The first plenary meeting of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community was held December 9-10, 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania. The meeting sessions were intended primarily to trigger vigorous roundtable discussion among members of the Commission, and two days of thoughtful and stimulating discussion ensued.
The Commission's discussions reflected a general consensus that much of the ideological extremism, oversimplification, and polarization of contemporary public culture, as well as the thoughtlessness of social behaviors, the lack of strong leadership, and the tendency towards the super-fragmentation of communities, may be the result of the intrusion of mass market forces and values (or extreme reactions against them) into areas of social, cultural, and political life from which they were formerly, largely absent. The rise of "politics as entertainment" and the exaggeration of the media's delegitimizing roles are obvious symptoms of this impact, but so too are the development of a "culture of immediacy" and the blurring of traditional lines between public and private spheres. Abroad, the advent of a global market and ubiquitous global communications (or reactions against them) have played a major role in the resurgence of nationalism, tribalism, and religious fundamentalism.
The Commission believes that given the relative permanence and enormous power of these market forces and values, movement towards greater civility and constructive engagement in public discourse and greater comity in social interactions must focus on the context in which such forces operate, a context shaped by the nature of contemporary communities, the effectiveness of their leadership, and the culture of behavior they foster. Working groups of Commission members have been formed to explore these areas, which will be the focus of future plenary meetings of the Commission, in greater depth.
We welcome inquiries about the Commission's work.
Please email us at the following address: pnc@pobox.upenn.edu.
Contact Information is listed here.