What obligation does a group have to develop the agency of its members?

It is entirely possible that “groups” generally speaking have no such obligation.

Perhaps a non-profit with a stated mission of increasing agency has an obligation, while a corporation with other priorities does not. That certainly seems to be the functional way of things. But is that ideal?

In a practical sense, I don’t think I would advocate for every group – a broad term, indeed – to be focused at all times on the agency of its members. Agency is important, of course, but sometimes it’s more important to just get things done.

Yet if every person is to develop the capabilities of agency – to feel a sense of voice, a sense of influence over one’s world – where is that development to happen? Certainly we can’t rely on a few good hearted non-profits to win the battle for us.

Civil society more broadly seems the obvious place to turn: Develop curriculum that supports students as agents, structure governments which include citizens as agents, encourage voluntary associations which empower members as agents.

All of that is good. All of that important.

And yet, I find it strangely unsatisfying. An insufficient solution to a Goliath of a problem.

Schools don’t embrace agency unless the people demand it, governments don’t embrace participation unless the people demand it, and associations cannot flourish unless the people demand it.

None of these will simply sprout forth from the earth.

So, idyllic visioning aside, we are back to having a few non-profits advocating for agency and training the next generation of advocates. Perhaps we will achieve a critical mass of agency in a few hundred years or so. We’ll see how it goes.

Surely there must be other engines we can turn.

One challenge is that there is little incentive for any large organization to be concerned about agency. We may not expect this of large corporations, but even among the political crowd – too often the emphasis is on one act of agency which is swept up in a sea of voices. There’s no room for real political participation. For dialogue or for the real work of building policy together.

Walter Lippmann was deeply concerned with what he called the centralizing tendency of society – to get things done, you need to centralize, you need to bureaucratize, and ultimately – you need to cut people out of the process. It is democracy which pays the price.

Perhaps even more troubling is that the way to seemingly organize against centralized power is to build your own centralized power. Form a union. Create a new political party. Who is in power changes, but ultimately the system remains the same. And democracy pays the price.

I’m afraid I’ve stumbled upon no grand solutions in this line of inquiry, but I wonder what a…system in equilibrium would like like.

Through our many formal and informal groups, could we build a society which supports every individual’s agency, and yet still get the work done? Not every interaction with every group will increase your agency, but what is the right mix, the right balance of experience to create a good but workable system?

I cannot solve the troubles of the world, so perhaps, more simply, I should ask myself this: as a person who is a member of many groups and of many kinds of groups – do I do everything I can to increase the agency of those around me?

The group, after all, has not it’s own soul – it is ultimately up to us to make this vision so.

What is the core purpose of higher education? To educate, perhaps, but education to what end?

Tisch College Dean Alan D. Solomont answered that question today in a new op-ed reflecting on the White House Summit on Civic Learning and National Service which, as I mentioned, my office recently hosted.

As his op-ed describes:

While the [1947 Truman Commission on Higher Education for Democracy] stated that educating for democracy “should come first … among the principal goals for higher education,” today, society asks colleges and universities to prepare individuals for jobs in a cost-effective and accessible way. That is an important mission in a global economy, but there is a striking gap between 1947 rhetoric and today’s more narrow focus on education for individual economic success.

To modern sensibilities perhaps the idea of “education for democracy” sounds quaint, or perhaps simply idealistic. We’re living in a rough-and-tumble global economy. We face a skills gap. A wage gap. We are desperately trying to adjust to rapidly shifting industries and we are painfully aware that at any moment jobs might go overseas.

Education for democracy might be nice, but workforce development means survival.

There is a reasonableness to that argument, yet it feel oddly hollow and uncompelling.

Nearly half of all young people have no college experience, and, unless we want to consider making higher education free and accessible to all, than it is simply unconscionable to maintain a system that serves to improve economic prosperity for select participants.

Education for democracy – which everyone should have access to from Kindergarten right on up – has a different vision.

This approach imagines a society where everyone has the awareness to see and understand society’s problems, and everyone has the agency to do something about it. A society where people of differing views can hold civil conversations, pushing each other to be better and working to co-create solutions.

Education for democracy isn’t about improving the life of one student, or improving the lives of select students. It is about enriching all our lives, it is about actively, fundamentally, and collectively improving our communities.

The idea is neither quaint, nor idealistic. Indeed – education for democracy is about survival.

If we every hope to be the Just, Free, and Equal society we aspire to be, we must educate our young people not only to espouse these views, but to demonstrate them.