Citizens, Consumers and Producers

Jason wrote a rather good post the other week there on the theme of the loss of Church as Public. Much of this thinking was shaped by Wannenwetsch's book Political Worship : Ethics for Christian Citizens. I doubt this book will ever be a top seller, if for no other reason than it's hard to buy a copy for under £95! It is also, to quote Hans Boersma a "daunting book". That said I think its an important book and one that those who have been influenced say by Yoder or Hauerwas would find much that they could agree on and something of a challenge as well.

However my point here is not to review this book, I'll perhaps do that when I've more time but to pick up on the idea of Citizenship.

This has become something of a political buzz word in recent years here in the UK, and we now have citizenship classes both in the schools in England and Wales (don't think we have them here in Scotland but I could be wrong about this) and for those who immigrate to this country. I think however that there is a deep problem with trying to recover the concept of citizenship by teaching it in a classroom. Citizenship is something that is not so much taught but formed and therefore key to forming any positive sense of Citizenship are formative practices that embody a concern for the common good.

Now here's the rub - in our liberal individualistic late capitalist society the two main formative practices that shape us are our roles as consumers and producers. This is not only true at an economic level but as Zygmunt Bauman points out we have now become consumers and producers of identity. A consequence of this autopoiesis of identity is that we no longer know who we are (given our identity is constantly changing to meet the requirements of the situation) and there has been a loss of any conception of the public good. One therefore has to ask, "are there any Citizens, is there a public" or is there merely an aggregation of self's who cannot connect as they are coated with the impenetrable barrier of individualization?