Civic duty is often framed narrowly—as voting every few years, attending a rally, or holding public office. Those things matter. But civic duty is much larger than any single act. At its core, it is the responsibility to remain engaged, attentive, and willing to speak when silence becomes costly.
Right now, silence is costly.
Democracy does not disappear all at once. It erodes slowly—through exhaustion, distraction, and, perhaps most dangerously, comfort. Comfort is one of the primary ways people convince themselves that speaking up isn’t necessary, that confronting what they see or hear isn’t worth the disruption, that staying quiet is the more reasonable choice.
Comfort tells us: It’s not that bad. Comfort tells us: I didn’t know enough to say anything. Comfort tells us: Someone else will handle it.
But “I didn’t know” can no longer serve as an excuse in an age of constant information, documentation, and visibility. What we often mean is not that we didn’t know, but that we didn’t want to know badly enough to act. Comfort allows us to look away from lies, cover-ups, and corruption because acknowledging them would require something of us—attention, courage, and inconvenience.
That is how democracies weaken.
Civic duty today requires a willingness to be uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with hard truths. Uncomfortable with evidence that challenges preferred narratives. Uncomfortable with the realization that maintaining a healthy democracy demands participation, not passive observation.
Every meaningful change in this country has come from ordinary people deciding their participation mattered. Not all of them marched. Not all of them held power. Many wrote letters, spoke up in their communities, questioned official explanations, documented what they witnessed, or refused to accept “that’s just how it is” as an answer.
Civic duty does not look the same for everyone. Some people can show up physically. Others cannot—because of disability, caregiving responsibilities, age, health, or work. That does not disqualify them from participation. Democracy does not belong only to the loud, the mobile, or the privileged. It belongs to anyone willing to remain engaged.
Using your voice—through conversation, writing, local involvement, or informed attention—is not a lesser form of participation. It is participation.
What weakens democracy is not disagreement. It is disengagement. It is the slow surrender to comfort that makes us tolerate what we would once have challenged. It is the belief that staying quiet keeps the peace, when in reality it often protects wrongdoing.
Civic duty is not about agreeing on everything. It is about refusing to look away.
It is about recognizing that democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires people who are willing to notice patterns, ask questions, and insist that the rules apply to everyone—not just when it is convenient.
Local communities like ours have always been the backbone of this country’s civic life. Change does not only come from national headlines. It comes from neighbors paying attention, from people willing to speak honestly about what they see, and from citizens who understand that democracy lives or dies by participation.
We all have a part to play—whether through our voices, our attention, or our refusal to accept comfort as a substitute for responsibility.
This is not the time to retreat into silence or assume others will carry the weight. This is the time to make ourselves uncomfortable with lies, with corruption, and with the temptation to disengage.
Every voice matters. Not because it is loud, but because democracy depends on people who choose participation over comfort.
Our democracy will not fail from too much scrutiny. It will fail if too many of us decide that staying comfortable is more important than staying engaged.
Teri Cleary is a Springfield resident