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Within any given political tradition or ethical tradition, civics refers to education in the obligations and the rights of the citizen under that tradition. When these change, so often does the definition of civics. Related education in history, religion and media literacy is often included. In the United States, this is the explicit rationale for public education - to ensure the United States Constitution is upheld by citizens who must, at least, know what it is.
When applied to cities and their organization, it is often difficult to distinguish civics from theories of urban planningUrban, city or town planning deals with design of the built environment from the municipal and metropolitan perspective. Other professions deal in more detail with a smaller scale of development, namely architecture and urban design. Regional planning dea. When applied to rural areas, it is difficult to distinguish from theories of rural development . The history of civics dates back to the earliest theories of these by PlatoFor the computing technology, see PLATO System. Plato ( Greek: Platon (c. 427 BC c. 347 BC) was an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, writer, and founder of the Academy in Athens. Plato, who is be in ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. It refers not only to the territory of the present Greek state, but also to those areas settled in ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus, the Aegean coast of Turkey (then kno and ConfuciusConfucius (traditionally 551 BC 479 BC) was a famous sage and social philosopher of China. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, and gained popularity mostly due to its firm grounding in traditional Chinese attitudes. Confucius' in in ancient ChinaThis article is on the geographic and cultural entity. For other meanings, see China (disambiguation). China ( Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguo, Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) is a country in continental East Asia with some oute. These in general have led to modern distinctions between 'West' and 'East', and two very different concepts of right and justiceJustice is a concept involving the fair and moral treatment of all persons, especially in law. It is often seen as the continued effort to do what is "right. In most of all cases "right" is determined by either the majority or logic. If a person lives und and ethicsEthics is a general term for what is often described as the " science of morality". In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is " good". The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy . This is one of the three major branches of in public life.
Of special concern are the choice of a form of governmentA form of government (also referred to as a system of government or a political system is a system composed of various people, institutions and their relations in regard to the governance of a state. Definition There are several definitions of the politic and (if this is any form of democracy) the design of an electoral system and ongoing electoral reform. This involves explicitly comparing voting systems, wealth distribution and the decentralization of political and legal power, control of legal systems and adoption of legal codes, and even political privacy - all seen as important to avoid a dystopic carceral state or a lapse into some undesirable state of totalitarianism or theocracy. Each of these concerns tends to make the process of governance different, as variations in these norms tends to produce a quite different kind of state. Civics was often simply concerned with the balance of power between say an aristocracy and monarchy - a concern echoed to this day in the struggles for power between different levels of rulers - say of the weaker nation-states to establish a binding international law that will have an effect even on the stronger ones. Thus world government is itself properly a civic problem.
On smaller scales, modern human development theory attempts to unify ethics and small-scale politics with the urban and rural economics of sustainable development. Notable theorists including Jane Jacobs and Carol Moore argue that political secession of either cities or distinct bioregions and cultures is an essential pre-requisite to applying any widely shared ethics, as the ethical views of urban and rural people, different cultures or those engaged in different types of agriculture, are irreconcilably different. This extreme advocacy of decentralization is hardly uncommon, and leads to the minimal theory of civics - anarchism.
Most civic theories are more trusting of public institutions, and can be characterized on a scale from least ( mob rule) to most (the totalitarian) degree of trust placed in key public institutions. At the risk of extreme oversimplification, an historical view of civic theory in action suggests that the theories be ranked as follows:
Note: examples are included only to help familiarize readers with the basic idea of the scale - they are not intended to be conclusive or to categorize these individuals other than the civics that they exercise or exemplify.
Civics refers not to the ethical or moral or political basis by which a ruler acquires power, but only to the processes and procedures they follow in actually exercising it. Thus, some figures, e.g. Napoleon, count as totalitarian because they instituted a legal code and altered rules of succession to favor themselves and their families. Meanwhile, other figures who were arguably more cruel or arbitrary are ranked as examples of lesser public trust, because in practice they followed clearer procedures. Some unique figures, like Mao Zedong or Stalin, are hard to characterize as they followed the form (but some would say not the substance) of consultation and deliberation - although disagreeing with these figures could mean exile or death.