View source for Engaging Critically with the Reality and Concept of Civil Society

==The uncivil underworld==

Jai Sen:

"Beyond the incivil, however, lie other worlds : Worlds of gross exploitation such those of
child prostitution and trade in women, of bonded labour and other forms of slavery, and of trade
in organs, drugs, and arms. These worlds, which overlap with the incivil, are broadly the sections
of society where the criminal, the mafia, and the criminalised lumpen rule. As films such as The
City of God make so dramatically clear, large sections of contemporary society live these very
other lives.32 Even while recognising that these worlds too are often ultimately controlled and
exploited by members of civil society - and at the risk of oversimplifying things - in order to
distinguish this world from what I am referring to as the incivil, I refer to this world – this reality
– as the uncivil.

Without elaborating further on this complex point, I suggest that we need to make a
distinction between these two realities, incivil and uncivil, and that this is of vital strategic
consequence to the task of building other worlds. As a contribution to this rethinking, I propose
that we use the term ‘incivil’ for the victimised and oppressed who are building insurgent
societies and challenging existing power structures dominated by the civil; and ‘uncivil’ for those
who, while also resisting civil society and subverting it, do so with motives and actions are that
far more limited, material, and in general criminal and exploitative. In lived reality, it is true that
the dividing line between ‘incivil’ and ‘uncivil’ is often blurred – but I believe and urge that we
need to recognise that these are different worlds, and crucially, that they co-exist in dynamic
tension."