Civil Society and the Good Society

Abstract

The main subject of the present lecture will be civil society and its distinctive features as a particular type of social and historical formation. Because the phrase has acquired a positive connotation, it is often used in public discussion today as a kind of synonym for the good society. I believe, on the other hand, that a distinction should he maintained between the two, and that nothing is added to our understanding of society by using two phrases where only one will do. Being a sociologist. I would naturally like to approach the problem from the sociological point of view. Since I consider sociology to be in the main an empirical rather than an evaluative discipline, I feel more at ease with the concept of civil society than I do with that of the good society. I believe that social theory has something useful to contribute to the understanding of civil society, but I doubt that the sociologist has much more to say on the good society than may be expected of any responsible citizen. There are and perhaps always will be many and various conceptions of the good society. I doubt that the religious believer and the unbeliever can ever have the same conception of the good society: yet it should be possible for them to agree on the basic characteristics of civil society. What I understand by civil society has little chance of growth in a totalitarian regime where one single and uniform conception of the good society is imposed from above. Civil society nourishes not under totalitarian regimes but under liberal, pluralist and secular regimes, and it is a defining feature of the latter that they accommodate diverse conceptions of the good society. A theocratic regime accommodates only believers, whereas a secular regime accommodates unbelievers as well as believers, and believers of different religions. A totalitarian regime