- To be an engaged, or higher, learner is to be in a relationship to an “other” and to respect its integrity—to know, judge, and act in a community. It is why Dewey and current neo-pragmatists argue that matters of learning and thinking are inseparable from a social ethic, from matters of social action where knowing and practice in the social context are inseparable. They are the very core of civic responsibility. ~Donald W Harward
- If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?—RABBI HILLEL
- As Tocqueville said, hearkening back to Aristotle, “By dint of working for the good of one’s fellow citizens, the habit and the taste for serving them are at length acquired.” ~Corey Keyes
- Civic engagement is an activity, first and foremost. It should be done in the spirit of joining and addressing an issue that is of concern not just to you, but to others, where the well-being or public happiness of others is at stake. ~Corey Keyes
- A crisis is also an opportunity. If we lack compelling political and intellectual movements, and if our major institutions are performing very badly, then we’d better begin building examples of ethical and effective civic work at the grassroots level. If our intellectual life is fractured in ways that reduce its value for active citizens, then we’d better find settings that reintegrate scholarship and address serious problems. That’s what I think we’re trying to do, but my provocation is that the intellectual work involved in that is extraordinarily difficult. ~Peter Levine
- It struck me that these small [civic engagement] groups of ... face a monumental intellectual task. The question before them is, what must be done? To answer that, they must know what the conditions are in the world, what strategies might possibly work ... and they must decide whether what they might try to do in the world would be good. So they must decide three things together: facts, strategies, and values. ~Peter Levine
- Civic engagement is an opportunity to remind us of our desperate need for rich interdependence; to strip away the fantasy of autonomy; to reveal that if the most vulnerable fall, we are all threatened. ~Michelle Fine
- I was recently reminded of an idea floated decades ago by the philosophers John Dewey and Maxine Greene. They contrasted anesthetic educational experiences, which put you to sleep, with aesthetic experiences, which provoke new ideas, relationships, and activities. Perhaps we should catalogue the conditions under which we can produce civic engagements that are aesthetic, provocative, enlivening—and not anesthetic. ~Michelle Fine
- It is in the condition of the free exchange, or even confrontation, of ideas that freedom has a meaning and justification. Ideologically regulated freedom is an oxymoron. Argumentation and the search for consensus are essential for true democracy. ~Samuel Abraham
- What I have also learned is the importance of asking questions. For, in our age, the questions, not the answers, are most daring and in danger of being foreclosed by ideologues and fanatics. Answers vary, are subjective, are tainted by ideology, and are rightly considered matters of opinion; however, questions might go to the core of the matter. ~Samuel Abraham
- The scope of our goals is thinking in terms that must be concrete and purposely limited. The smaller of large deeds as simply the objective, the larger the impact it will have on minds. And this is more than one can hope for, because setting an example—being an example—can have transformative effects. Concrete positive action is something those thinking in terms of large deeds simply can't fathom. ~Samuel Abraham
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