That the issue of civil society has not noly returned in our days but has become the key issue of reversing the downward flow of power and engaging people in democratic life, is neither accident nor fad, but a response to a need which has been building over the last four centuries. At the time of the Enlightenment a great campaign was mounted to gain control over knowledge, and hence over life. Figures such as Descartes, Locke and Bacon converged in purging the mind of all ideas which were not clear and distinct either in themselves or in their origin. The convictions and commitments of the cultures were put aside so that all could be constructed anew.

Very much was accomplished. Our physical living space was transformed, communication broadened and intensified, and economic and socio-political structures were vastly elaborated. But in the last century wars and atrocities have made it increasingly clear that a reductivist reason was not capable of coordinating our new capabilities. Increasingly, the world slid toward a Cold War between an individualist capitalist economy and the hegemony of a socialist polity. In this each would be destroyed, less by the other than by itself. Vico’s analysis had come true, namely, an intellectual monster had been born that would destroy what it created.

At this turn of the millennia, therefore, following the collapse of one of the alternative modes of modernity in ‘89, there is need to reconstruct social life. The focus of this activity is not the economic or political order, but the responsible exercise of human freedom with others in the pattern of multiple solidarities in which life is lived: family, education, neighborhood and church. On its 50th anniversary the United Nations turned from its concentration upon states to the non-governmental solidarities for the key human convictions which engage and shape political and economic policymaking. Hence, this volume is dedicated to the investigation of civil society and social reconstruction.

Part I begins with a chapter by G.F. McLean on the identification of the root elements of such a society, namely, human freedom lived in solidarity with others, and with a subsidiary relation between these solidarities in order to provide the maximum possibility for a creative exercise of freedom. This is followed by an analysis of the travails of civil society in the confines of modern rationalism, which points to the need for a new space for civil society. It is suggested that this space can be found in aesthetic awareness, which makes possible an integration of reason and will, of matter and spirit, and of person and society. In these terms it is possible to reappropriate what had been rejected by modern rationalism, namely, imagination and sensibility, values and religion, in a word, the rich cultural traditions which reflect the cumulative exercise of human freedom in the past and provide the normative force needed for the direction of a broad and varied civil life in our times.

The chapter by Stephen Schneck provides the set of alternative models according to which civil society might be structured which were proposed at the founding of the United States as the first modern democracy. These models are: ‘top-down’ as in the Puritan model, or ‘bottom-up’ as in the agrarian model, or horizontal as in the political-economy model. Each has its strengths and limitations. Their articulation is itself an invitation to look more deeply into the challenge and resources of civil society in our times.

Part II identifies some of these challenges. In chapter III Charles Dechert identifies the dynamics in the modern state which, even in a "liberal" frame of reference, tend to coerce the citizen into a servile position. Chapter IV by Chaoura Bourouh illustrates this in the case of Algeria and its socialist effort to build a modern state after the colonial period. Beginning from a single political party whose directive influence was to penetrate and guide all, he identifies the difficulty of the Party in tolerating spontaneity on the part of the citizens and of the citizenry under such all-pervading directive force from the political order. Finally, Chapter V by William Barbieri identifies the difficulty of including all persons in a single society, whether this be conceived as a single ethnic group, a culture, a matter of local choice for broad coexistence or a universal cosmopolis. This is the fundamental and, in a way, prior issue of participation, that is, of who shall be considered to belong to the civil society, on what basis and with what rights and privileges. This will be the topic of a subsequent volume in this series.

Part III begins the work of responding to these challenges by studying the various constructive elements of a civil society. Chapter VI by Mario Laserna studies the growth of a global industrial society. In Chapter VII Rosemary Winslow investigates the first steps of self-awareness and interpersonal relatedness through an analysis of the experience of the process of expression and communication. In Chapter VIII David Power points to the ways in which this is reflected stably in rituals of all sorts in public as in religious life. In a remarkable Chapter IX Paul Peachey moves beyond a renewal of the frightening Platonic scenario in which all children ultimately become wards of the state, to identify the conjugal union as the basic social and socializing factor. If he is correct, then the difficulties of building civil society in our days of crumbling families may be great indeed. In Chapter X John Kromkowski carries the task further by situating it geographically in the neighborhoods in which families live and interact. He identifies the problems and dynamics of restoring a civil life in such communities of human scale.

Chapter XI by Antonio Perez expands the horizons dramatically to the international level suggesting that rather than remaining focused upon the sovereign political power of states, the major issues are now being reformulated in the qualitative terms of the rights of all peoples to democratic participation in the life of their nation. Chapter XII by Ivan Angelov and Harry Alexiev applies this to facing the concrete issues of transnational relations in border situations in which deep cultural divisions could lead to conflict.

Part IV turns to the basic metaphysical and religious resources for forming a civil culture and a civil society. In Chapter XIII Richard Khuri reviews the challenges noted by Professor C. Dechert and the foundational contribution of Professor Peachey. He provides a deep metaphysical base for a civil culture and the process of its creation which takes account of the diversity of persons whose truth nevertheless is preserved in their unity. Chapter XIV follows this lead as articulated in the religious experiences of a number of recent figures. In this light J. Donders introduces the address of John Paul II to the United Nations on its 50th anniversary and his spirited defence of the rights not only of individuals, but of cultures and nations in their various solidarities as essential modes of human life.

Chapter XV by Mustafa Malik shows its vitality in North America, pointing particularly to the Islamic peoples. Chapter XVI and XVII by Varghese Manimala and Chanchal Bhattacharya describe the Hindu patten of the four goals of life which provide an integral religious foundation for building a theory of civil society in our times. Chapter XVII focuses upon social evil and retribution. Chapter XVIII by Florencio Riguera treats developments in the recognition of a civil equality of religions as a key to enabling them to play their constructive role in civil society.

These chapters result not only from extensive private research, but from long hours of intensive critical, interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange between the authors. Together, they constitute a most extensive and intensive study of the issues of civil society and social reconstruction.