of
government for authoritarian
ends. These divisions drive
us further apart, pushing us
into more and more narrow
spaces, sometimes family living
rooms and sometimes online
chat rooms.
One of the consequences
of this divisiveness is a sense
of loneliness that has been labelled
a public health crisis. It
has been linked to shorter life
spans, heart disease, obesity,
and Alzheimer’s. Putnam and
others have written that fewer
of us join civic or community
organizations, that we are less
likely to attend religious services,
and that we are prone to
overworking.
An important cause of this
decline in social cohesion is
the rising rate of income inequality.
Income inequality
in turn is related to declining
participation in voluntary associations
and trust in others.
It is a strike against the
value placed on equality and
the notion of a common good.
Democracy requires community
and community requires
trust. Community is based on
common interests, common
values, and common aspirations
for our neighbors as well
as for ourselves. The common
good is not supported when
the focus is on the individual
to the exclusion of other values.
The saying, “It takes a
community…” may be trite
but it also true.
Trust requires commitment,
competence, and consistency
in communications.
People will trust when the
communication is honest
and reliable. Trust is possible
when leaders acknowledge
failings in history and do not
focus solely on the positive
and poetic.
De Toqueville was prescient
in his assessment of
American society and his focus
on equality as a great political
and social ideal. It’s as
if he was warning us that an
unbridled emphasis on the individual
would be a threat to
equality and democracy.
It is unfortunate that the
COVID pandemic has kept us
isolated because the positive
health results of social distancing
may exacerbate the
decline in social capital. Nevertheless,
the fi rst step to correcting
any problem is to identify
it. So, just as we consider
how to open schools for the
social and emotional health
of children as well as their
learning, let us think further.
How might our community organizations,
PTAs, chambers
of commerce, Rotary, and others
work to bridge the divides
that separate us and bring us
together in common cause
for strengthening our democracy?
In this quest, schools
and institutions of higher education
have important roles to
play not only in the classroom
but also in their support of voluntarism.
Fortunately, we have examples
of initiatives in our area
colleges and universities that
sponsor community engagement
involving faculty, staff,
and students. These include
Adelphi’s Jagger Community
Fellows Program and its Prize
for Leadership for high school
juniors; Molloy’s Energia Partnership
Program; Hofstra’s
Center for Civic Engagement
and its Saltzman Community
Services Center; and St. Joseph
College’s Center for Community
Solutions.
With these and similar opportunities,
we can encourage
the role of the individual in
supporting the common good,
the strengthening of communities,
and the building of social
trust and cohesion so essential
to democracy.
The U.S. Capitol Building following
a rainstorm on Capitol Hill in Washington,
U.S., December 4, 2020.
REUTERS/Tom Brenner/File Photo
BY HARVEY EPSTEIN
Dear President Biden, Majority
Leader Schumer, and
Speaker Pelosi:
We write to respectfully
request your immediate intervention
into the deportation
proceedings of Javier
Castillo Maradiaga, a New
Yorker who applied for Deferred
Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) during the
Obama Administration. His
plight was recently reported
in a February 28th, 2021 article
in the New Yorker. Mr.
Maradiaga was arrested for
jaywalking on December
14th, 2019 and then ultimately
turned over to Immigration
and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) in violation of New
York City law.
Since being illegally transferred
to ICE custody, Mr.
Maradiaga, who has lived in
America since he was 8 years
old, has had extremely limited
opportunities to see his
family, including his mother,
an essential hospital worker.
Now, he could be deported to
a country he has not visited
for over two decades.
ICE’s attempt to deport
Mr. Maradiaga is cruel, a
senseless waste of resources,
and out of line with the agency’s
ostensible goals of national
security, border security,
and public safety. The
agency could simply exercise
its prosecutorial discretion
to put an end to the nightmare
that Mr. Maradiaga’s
family is experiencing. We
urge you to quickly resolve
this matter.
Sincerely,
Harvey Epstein
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PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER: CEO AND CO-PUBLISHER: Joshua Schneps
BRONX TIMES PUBLISHER: Laura Guerriero
Democracy requires community
and community requires trust
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