Civil Society and Self Governance with Dr. Condoleezza Rice | Constitution Day Live 2024

0:00 Doctor Condoleezza Rice, thank you so much for joining the Bill of Rights Institute. It’s a pleasure to be with you. And thank you for the great work that you do. You’ve called America an extraordinary experiment. How is our experiment going? Well, let’s start with the fact that at the end of the 19th century,

0:20 not too many people of the 18th century, not too many people were thinking that self-governance, was possible. They certainly didn’t think that it could be carried out by asking their citizens to, to to have their passions and their interests, go through these abstractions called institutions. a constitution that these were really pretty radical ideas.

0:44 The remarkable thing is that they basically have served us well for the entire history of our country. ours was a country that was founded as a slave owning country. And yet now the descendants of slaves found their rights a first time with the emancipation and a second time with the civil rights movements of the 60s through this Constitution.

1:08 So I would say that while the, American experiment is still and perhaps will always be in its experimental stage, there is a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for. Our American experiment is about self-government. What does self-government mean for our everyday lives?

1:30 I like to think that, the founders gave us great institutions through the Constitution. They gave us structures like, the idea that there should be separation of powers. but then they gave us a set of rights. Those rights, though, were accompanied with an expectation of certain responsibilities.

1:50 And so that brought us the citizen right into the midst of what self-government meant. It meant that, we were not just to exercise our rights without regard for what that would mean for the larger project. And so, I think it’s a remarkable thing, that,

2:12 we actually think of the Constitution as our personal protector. I have a friend who, is German who said to me, the problem with you Americans is you have rights and you think you have to exercise them. I said, yeah, well, that would be us. But it’s really the Constitution when you think about the fact that if if I think you violated my rights,

2:32 I will take you all the way to the Supreme Court. Brown versus the Board of Education. How many countries can say that, their citizens believe it’s their personal protector? But with that comes a responsibility to respect those institutions, to care and nurture about them, to teach about them to future generations.

2:54 Because that’s the only way that this experiment works. I love that idea of personal, protection and that that ownership that each individual can have. Thomas Jefferson used the phrase every day citizenship, and his fellow Virginian, James Madison talked about a parchment barrier. You know, you’ve, been secretary of state, national security advisor.

3:18 You’ve seen the constitutions of so many countries. You’re an expert on Russia. So many have written down these protections that are supposed to be personal but have no teeth in them. They’re just parchment barriers. When you look at, our country today, we know. And looking at, the kind of our country in comparison to others that freedom is fragile. when when we have the freedom to disagree,

3:40 we also have the tendency as Americans to pull apart. how can we Americans learn to disagree better? We have to learn to disagree better. Because, again, Madison and the others would have thought of politics as constant contestation. You’re always saw it constantly in a contest of ideas,

4:01 but you can’t have a contest of ideas. If I refuse to listen to you. If I refuse to take your views into consideration, if I refuse to refute your views in a civil way so that we can share data, we can share evidence. We can have a, a, a, a discussion, a conversation

4:21 that is not going to send us to our corners, simply yelling at one another. And I think, unfortunately these days we have a little too much of that. some of it, yes. Is the effect of, social media and the internet. There’s a kind of anonymity to it. there is a sense that you can go to your own.

4:41 Try, but I can go to my aggregators, my websites, my bloggers, my cable news channels. Maybe I never actually encounter anybody who thinks differently. And now when I do encounter them, I think they’re either stupid or venal. And we have to make sure that we’re not staying in our own tribes, our own echo chambers,

5:03 where we never, have a chance to to disagree agreeably. You leave the Hoover Institution, and under your leadership, you recently established the center for Revitalizing American Institutions. What do you hope will come from this work? The reason that we wanted to have a center,

5:25 for revitalizing American institutions. So we want it first to remind, everyone, we sit in a university. And so reminding students, reminding faculty who are responsible for passing on, the stories and the, the views about the Constitution, that these are living institutions.

5:46 they’re not just something that they wrote on a piece of paper. in in 1789 and then 1790, it was all kind of agreed to. And then it went on to a shelf someplace. You have a responsibility when these institutions, show, that perhaps there’s trouble. we know, for instance, that only that,

6:08 that 35% of Americans don’t trust their elections. That’s a really bad number for, for a constitutional democracy. we know that the, views of Congress or of politicians or of the media or increasingly of the military

6:28 are sinking in the do you trust them category. And so it is our responsibility as citizens, as scholars, as students, to take responsibility for trying to revitalize them, to understand, first of all, what’s going on, but also responsibility to actually try to do something about it.

6:52 And so we think by studying these, these concerns, more deeply, trying to shed more light than heat, on them, that perhaps we can get back to a day when Americans really do trust these institutions, because it’s it’s it’s it’s all that holds us together. we’re not held together by, nationality

7:14 or religion or, ethnicity or creed. We’ve come from every corner of the earth. We, there are people who are Muslim and and Christian and Jewish and nothing at all. And we’re all Americans. But it’s this creed that holds us together. And so we have to protect it and defend it and extend it and revitalize it from time to time.

7:36 I so appreciate that emphasis on responsibilities. Historically, civil society has helped give rise to some of the most, really enduring American institutions. What needs to be done to revitalize civil society? Let me start first with what’s really great about civil society in America.

7:58 And in that I would include, nongovernmental, institutions, because one of the first things that the founders did was they left a lot of space that wasn’t inhabited by the government. That was supposed to be the people or the civil society. And, you know, when de Tocqueville came to the United States in 1835

8:19 to understand these Americans, as he called them, he was a bit puzzled by what he called these voluntary associations that got together just to do good. Today, we think we would think of them as the Red cross or Boys and Girls Clubs or Rotary Clubs. That’s a vibrancy of democracy. And when I was, Secretary and I would go around the world, I would say, really

8:42 make sure that that your civic culture, your civil society is really thriving. And one of the first things that authoritarians and dictators try to shut down is civil society, because they believe they can control the levers of government, but they might not be able to control citizens who have organized themselves just to do good.

9:04 And so, I think our civil society is our great strength. I often say to my students, if you want to be a part of democracy, it doesn’t mean that you have to go and work in Washington, DC. It can also mean that you’re going to tutor at a boys and girls club. It can also mean that you’re going to start the,

9:27 a Rotary Club or once you move to a new city. It can also mean that you might work at the state or local level, because the founding Fathers didn’t put everything in Washington, D.C., I always jokingly say, you know, they kind of put the federal government in a swamp between Virginia and Maryland, and they went back to the statehouses where they thought all of the action would be.

9:47 And so we have a vibrant tapestry of institutions, a really robust infrastructure of institutions. And to practice democracy, you have to use them all. Giving young people a vibrant, technicolor view of what that tapestry means is part of the mission of the Bill of Rights Institute.

10:09 We’ve been pleased to work with you and the team at the Hoover Institution to create some videos and lesson plans that help tell that story of the tapestry, and also what it means to not just think about civil society as an abstraction, but to, like you said, jump in and recognize that as a young person, you can make a difference, and you can do so not just by going to Washington, DC.

10:31 In fact, the real engine of our progress has been, as you just said, in these, institution that grow these, these, movements that really grow from, from civil society, you’ve pointed to the importance in our conversation here of responsible leadership to have the revitalization that we all seek and that you’re,

10:52 endeavoring to, to to study and lead, with this new, new center. What kind of leadership really is going to to make a difference here? The leadership that is going to make a difference is, first and foremost, to recognize that leadership is not a destination, nor is it a job description.

11:13 It’s something that is earned. The trust is earned. The belief is earned. can I tell my students start small. don’t walk into my office. Tell me. I want to be a leader. Go and organize your dorm for something. That’s an act of leadership. It’s also leaders.

11:34 And this is really true of democracies. Leaders have to recognize leadership characteristics in others, because pulling together for the common good is what sustains democracy. When you think about authoritarians, what do they do? Well, it’s all about them. They draw all of the attention and all of the power to themselves.

11:56 The problem is, if you’re going to be omnipotent, you’d better be omniscient too. And very few human beings are all knowing. So democracies are strong because they have leaders throughout society, because they have people who’ve earned the trust. And I sometimes wish that we had a little bit more humility.

12:17 in some of our, leaders, maybe, you know, as I get older, the past always looks better. There’s something about that. But, I would just say, if you want to be a leader, start with humility. That leadership is not something you were born to. It’s something that you that you earn. That’s such great advice for young people.

12:38 And that’s really where, we wanted to conclude our conversation today. You gave us just some, some practical advice that we can share and emulate for, for young people. They come to you looking for questions about how do I become a leader. You’re saying to them, start small, smart start, start in your local community. If there’s one other thing that you wanted to leave, those students particularly who are joining us today with, please,

13:01 please offer some, some counseling and advice as they’re looking to be on that path where they can be part of this movement to revitalize American institutions. I am so grateful that you give us this opportunity to, to talk with students and to to advise them. We’ve been through a lot, and we’ve made our own share of mistakes as leaders.

13:22 And you will do that. But don’t be afraid, to go out and to put yourself out there, to help your fellow citizens in one way or another, to achieve goals. But you also have a responsibility to know something about what you’re doing. I often say to my students, before we try to solve that problem,

13:44 why don’t we try to know something about the problem? Why don’t we recognize that there are competing views about that problem? Why don’t we recognize that? Just because I think it it may not be so. And so it goes back to something that you mentioned about disagreement and doing it agreeably and listening to people who have different opinions.

14:05 So one of the strengths of democracy is that we have both that right and that responsibility to debate, to bring new evidence, to bring new thoughts. We don’t have to just take the dictate of the government as the word, which is what happens in authoritarian regimes. And I think it’s a protection for us because, well, sometimes

14:27 democracy is a little frustrating. We may think, why can’t they get something done? Well, those authoritarians can get something done very quickly, but very often it’s a big mistake because it’s the thinking of one person, not the thinking of the society as a whole. And so I would say, take the time as a student to really delve

14:50 into problems, to really understand them, to travel, if you can, to other places, because nothing will, will really give you confidence about, what the American experiment is and where it’s going then to go to other places where they don’t have the liberty and the freedom that we enjoy, and then come back determined,

15:12 to make sure that this experiment continues for the generations beyond you. Doctor rice, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your time today. And thank you for for everything that you’re doing to help, bring this, not only Constitution Day, but the revitalization of American institutions to fruition. Thank you.