…Yet a defense of civil society in the United States is complicated by two paradoxes. The first is that while civil society is often celebrated as one of the central planks of American exceptionalism, it’s also taken for granted. The term itself doesn’t help matters. If vaguely familiar — associated with some guy named Tocqueville? — for many, it seems inscrutable, carrying a whiff of foreign origins and removed from vital everyday concerns.
Indeed, a 2022 survey by the Civic Language Perceptions Project at Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement found that “civil society” is one of the least understood terms associated with civic engagement and democracy work.
But this confusion might represent an opportunity. Of the 21 terms surveyed, “civil society” evoked the smallest differences in responses from people of varying races, political ideology, gender, education level, and other factors. In part, that might be because they shared a common experience of not fully understanding what it meant. But the report also showed that the term is not itself a cause of polarization and conflict. It even suggested that it might help “bring us closer together,” noting that at the very least the “civic” and “civil” cluster of terms were “open for branding…”
