August 20, 2011

Riots and Civil Society

By Christopher Chantrill
Peggy Noonon asks the critical question in the aftermath of the London riots and the Philadelphia flash mobs. When the riot begins or the flash mob arrives, the best the government can do is control the streets, enforce the law, maintain the peace. After that, then what? Britain is about to face that question. We'll likely have to face it, too, in the US. The next step, she writes, is usually: "The government has to do something. We must start a program, create an agency to address juvenile delinquency." Only that seems to be a joke these days. After all, the youth of London have been programmed, agencied, and social worked to death in the last half century.  And still we get riots? The conservative answer to the failure of the authoritarian welfare state with its programs, its agencies, and its social science experts is "civil society."  That notion goes back to Edmund Burke and his "little platoons."  Berger and Neuhaus addressed it in To Empower People where they...(Read Full Article)