Civil society and civil discourse

Boyes points out a major obstacle to engaged and civil discourse in this Oct. 22 post.

Samuel Gregg does a nice job of highlighting the urgency in a civil discourse in his book The Commercial Society.

He concludes:
" . . . intellectuals who recognize the benefits of commercial society bear a tremendous responsibility, not the least because of the damage facilitated by other scholars in either prescribing yet another set of collectivist or corporatist solutions to economic problems or who persist in defending economic orders that are indefensible in terms of their limited effects on poverty, their undue inhibitions of human liberty, and their steady de facto encouragement of soft despotism." (158)

I would broaden Gregg's injunction to all of us, as the erosion of personal liberty is facilitated not only by scholars but by the media, special interest groups and, most worrisome, those who are acting out of ignorance or misplaced belief.

The avenues we have to include those who are unaware of the threats to liberty may seem limited, but to the extent we can engage in a civil, yet directed engagement we fulfill the responsibility passed down to us.