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?”
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