However, it is easy to misread recent symptoms and thus to misunderstand the situation. Before suggesting what might be done, therefore, we must try to reach a better understanding of the problem. It is neither adequate nor accurate to explain the apparent erosion of social ties by pointing to a pervasive attitude of narcissism. Indeed, there is considerable evidence of civic concern among Americans, of people's willingness to render service in their local communities. In March 1978, for example, a Gallup study showed that 89 percent of the city dwellers polled expressed a willingness to volunteer their time and efforts to solve neighborhood problems.* To recall a point from Chapter 3, there is the greatest satisfaction with and optimism about the smaller social units such as neighborhoods, suburbs, or small towns. There, people are more active politically and feel that they have some effective control over the decisions that affect their livesand this is why local government is viewed as most responsive. It would appear, in other words, that the virtues of democratic citizenship are best cultivated in, and most evident in, relatively small-scale communities. At this level, it is inaccurate to say there is general apathy about the public interest or a pervasive discontent with the exercise of power. But there is considerable discontent with the broader circles of collective life. The larger the community one lives in, the less likely its residents are to regard it as "a good place to live." Compared to people who live in suburbs or small towns, most people who live in cities are more pessimistic about their collective future and feel there is far less they can do to affect it. With regard to the area that is most remote from the life of the individual-the nation as a whole-many people, as we have noted, are quite pessimistic and distrustful and regard government at that level as most wasteful." In part, then, the problem seems to be one of scale. In our society-whose scale is so much larger than the citystates of ancient Greece where the ideals of democracy were first defined, or even the democratic nation-states that were formed in the 18th and 19th centuries-a basic problem is to encourage participation in decisions that seem far removed from the average citizen. Alienation is something more than a modern catchword; it points to a pervasive feeling that the sphere within which personal effort is likely to make a difference is a very small one indeed, and that so many of the decisions that affect our lives are made by large organizations that are too remote to be responsive. As a consequence, as public opinion analyst Daniel Yankelovich points out, "All of our surveys over the past Symptoms of Discontent 99 decade show that every year more and more people are coming to believe that the part of their lives that they are able to control is diminishing." If, as Yankelovich suggests, increasing numbers of Americans feel that decisions are imposed upon them, it is hardly because there has been general indifference about citizen participation. In fact, the widely heralded "participation revolution" of the late 1960s and 1970s has left its legacy: Today, almost all new federal programs contain citizen-participation requirements, and the legislation for many older programs has been amended to include such provisions. One survey of federal programs indicates that out of more than 200 public-participation programs, 61 percent were created during the 1970s. There has also been considerable interest at state and local levels; more than half of the states now have special offices to coordinate citizen-involvement activities." However, there has been a marked decline in involvement in national politics. Over the past two decades, both the number of people who identify with political parties and the number of people who vote in national elections has dropped substantially.' At the same time, public disaffection with the government has grown. Since the mid1960s, at least two polls have attempted to measure belief in the efficacy of government and its responsiveness to the public will. One of those polls, run by the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan, has been conducted in each of the past four Presidential election years. Persons interviewed in its national sample who agree with each of these statements are considered to be disaffected: "You can trust the government in Washington to do what is right . . . only some of the time." "The government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves." "Quite a few of the people running government are a little crooked." "Quite a few of the people running the government do not seem to know what they are doing." "People in the government waste a lot of money we pay in taxes." Between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s the percentage of people who chose these answers doubled: There is a similar trend in the response to two of the questions in Louis Harris' "Index of Alienation." Figure 5 shows the percentage of respondents who agree with both of these statements: "People running the country do not really care what happens to you," and "What you think does not count anymore." 100 Figure 5 Percentage of Americans Who Agree with the Statements, "Leaders Don't Care What Happens to You" and "What You Think Does Not Count Anymore" Figure 6 shows that, over the same period, there has been a decline in public confidence in the leaders of our major institutions. The percentage of Americans who express "great confidence" in those leaders has consistently declined. In the mid-1960s, slightly more than 40 percent of the adult population expressed "great confidence" in both the Congress and the executive branch; by 1979, only 18 percent felt that way about the Congress, and 17 percent about the executive branch. Public confidence in the leaders of other major institutions-such as medicine, major companies, organized labor, and religious institutionshas declined almost as rapidly. In fact, the only major institution in which public confidence has risen is TV news, the medium through which the American public has received most of its news about the abuses of power (such as Watergate) or the apparent indifference of private companies to the public welfare (as illustrated by the dumping of toxic chemicals).1o Thus, despite efforts at encouraging citizen participation at all levels of government, one of the significant trends of the past two decades has been an erosion of public confidence in government, particularly the federal government. There has been a pattern of increasing alienation and disaffection that cannot be attributed to any single event such as Watergate; it is a pattern that has continued through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Perhaps the mid-1960s-the point of comparison for these trends-was a time of unusual confidence in the nation's leaders and the efficacy of government. But, in any case, what has happened since then indicates an increasing sense of powerlessness and disaffection with the political process, that the nation's leaders in the 1980s will have to address. A feeling of powerlessness and disaffection with the political process is particularly acute among the young." Although it may be most extreme among disadvantaged youth in the nation's cities, it is not limited to them. Among privileged youth, too, there is a pervasive sense of apathy and a need for meaningful tasks from which they can derive a sense of pride and participation. Here, for example, are the words of a 17-year-old high school student: ... You ask yourself, "What am I doing? What does any of this matter?" And the answer is, it doesn't matter at all. . . . All school is, you know, is the great time passer. It's all a big invention to keep kids from becoming anything. . . . There isn't anything people my age can do that matters in the slightest to anybody. . . . This country doesn't have the time or the place or the interest in young people. We're a waste to them, that's all. Civic |