Hart calls for return to civic virtue in government

"The classic qualities of the republic are very much needed in 21st century America because of the revolutionary age we live in," said presidential candidate and former senator Gary Hart, D-Colo., yesterday in a lecture entitled "Restoration of the Republic" in Dodds Auditorium.

As people begin to lose control of their political lives because of what Hart called the "global and information revolution," more local and personal community governments will be necessary, he said.

Thomas Jefferson, who first developed the idea of community government, felt that the founders "left something out," as they struggled to create a large-scale republic and a federation of states, Hart said.

Of the three major components of classic republican government — civic virtue, popular sovereignty and resistance to corruption — the last two are absent from current politics, Hart said.

Civic virtue, he said, is now a quaint term, rarely used by the government. Popular sovereignty is an idea that still has enormous consequences for the practice of U.S. politics in the 21st century, he said.

All three qualities are interrelated — corruption destroys popular sovereignty and can only be prevented by the exercise of citizens' civic duty, Hart said.

"We think of corruption today almost classically as bribery, money under the table . . . Classic republicans believed that corruption was this: placing personal good ahead of the common good," Hart said.

To correct the wrongs of American government, people must exercise their civic responsibility to overcome corruption, he said.

"Contrary to modern understanding, a republic is not just a simple collection of a lot of special interests," he said. "Right now, if you talk to most people on the street, they would describe 21st century America as an extension of the previous century. I believe that this is not true."

Hart argued that globalization and the information revolution is changing the nature of government.

"These revolutions are further dividing the world between the haves and the have-nots," Hart said. "We can ill afford to leave behind two-thirds of the world. We are going to have to accommodate our international policies to help raise the standards of living of those being disadvantaged by these two revolutions."

Hart said that it is becoming obvious that "the American economy is beginning to be so integrated into the world economy that it can't be fixed the same way it was fixed 20 or 30 years ago."

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The United States is a nation of mass democracy, Hart said.

"One can maintain a national commitment to social standards and redistribute wealth to achieve those national commitments. But they can be better-administered at the community level rather than at the state level."

Also, Hart said that Sept. 11 marked the dawn of a new age of conflict — the age of guerilla warfare.

"If we are indeed living in the age of terrorism and we see fewer armies on the field, we have to rethink the nature of security. We have to think about the security of livelihood, the security of the environment and the security of communities," Hart said.

Hart's lecture was based on his book "Restoration of the Republic," which is based on his Oxford doctoral thesis, "Thomas Jefferson's Ideal of the Republic in 21st Century America." The event was sponsored by the Wilson School and is the first of a new series of dean's lectures.

In addition to his Ph.D. from Oxford, Hart holds law and divinity degrees from Yale University, and a bachelor's degree from Southern Nazarene University.