___________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n
Civil (adj.)
\nof, pertaining to, or consisting of citizens; of citizens in their ordinary capacity, or of the ordinary life and affairs of citizens, as distinguished from military and ecclesiastical life and affairs.<\/p>\n
Society (n.)
\nthe aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the modern world, the role of civil society is often talked about, debated, praised and derided. It is a term used often, but not always with any level of precision or clarity. Most people seem to know broadly what civil society is, yet few have seen it, and fewer can put in words what it actually means.<\/p>\n
One way of thinking about civil society is as a number of individuals and groups with their own, varied agendas, often at odds with one another, trying to work towards their own individual aims. In that sense, the term \u201ccivil society\u201d then applies to the population at large and therefore all 1.1 billion Indian citizens. Yet in its most common usage, it connotes focused interest groups. So what exactly is civil society?<\/p>\n
Civil society\u2014based on the Hegelian construct\u2014is the intermediate phase between family and state. It represents \u2018universal egoism\u2019 according to which everyone is treated as the means to one\u2019s own ends. This stands in stark contrast to the \u2018universal altruism\u2019 of the state. According to the Marxist construct, not far removed from Hegel\u2019s views, civil society was a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing, representing the economic interests of capitalists. He believed that the role of civil society is such that it will push for an individual to pursue individual interests but back down when it came to community interests. At the other end of the spectrum, Adam Smith (much earlier) too spoke about civil society\u2014but he believed that it was an exercise in private morality seeking public approval.<\/p>\n
Given that none of the philosophers, regardless of the side of the economic and political divide they were on, had anything nice to say about civil society, it is quite interesting to see the space that it occupies in the modern state.
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