Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Balancing Either/or and Both/and


“A shift from either/or thinking to both/and thinking…” is what I posted yesterday. A shift.  Not, one or the other, not either/or or both/and, but both either/or and both/and--a balance.

 

The question then becomes when to shift, when to rebalance?  When have we had too much of one and need to shift to the other?

 

When the results, the phenomena and our experience have gone too far in one direction and are creating problems, not working for the benefit of people—individuals, society, and the planet—when we are not contributing to a world that works for everyone and everything.

 

We have, to me, reached an imbalance and a need to shift in our use of smart phones, iPads, Twitter, Tumblr and that kind of technology. These things have, as John J. Pitney Jr. wrote in the 10/15 Christian Science Monitor, “increased the speed and reach of communications…so that almost as soon as a thought enters your mind you can send it everywhere. Twitter-like thinking—the kind that relies on quick intuition and impulse—can work well when we’re playing sports, for instance.

 

“[But] public life is different.  Impulse reacting draws on stereotypes and mental shortcuts that can mislead us when we apply them to political questions. It is better to [shift to] a more deliberative and reasoned approach, thinking things through and seeking additional information.”

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Both/and Win/Win Thinking for Creating Jobs, Part 2


Creating jobs is not about either government or the ‘private’ sector, corporations or small business, but both/and.  For example, co-ops. Such community focused business organizations now have a membership of 130 million Americans, employing 865,000 people according to the 10/22 issue of the Christian Science Monitor.  Evergreen Co-operatives in Cleveland, operates an industrial laundry service, a solar company, and an urban growing center to create living-wage jobs. Instead of allowing mechanization and high tech to displace jobs, such community focused business organizations tend to look for ‘human solutions’ to increase productivity.

 

Both/and, win/win opportunities such as those represented by community focused business organizations abound in our current political/economic situation. For example, our current emphasis on paid employment ignores ‘off the books’ unpaid work, such as child rearing, domestic labor and thousands of hours of volunteer service. A both/and approach such as reducing the workweek would reallocate available work among more people, giving people more time for their families and communities. Such a both/and approach could enable people to exchange the soulless accumulation of toys and ‘stuff’ for the more meaningful benefits of contributing one’s talents to family and community. Right now, volunteer matching services and time banks facilitate this.

 

People are yearning for a new economy that increases well being, improves employment, diminishes meaningless consumption, and lowers destructive impact on the environment. A shift from either/or thinking to both/and thinking can begin to make this kind of economy a reality.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Both/and Win/Win Thinking for Creating Jobs, Part 1


 

In the last post I wrote that, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got! Enough! The door opens inward. If you want things to be different, you be different. Quit looking out and blaming. Be the change you want to see! Begin shifting from either/or, win/lose thinking to both/and, win/win thinking now.”

 

With that in mind, consider the best way(s) to create jobs. Notice I wrote best ways. Typically in the either/or, win/lose model there is only one way, one size fits all. Clearly, common sense, which is so uncommon these days, would say that with our complex, rapidly changing, high tech world and economy there would have to be multiple ways of not just creating jobs, but doing everything. But no, in spite of that, we get hung up, especially during this win/lose election season, on the idea that there is only one way, either working on the demand side or the supply side.

 

What crap, either the demand side or the supply side! Why not both, simultaneously? Duh! Also, we have focused too much on big instead of small, on big corporations instead of small community business organizations like co-ops, credit unions and employee owned companies. Such community focused business organizations are not only more collaborative and democratic than the huge monolithic multi-national corporations, they are also more democratic and people centered.  

 

Community focused business organizations because they are place based and rooted in community also tend to bring a different kind of stability. They are not subject to the whims of predatory investors in search of quick, short term profits; the jobs cannot outsourced; and the co-op can’t be moved. 

Friday, October 26, 2012

Either/or Thinking Is THE Problem!


Either/or thinking and the competition that flows from it are, in and of themselves, the problem.

 

Thinking that there are only two sides to every story is very limiting. Not only does such thinking give power to extremists by draining it from the center, it also leads to stagnation and lack of growth.  Polarization around either ‘X’ or ‘Y’, denies most of life in the center and deprives us of the innovation and creativity vital to success.

 

Either/or polarization requiring people to take sides locks individuals and whole societies into non-productive traditions and orthodoxies.  Either my way or the highway!  What about all the other ways, all the other millions of possibilities? What if the blacksmiths, horse breeders and saddle-makers had the power oil and coal companies have today?  We’d still be using horses instead of horse power. 

 

Either/or thinking and the competition that flows from it alone, in and of themselves, keeps us from coming together and solving our problems. Either/or thinking and the competition that flows from it alone, in and of themselves, benefit the few at the expense of the many.

 

The decline of American power and the loss of the American dream show us the limits of either/or, win/lose thinking.  The door opens inward. If we want to see the American Dream restored, we’ve got to change how we think. We’ve got to ease off either/or thinking and the competition that flows from it, and switch to the more inclusive, flexible both/and, win/win thinking—the kind of thinking that says it’s not either my way or your way, but both ways.  Either/or thinking has a place, but not the dominant place it’s had in the past. We and the planet simply can no longer afford it. We need everybody’s talents, skills and cooperation. Turning people into either winners or losers deprives us of the ‘losers’’ talents and skills, and lately there seem to be more losers than winners.  We can’t afford that, it’s not viable and it’s not working. Enough!

 

Can’t we take responsibility for how we think, what we believe and how we see the world and try to think differently? The door opens inward. Can’t we try both/and, win/win thinking for a change? I think we can. After all, as Groucho said, “I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in awhile!” And, consider this: If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got! Enough! The door opens inward. If you want things to be different, you be different. Quit looking out and blaming. Be the change you want to see! Begin shifting from either/or, win/lose thinking to both/and, win/win thinking now.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The Door Opens Inward


Thinking about thinking; reflecting on our beliefs; challenging ourselves about our certainty and what we take to be true; opening our minds to other, new, and even ‘wrong’ ways of perceiving, knowing and being—is there any reason to do this, anything to be gained from it? Is it ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to expand our consciousness, be more inclusive more tolerant, more willing to learn and experience differences? Or is better to close our minds, cling to the ‘rugged cross,’ wall ourselves in and fear what’s new and different and ‘other’ and change itself?

 

Thinking about thinking is uncomfortable and disruptive. It threatens our ‘secure’ ego identities. Things are hard enough without having to bother or worry about how and what I’m thinking! I’ve got work to do, people to see and places to go. I just can’t take the time to be bothered right now.  Maybe later.

 

But what if we as a race, the human race, understood that the door opens inward? What if we came to realize that to improve human and planetary welfare we need to modify some of our own attitudes and ways of thinking? What if the door really does open inward and we really do have to think about thinking and modify some of our own attitudes and ways of thinking; to take individual responsibility for what and how we’re thinking? What if we can begin to make things better by realizing we have to stop pushing on the door—blaming, proselytizing, punishing and legislating, looking at everyone and everything but our own hearts and minds because the door opens inward?

 

Ask: “Am I contributing to wholeness and a world that works for everyone and everything, or am I selfishly arrogantly insisting on ‘my way or the highway,’ that what’s right for me and people like me is right for everyone and everything? Am I blaming, punishing and finger pointing? Am I willing to listen, learn, discuss and compromise? Am I willing to entertain the idea that the one God in me is the same one God in you and in everything?”

 

If that’s true, if the one God in me is the same one God in you and in everything, then you and your ideas, needs and wants even if they’re different, ‘wrong’ and against the Bible, are as righteous as my own and as worthy of respect. Am I willing for the sake of our common humanity and contributing a world that works for everyone and everything, willing to think about my thinking and realize that the door opens inward to God?

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Mainstream Media Bias Against the President?


Does the Herald have a bias against Obama?

 

Consider the front page story that appeared about the last debate Tuesday morning.

On the front page [very significant] clearly labeled “news analysis” [also significant] is the headline: “The winner: maybe Obama.”  Hmmmm.  What does that suggest? To me, it casts doubt, creates suspicion,  hints that things are not as they seem, that perhaps there’s some manipulation or falseness involved.  You know, like the conspiracy to make the unemployment numbers seem better than they are.

 

Is this bias?  If one considers the levels of choice and decision making involved in getting something on the front page of a newspaper, perhaps it is. The writer, Marc Caputo, first decides on which words to use—what they infer and suggest and what they actually say. Caputo chooses “maybe.”  Hmmmmmm. Then his editor and his editor review and allow, “maybe.” The fact that it appears in the paper on the front page no less, suggests the management and owners of the Herald approve.

 

Then the story itself; it starts off with the first 5 or 6 paragraphs that seem to be pro-Romney. The next few paragraphs are a bit more neutral and slightly pro-Obama. Then it says, damning with faint praise: “And the president probably won, but he probably needed a far bigger win to change the trajectory of the race. He didn’t score the type of knockout that Romney did during the first debate. So Obama, who started to close the gap after the second debate, is likely to still trail in the polls….  A sign Obama was behind: He went on the attack early and often with one-liners and barbs. Romney held his own, but it’s tougher to score on defense.”

 

Poor, honest, hard-working, all-American Romney, struggling to hold his own against the vicious attacks of the nasty black man who isn’t even a citizen!

 

There’s no question of the slant in that article. Yes, the Herald labeled it “news analysis” which means opinion, but the fact of it’s being on the front page, suggests a strategic series of choices by those deciding what goes on the front page—the management team, to put it there.  Is this bias? If we know that most people don’t read the labels such as “new analysis” but only the headlines: “The winner: maybe Obama,” I think we have the kind of subtle bias that has not only characterized this campaign but all the coverage of the President.

 

The October 15 issue of the Christian Science Monitor in an article entitled: “Are the mainstream media biased?” has this paragraph near the end: “The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism crunched numbers late last year and found that coverage of Obama had a negative tone more often than did coverage of Republican presidential aspirants [right? That gang of charlatans and buffoons got more favorable coverage than the President? Can you believe that?].  As of this spring, the project was tracking the tone of coverage for Romney and Obama, and was finding a generally positive tone for Romney from March through May. For Obama, the tilt was more negative.”

 

So the negative bias seems to be real and pervasive, a constant drip, drip, drip clouding the perceptions of those casual, uninformed consumers of mainstream—I hate to agree with Palin but I will, “lame street” media. Are the casual, uninformed consumers of mainstream media also the uninformed voter and the much vaunted “independents” who still haven’t made up their minds? Maybe.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

One More on Fixing Democracy, Part 3


This is the last in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article, The Wisdom of Crowds, How to involve ordinary citizens in complex political decisions, by Marco Visscher, in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode).

 

“The Danes realizing over beers in a Copenhagen cafĂ© 25 years ago never imagined their radical idea would strike such a chord.  ‘We usually meet skepticism in the science and industry communities, but it fades during the process,’ says Kluver.  He understands that experts tend to view social and political challenges as technical problems, while citizens raise ethical and cultural issues. ‘The conference usually provides a milestone for them to which they refer even years later,’ he says.

 

“Satheesh believes there’s a lesson to be learned: Talk to the people first, before you make political decisions. ‘Put all your cards down in front of them,’ he says. ‘Don’t cheat. Don’t hide. Let them make decisions.’”

Monday, October 22, 2012

One More on Fixing Democracy, Part 2


This is the next to the last in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article, The Wisdom of Crowds, How to involve ordinary citizens in complex political decisions, by Marco Visscher, in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode).

 

“Over the years, these citizen panels, made up of 12 to 18 volunteers, have fueled debate inside and outside the Danish Parliament.  They’ve also inspired new legislation, including a ban on the use of DNA testing by employers and medical insurers. And the model has found its way to other countries, from South Korea to Zimbabwe. This fall, ordinary citizens will be consulted in anticipation of the U.N. conference on biodiversity.  According to Kluver, this proves that ‘citizen participation can, in fact, be brought to the global level as well.’

 

“The model has also been applied with illiterate farmers in India.  Plans by the Indian government to give biotechnology a prominent place in agricultural policy would have significant consequences for farmers in the state of Andhra Pradesh, yet they were not consulted. So in 2001, several NGOs decided to form a ‘jury’ of local farmers. For a week they discussed, based on expert interviews, the consequences of the government’s plans. The week resulted in a prajateerpu, or ‘people’s verdict.’

 

“P.V. Satheesh, director of the Deccan Development Society in Hyderabad, was there. ‘Great excitement was in the air,’ he remembers. ‘Never in their lives had the farmers been consulted on such issues to give a verdict as a jury. The farmers we had assembled didn’t have the social power to ask touch questions. They were very polite and asked questions softly and a bit circumspectly.’

 

“Nonetheless, a lobbyist for a seed breeder bellowed that he had come to give a presentation and ‘not to reply to your stupid questions.’ One government official refused to stand in front of the group of farmers and demanded a table and a chair.

 

“The farmers advised the government to put its biotechnology plans on hold. According to them, malnutrition in their region would decline only barely or not at all, while dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides would increase.  They called for self-sufficiency and a vision of agriculture that better embraced Indian values.”

Friday, October 19, 2012

One More on Fixing Democracy, Part 1


This is the next to the last in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article, The Wisdom of Crowds, How to involve ordinary citizens in complex political decisions,  in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode).

 

“The Teknologiradet, a Danish advisory council that informs the public and politicians about technological issues, had always relied on experts and opinion formers. It met in panels and committees to report to the government on its findings.  All that changed over a few beers one Friday afternoon about 25 years ago when the council came up with the idea to bring together complete novices instead. ‘After the weekend, everyone still agreed it was a good idea,’ Lars Kluver recalls.

 

“Kluver was named project manager for the first Consensus Conference. The topic was a tough one: biotechnology in agriculture. ‘Although the technology may be complicated, lay people don’t really have a problem understanding what’s going on,’ [after all, you can drive a car without understanding the finer points of the internal combustion engine] Kluver says. Ordinary citizens were perfectly able to discuss the opportunities and risks and to reach useful conclusions. Many more such meetings have taken place since then on topics like mobility, air pollution and electronic surveillance, in which average citizens have spoken out after extensive research, debate and interviews with experts.”

 

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Still More Fixing Democracy, Part 2


This is the last in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an interview article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) with Tom Atlee, co-director of the Co-Intelligence Institute in Eugene, Oregon.

 

Q—So citizen councils should not replace parliaments but supplement them?

A—“Indeed. There’s no way to say this would be a better system for sure, because it’s tried only rarely.  We need to test this idea, over and over.”

 

Q—How do you get citizens who haven’t been part of the council to unify behind a decision?

A—“I believe the media have a gigantic role to play.  Journalists can write about who each participant is and report on the process. Then the public watches these diverse people expressing their diverse views, coming to respect each other, and shifting their thinking to recommend solutions together.”

 

Q—That’s not exactly the kind of journalism we see lots of….

A—“Yet this is exactly what Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly newsmagazine, has done at one of the most divisive times in Canada, with the Quebec independence debate being most vivid.  On a Friday, they brought together a dozen people who collectively represented the diversity of the country for a shared vision for Canada.  By Saturday night, it was a complete mess. Then, over dinner, one of the participants started to really listen to an indigenous woman and concluded the natives were feeling unheard—and the most important factor to get some kind of understanding is people feeling heard. So the next morning, this woman asked the indigenous woman to tell her story. That changed everything. In the end, everyone was hugging each other.”

 

Q—Sounds like a reality show!

A—“In fact, some have suggested a reality show like that. A reality show could feature dramatic conflicts among diverse citizens, their increasing understanding, and then a breakthrough that ends of being cathartic and enlightening for a whole nation. Bringing people together in a council will generate collective wisdom for and by the people, coming together around something. These things aren’t exactly characteristics of our current political life.”

Friday, October 12, 2012

Still More Fixing Democracy, Part 1


This is the first in a new series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an interview article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) with Tom Atlee, co-director of the Co-Intelligence Institute in Eugene, Oregon.

 

Q—“Your books explain how citizens can be involved in formulating policy on complex issues. Does this work for diverse issues as well?”

A—“Lifestyle issues, such as abortion and gay rights, tend to be harder to get people to agree on.  Yet in the last 20 years we’ve been developing both an increasing capacity to generate consensus and understanding on a wider range of issues and an ability to generate more civil forms of conflict on the difficult divisive issues.”

 

Q—“Can you give an example?

A—“After watching abortion activists screaming at each other on television, family system therapists at the Public Conversations Project in Cambridge, MA, got together a half-dozen of [them]. After first chatting over coffee and doughnuts—not knowing who each other were—they gathered in a circle to share what happened in each of their lives to make them so passionate about the issue. That’s when they discovered who was pro-life and who was pro-choice, in the context of their personal stories. So even if you disagree, you can come to understand why others think the way they do.”

Thursday, October 11, 2012

More Fixing Democracy, Part 4


This is the last in a new series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Mary Parker Follett, a management consultant and author, taken from her book, The New State, originally published in 1918 and still very relevant today.

 

“Heterogeneity, not homogeneity, I repeat, makes unity.  Indeed as we go from groups of the lower types to groups of the higher types, we go from those with many resemblances to those with more and more striking differences.

 

“Give your difference, welcome my difference, unify all difference in the larger whole—such is the law of growth.  The unifying of difference is the eternal process of life—the creative synthesis, the highest act of creation. The implications of this conception when we come to define democracy are profound.

 

“I may seem to overemphasize difference as difference. Difference as difference is non existent.  There is only difference which carries within itself the power of unifying. It is this latent power which we must forever and ever call forth. Difference in itself is not a vital force, but what accompanies it is – the unifying spirit.

 

“Really the object of every associating with others, of every conversation with friends, in fact, should be to try to bring out a bigger thought than any one alone could contribute.”

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

More Fixing Democracy, Part 3


This is the next in a new series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Mary Parker Follett, a management consultant and author, taken from her book, The New State, originally published in 1918 and still very relevant today.

 

“Democracy is not worked out at the polling booths; it is the bringing forth of a genuine collective will, one to which every single being must contribute the whole of their complex life, as one which every single being must express the whole of at one point. Thus the essence of democracy is creating. Many people despise politics because they see that politics manipulate, but make nothing. If politics are to be the highest activity of human beings, as they should be, they must be clearly understood as creative.

 

“Unity not uniformity, must be our aim.  Differences must integrated, not annihilated, nor absorbed. Anarchy means unorganized, unrelated difference; coordinated, unified difference belongs to our ideal of a perfect social order.  We don’t want to avoid our adversary but to “agree with him quickly”; we must however, learn the technique of agreeing.

 

“As long as we think of difference as that which divides us, we shall dislike it; when we think of it as that which unites us, we shall cherish  it.

 

“Instead of shutting out what is different, we should welcome it because it is different and through its difference will make a richer content of life. The ignoring of differences is the most fatal mistake in politics or industry or international life; every difference that is swept up into a bigger conception feeds and enriches society; every difference which is ignored feeds on society and eventually corrupts it.”

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

More Fixing Democracy, Part 2


This is the next in a new series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Mary Parker Follett, a management consultant and author, taken from her book, The New State, originally published in 1918 and still very relevant today.

 

“How is that genuine union to be attained, how is the true individual to be discovered? The party has always ignored him; it wants merely a crowd, a preponderance of votes. The early reform associations had the same aim. Both wanted voters, not individuals. It makes little difference whether we follow the boss or follow the good government associations, this is the herd life—‘following the lead’—democracy means a wholly different kind of existence.  To follow means to murder the individual, means to kill the only force in the world which can make the Perfect Society—democracy depends upon the creative power of every man.

 

“We find the true man only through group organization. The potentialities of the individual remain potentialities until they are released by group life.  Man discovers his true nature, gains his true freedom only through the group. Group organization must be the new method of politics because the modes by which the individual can be brought forth and made effective are the modes of practical politics.

 

“Group organization releases us from the domination of mere numbers. Thus democracy transcends time and space; it can never be understood except as a spiritual force. Majority rule rests in numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that society is neither a collection of units nor an organism but a network of human relations.”

Friday, October 5, 2012

More Fixing Democracy, Part 1


This is the first in a new series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Mary Parker Follett, a management consultant and author, taken from her book, The New State, originally published in 1918 and still very relevant today.

 

“No government will be successful, no government will endure, which does not rest on the individual.  Up to the present moment we have never seen the individual. Yet the search for him has been the whole long striving of our history.  We sought him through the method of representation and failed to find him. We sought to reach him by extending the suffrage to every man and then to every woman [and every race] and yet he eludes us.  Direct government now seeks the individual; but as we have not found him by sending more people to the ballot box, so we shall not find him by sending people more often to the ballot box.

 

“Are our constitutional conventions to sit and congratulate themselves on their progressive ideas while they are condemning us to a new form of our old particularism--the ballot box?  How completely that has failed us! Direct government as at present generally understood is a mere phantom of democracy. Democracy is not a sum in addition. Democracy is not brute numbers; it is a genuine union of true individuals.”

 

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Fixing Democracy, Part 12


This is the last in the series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Tom Atlee.

 

“Citizen deliberative councils have a unique and pivotal role to play in bringing public wisdom into the formal functioning of politics and governance.  These temporary councils of citizens are designed to reflect the diversity of the population, so when they are convened to deliberate on public concerns and provide guidance for officials and the public, they have a special legitimacy—the legitimacy of We the People, the rightful source of guidance and power in a democracy.

 

“The primary quality that makes them different from other democratic forms that claim to represent We the People—that is elected representatives, populist partisan groups, public forums open to whoever show up and public opinion polls—is the fact that citizen deliberative councils are microcosm of the whole society, and they are undertaking a near-ideal act of interactive citizenship on behalf of that society.  They call forth, embody and ultimately promote the latent public wisdom of the whole population.

 

“Creating the capacity for public wisdom in the 21st century is our task, our calling. We are the revolutionary founders of this new democracy—a democracy that will have an impact at least as great, and probably greater, than the impact the American Revolution had on the world almost 250 years ago.”

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Fixing Democracy, Part 11


This is the next in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Tom Atlee.

 

“In a citizen deliberative council, the experience being considered is the diverse experience of its members, and the teachings of the diverse facts and lessons provided by various experts. It is precisely the diversity of these things that enables them to support the emergence of wisdom.

 

“Instead of wisdom deriving from making sense of varied moments over time in one person’s life, it derives from making sense of the diversity of life experiences and lessons in a mixed group and the diversity of information and perspectives gleaned from fair full briefings and diverse expert witnesses.

 

“Instead of this being mulled over in the lone mind of an individual, it is mulled over in the minds of a dozen or a hundred people in respectful, creative conversation. Whatever coherent understanding emerges from the process has broader applicability and benefit.  This is because of the diversity of knowledge and experience from which was not suppressed but instead honored and used creatively.

 

“The popular ‘wisdom of crowds’ idea—that the aggregated responses of many independent people generates better answers than any one of them would, or even than experts would—is sometimes useful for crowd sourced estimates and predictions. But it does not generate true wisdom. That requires high-quality deliberative conversation among diverse people.

 

“My definition of deliberation in this work is ‘thorough, thoughtful consideration of how to best address an issue or situation, covering a wide range of information, perspectives and potential consequences of diverse approaches.’”

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Fixing Democracy, Part 10


This is the next in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Tom Atlee.

 

“Unfortunately, involving millions of people in any particular deliberative activity reduces the likelihood that a wise, inclusive, coherent and legitimate voice of the people will emerge from it—unless the activity includes citizen deliberative councils.  Ideally, the wisdom generated by such well supported mini-publics would inform the citizenship, conversations and activism of the rest of us, thereby helping us to be collectively wise in the directions we take our society and world.

 

“Without deliberation we don’t get public wisdom. Even in an individual, wisdom does not come from experience or teachings alone.  Individuals must reflect on their experience and what others have told them; notice connections, consequences and contradictions; and must test what they believe against challenges in their minds, in conversations and, above all, in life in order to derive sound, beneficial knowledge over time.”

Monday, October 1, 2012

Fixing Democracy, Part 9


This is the next in a series of posts on how to make our democracy work better based on an article in The Intelligent Optimist magazine (formerly Ode) by Tom Atlee.

 

“Notice how different it is [mass participation, volunteering, advocacy and turn-out]from a focus on public wisdom and generating and empowering a legitimate, inclusive, informed and coherent voice of the whole people that can articulate that wisdom and push it into public policy. As odd as it may seem, public wisdom doesn’t depend on mass public participation.  It depends on engaging just enough people to adequately embody the diversity of the population, and then giving them support to generate wise understandings and recommendations about what the rest of us and our representatives should do about the issues we face.

 

“In a sense, such mini-public deliberations are a scaling up of a practice even older than the Athenian boule [pool of participants] considering issues of consequence facing the tribe.  As my colleague, leadership coach and consultant Rosa Zubizarreta has said, ‘Our indigenous ancestors knew that to meet in a circle is sacred, whether we are doing so to communicate with other dimensions of time, space and being, or whether we are doing so for the equally numinous purpose of communicating with one another, talking and listening, witnessing and presencing, until there is nothing left but the obvious truth.’ Sitting in council is a deep-rooted part of our social DNA. But how do we do this sacred duty with millions of different people—millions of diverse people with different beliefs cultures and interests?”