What is "Building Civic Muscle?"

Every January, the gym fills up.

You may recognize some of these good intentions: “I’m going to get fit this year.” “This is the year I’ll lose those X pounds.” “It’s time to finally do that 5K.”

In making those goals, you intuitively know that strength and fitness don’t come from hoping. They take getting up, showing up, and working up. Particularly when it comes to using muscles we haven’t used in a while, there’s slow, sometimes uncomfortable work of building capacity.

Guess what: Democracy works the same way.

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “building civic muscle?”

An increasing number of people and organizations are talking about “building civic muscle” as shorthand for strengthening your ability to participate in shared self-government.

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What is “civic muscle?”

Civic muscle means your ability to make a difference in your neighborhood, community, and country.

It also means the collective capacity of a community to come together, identify shared problems, make decisions, forge solutions, and take action to follow through on those solutions. 

In other words, “civic muscle” refers both to you as an individual and all of us as a group.

What does it mean to “build civic muscle?”

Building civic muscle takes regularly practicing the habits that make self-government work.

Think of the following like exercises: staying informed, participating in matters that impact your community, listening across differences, and taking shared responsibility.

Plan to cross-train so that you and your community grow stronger, more resilient, and better able to solve problems together.

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Civic muscle is not about posting angry hot takes online, winning arguments, or putting “them” down in attempt to make “us” look better. That’s like the person who buys all the gear, takes a mirror selfie, but doesn’t actually do the work.

Civic muscle is not just voting every four years and hoping problems will sort themselves out before the next election. That’s like making bicep curls on one arm the only exercise you ever do, then wondering why you feel out of balance.

And civic muscle is definitely not yelling advice at everyone else while not doing the workout yourself.

Building civic muscle takes showing up consistently and doing the unglamorous reps in listening, learning, being curious, and disagreeing with respect, to name a few.

Building civic muscle takes cross-training in what helps society function, like attending meetings, showing up to town assemblies, volunteering as you’re able, serving on a school board, helping a neighbor, and otherwise taking responsibility for the places where you live.

The poet Walt Whitman understood this long before the phrase “civic engagement” existed. He described American democracy as “life’s gymnasium,” a place designed to produce “freedom’s athletes.” 

In other words, for all the advances we humans have made to make our lives comfortable, democracy isn’t meant to be comfortable. At the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin didn’t say “We’ve created a government so that people can watch Netflix while waiting for Amazon packages to arrive.”

He said we have “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Self-government only works if people keep showing up to do the work of it.

Put another way, the first month of your gym membership may be free, but freedom isn’t.

Democracy asks us to stretch, to lift the weight of responsibility, and to develop the moral and civic strength that freedom requires.

As with physical muscle, civic muscle weakens if it isn’t used. When we sit out, tune out, or assume “someone else will handle it,” we lose stamina.

And, like physical muscle, our civic muscle gets stronger over time as we use it. When we practice, even in short bursts, we build resilience.

As a former group fitness instructor, trust me when I tell you that gym regulars have mixed feelings when equipment that was easily accessible in December suddenly has a waiting line in January.

As a current democracy practitioner, believe me when I tell you there is a role for EVERYONE in the work that’s currently underway.

As you get going, remember that no one expects you to deadlift like Anatoly on day one:

Start where you are. One conversation. One local issue. One act of service. One decision to stay engaged instead of checking out.

As you think about New Year’s resolutions for any and all forms of health, please don’t forget your civic health. We’re cheering you on and here to help build your civic muscle.