In his farewell address in Chicago in January 2017, President Barack Obama contradicted himself.
First, Obama claimed, American citizenship has “given work and purpose to each new generation”—to go west, to oppose injustice, to defend democracy. And later, he reminded us that “for all our outward differences, we all share the same proud title: Citizen.”
That’s stirring, but it doesn’t add up. A title can’t “give work” any more than a bachelor’s degree can give employment: It can enable it, sure, but not require it. Article I of the Constitution specifically bans the granting of titles because they make representatives less answerable to their constituents.
The word that President Obama was looking for wasn’t “title,” it was “job.” That may seem like a small difference, but it’s not: At the end of the day, citizenship as a job confers responsibilities that citizenship as a title doesn’t, and the de-emphasis of those responsibilities, by choice or by force, has let citizenship ask less and offer less in return.
Let’s start with the present moment. Between 50 and 60 percent of eligible voters have participated in the US presidential elections between 1996 and 2016; that number is 20 points lower for midterms. Fewer even than that bother to participate in local and municipal elections, or petition representatives, or just agree that it’s essential to live in a democracy. While those privileges are doubtless enjoyed, they’re less demonstrably valued: It seems that those with the freedom to exercise all those rights—citizens—consider that position unassailable and therefore ignorable, less like a responsibility than an honorary title at a special club whose perks of membership are permanent once given.
That’s a shoddy, facile, dumb assumption when it comes to citizenship. For one, simply being allowed the title of “citizen” if you’ve already got it is a lot less of a sure thing than you’d expect: There’s been movement on the Right to strip citizenship without consent in some circumstances, setting the precedent that a citizen is whatever Congress says it is.
But even more dangerously, treating citizenship as a title opens you up to to people and policies who pay lip-service to citizenship as a vaunted status but undermine it in practice, weakening its protections for everyone.
American history is a grab-bag of examples of people lionizing citizenship to argue that some citizens are more citizen-ish than others: From the interned Japanese-Americans of World War II to the children of undocumented immigrants today, much energy has been spent separating “real” citizens from the dangerous, disloyal grifters who deserve to be stripped of their rights.
The common thread here is pretty clear: These people, citizens all, are determined to have more violable rights than certain others for reasons that have very little to do with citizenship and a lot to do with power and identity. That’s the defining characteristic of citizenship as a title—its ultimate value is as a status symbol that refers to other identities like race or wealth. A citizen of this kind doesn’t need to be engaged because their rights will be respected—or ignored—regardless, based on things that have nothing to do with citizenship. As a title, “citizenship” is just a fig leaf for the sort of vapid, meaningless, self-perpetuating, tribal identity that sits at the heart of nationalism.
Those that are not actively disenfranchised by this kind of citizenship have every reason to be disillusioned by. In a sign of growing economic inequality, members of Congress don’t look like their constituents and don’t vote like them either, meaning less control over the country by those that have been promised it, especially the white middle class. To those who have been sold the idea that their citizenship and their status are one and the same, the erosion of that status necessarily means the erosion of the value of their citizenship.
So how can that erosion be reversed? Is there a version of citizenship that’s focused on action, not subservient to identity, and, through its exercise, increasingly meaningful? That’s where picking our terms comes in: The answer is defining citizenship as a job, parallel to your other daily responsibilities, and valuable only through constant use.
When it’s a job, the legal and political rights of citizenship become a means to an end—trying to make the country better, whatever that means to you—rather than a perk of membership. It recognizes that the concept is composed of, defined by, specific responsibilities, and it cannot be taken for granted: If you graduate from medical school but you perform nothing but one check-up every four years, you’re not really a doctor; at the very least, I won’t come to you for the hard stuff. In that same way, a citizen isn’t really a citizen unless they actively, consistently, responsibly exercise the civic responsibilities of their position; at the very least, I won’t come to you for the hard stuff.
This version of citizenship, then, is by its definition a daily imperative, a set of responsibilities that are visible and actionable in everyday life, not just on Election Day.
And really, most of these responsibilities aren’t just daily tasks; they’re daily chores. The underlying truth about citizenship, as with any job, is that its everyday requirements are primarily, fundamentally boring—even a dream job is full of unexciting minutiae that support the good parts. What makes a job a job is that you do the boring parts anyway; you embrace them as part of what pays the dividends of your commitment.
Commitment is the operative term. Sustained, focused action at every level of civic life is the means and end of Obama’s “work and purpose for each new generation.” It is unique because it expects something of its beneficiaries and is meaningful only in the fulfillment of that expectation—especially when that entails challenging your personal beliefs. For a country that prides itself on its ability to rise to the occasion, that requirement is fitting.