An interesting example of knowledge production outside the academy.
What would Macalester's "civic engagement" experts have to say about
this? Hmmm...
Peter
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Nygaard Notes #379
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:48:16 -0500
From: Jeff Nygaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Nygaard Files <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Nygaard Notes*
*Independent Periodic News and Analysis*
*Number 379, July 22, 2007, 2007*
*On the Web at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/*
*******
This Week: The Democracy Series, Parts 2 and 3
*
*1. "Quote" of the Week*
*2. The Democracy Series, Part 2: The Skills and Arts of Democracy*
*3. The Democracy Series, Part 3: The Values of a Democratic System*
********
Greetings,
Welcome to the new readers this week! Since you've signed up right in
the middle of a series of who-knows-how-many articles on Democracy, I
want to remind you that you can go to the Nygaard Notes website whenever
you like and read the previous part of this series. Or anything else
that has ever appeared in Nygaard Notes, for that matter. The website
is searchable, too. And, as with every aspect of Nygaard Notes, there
is no advertising!
You should also know that Nygaard Notes does not always appear in series
form. Just now and again, whenever there's a particular issue that I
can't figure out how to express in a single issue.
Speaking of this series... I have been debating with myself about
whether or not I should capitalize the word Democracy as I go along.
The point of capitalizing, for me, is to indicate that the word
represents a primary idea, or maybe a set of ideas, that is perhaps
different than the idea that most people have when they see the word.
That is, by capitalizing it, I mark it as a Big Idea, and one that has a
special meaning for me and---once you finish reading this series---maybe
for you, too.
So, for those of you who are attached to the standard "rules" of
capitalization, per the Chicago Manual of Style, I guess you'll notice
that I have decided to break the rules and capitalize the word Democracy
for as long as the series goes on. So be it.
I imagine that's enough for this Editor's Note. Until next week, then,
Nygaard
******
1.
*"Quote" of the Week*
Here are a couple of excerpts from the 1998 book "On Democracy" by Yale
University political scientist Robert A. Dahl:
/"Political resources include everything to which a person or a group
has access that they can use to influence, directly or indirectly, the
conduct of other persons. Varying with time and place, an enormous
number of aspects of human society can be converted into political
resources: physical force, weapons, money, wealth, goods and services,
productive resources, income, status, honor, respect, affection,
charisma, prestige, information, knowledge, education, communication,
communications media, organizations, position, legal standing, control
over doctrine and beliefs, votes, and many others....
"Most of the resources just listed are everywhere distributed in highly
unequal fashion. Although market-capitalism is not the only cause, it
is important in causing an unequal distribution of many key resources:
wealth, income, status, prestige, information, organization, education,
knowledge. Because of inequalities in political resources, some
citizens gain significantly more influence than others over the
government's policies, decisions, and actions. These violations, alas,
are not trivial. Consequently, citizens are not political equals-far
from it-and thus the moral foundation of democracy, political equality
among citizens, is seriously violated.
"...once society and politics are transformed by market capitalism and
democratic institutions are in place ... the inequalities in resources
that market-capitalism churns out produce serious political inequalities
among citizens.
"... The relation between a country's democratic political system and
its nondemocratic economic system has presented a formidable and
persistent challenge to democratic goals and practices throughout the
twentieth century. That challenge will surely continue in the
twenty-first century."
/******
2.
*The Democracy Series, Part 2: The Skills and Arts of Democracy*
/"We humans may be born innately social creatures but to be effective in
creating societies that reflect our values and work for all of us it
helps to approach democracy-making as a learned art."
/
-- Frances Moore Lappé.
Last week I talked about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his comment about
"those cynical men who say that a Democracy cannot be honest and
efficient." If "efficiency"---a certain kind of efficiency---is the
goal, then some problems with democratic decision-making surely leap to
mind: it takes too long to make decisions, it takes too much energy to
do all the thinking and talking necessary in order to make good
decisions, and it's just too slow and we don't have time for it.
Such criticisms make sense ONLY if we accept the idea that there is but
a single important thing: The end result. If we believe, in contrast,
that the PROCESS is as important as---or more important than---the
result, then it's a different story. In fact, if we're thinking
democratically, the process IS the result, at least in part.
*Democracy is Not Something We Have. It's Something We Do.*
If you want to /have/ music, you can download a song, or buy a CD, or
turn on the radio. You don't need to really know anything about music
to have it in your life. However, if you want to /do/ music, you do
have to know something, and you need to be able to act on what you
know. And so it is with Democracy.
Last week I said that Democracy is "rule by the people," in which "all
have equal rights," and where everyone has a say in the decisions that
affect them. But what does it mean to "have a say?" How does this
actually happen? It happens when people are /willing and able/ to
participate in "ruling" themselves, and it gets better and better the
more willing and able they are. Part of the way this happens is that
people become better at doing Democracy when they learn and practice
certain skills. Some people, like Frances Moore Lappé, would call them
"arts" instead of "skills." Either way, there are certain things that
people need to be good at in order to effectively rule themselves. Here
are a few of them:
*Some of the Skills of Democracy*
COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Active Listening, Hearing What Others Are Trying
to Say.
Effective Speaking
COLLABORATION SKILLS: Empathy; Cooperation; Inclusiveness.
GROUP DECISION-MAKING SKILLS: How to Participate in a Group; How to
Include Others; How to Co-operate; How To Get Input from Everyone; How
To Build Decisions
SKILLS IN DEALING WITH CONFLICT: Being comfortable with conflict;
Negotiating out of conflict; Respectful disagreement; Mediation skills.
*Some of the Arts of Democracy*
PATIENCE: Can we love the process as much as the outcome? Can we see
that participating in a democratic process IS an outcome, and one to be
happy about?
PERSPECTIVE: What is really important? What is MOST important? Can we
back up and think about what we are thinking about?
IMAGINATION: "What if...?" and "Why not...?"
"CELEBRATION AND APPRECIATION: Expressing joy and appreciation for what
we learn as well as what we achieve." [This is directly from Lappé; see
below.]
WEAVING: Bringing together what we want with ... what is possible with
... what could be possible with ... present reality.
These are just some of the ideas that I have had over the years. There
are plenty more where those came from, but it's also true that many
other people have thought about this idea of skills and arts associated
with Democracy. So let's hear from some of them.
*Other Ideas*
The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy lists these four
"skills of Democracy": Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Research, and
Participation.
In a 2001 article "Who Do We Think We Are, Anyway?" in "By What
Authority" a publication of the Program on Corporations, Law and
Democracy, Molly Morgan & Virginia Rasmussen state that "the art and
skills of democracy must be learned." They say that
"Doing democracy includes holding meetings that work for people;
designing an engaging, relevant agenda; possessing skills to include
everyone in the discussion and to place limits on any one person's
participation; reaching decisions without the residue from winning vs.
losing; using conflict constructively; taking time to understand
someone's resistance or disagreement; organizing for action, and
planning for the future. This learning should be part of every
educational and organizing opportunity we experience."
A group called the Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships, in
California, says that "Civic engagement and service to community are the
pillars of a democratic society." Toward that end, they say, "students
must ... practice the skills of democracy," which they say are:
Organization, Communication, Collective Decision-making, and Critical
Thinking.
I have long thought that Frances Moore Lappé is one of the best, in the
U.S. context, at bringing together the personal and the political. And,
sure enough, she has written a book called "Democracy's Edge: Choosing
to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life." A forty-page
guide---"Doing Democracy: Ten Practical Arts"---has been produced as a
companion to that book. Here are the Ten:
Active Listening -- encouraging the speaker and searching for meaning;
Creative Conflict -- confronting others in ways that produce growth;
Mediation -- facilitating interaction to help people in conflict hear
each other; Negotiation -- problem solving that meets some key interests
of all involved; Political Imagination -- reimaging our futures
according to our values; Public Dialogue -- public talk on matters that
concern us all; Public Judgement -- public decision making that allows
citizens to make choices they are willing to help implement; Celebration
and Appreciation -- expressing joy and appreciation for what we learn as
well as what we achieve; Evaluation and Reflection -- assessing and
incorporating the lessons we learn through action; Mentoring --
supportively guiding others in learning these arts of public life.
The guide (from which the quotation at the top of this article are also
drawn) can be found online at http://www.democracysedge.org/arts.php
******
3.
*The Democracy Series, Part 3: The Values of a Democratic System*
A couple of months ago (in Nygaard Notes #373: to
http://www.nygaardnotes.org/issues/nn0373.html) I talked about the
so-called nature-vs.-nurture debate. I said that people "are" the way
they are due to both heredity AND environment. That is, people are born
with some things and then they live in a society/community/family that
shapes that something in certain ways. I said that "we can't do
anything about what people are born with, so that means that any efforts
to make life better would be more productively focused on the world we
live in, focusing on creating systems that support the best in us and
that also withhold support from our worst parts." And that brings us to
Democracy.
If people really do like Democracy, as almost everyone I know says they
do, then what is it that they like? I think they value the things that
go along with Democracy, and that make it work.
Some of the values that are widely shared include: Solidarity;
Community; Compassion; Respect;
Trust; and Altruism.
*The Values and Practice Cycle*
There is an interesting cycle involving these values. If you share
them, you will probably be able to see the worth of mastering the skills
and arts of Democracy. And, if you regularly practice the skills and
arts of Democracy, you are likely to find that your practices enhance
these values. It's a chicken-and-egg thing: Having the values will make
you want to practice the skills, and practicing the skills will
reinforce the values, in an endless cycle.
Likewise, the daily practice of selfish behaviors reflects a different
set of values. What I want to suggest here is that the economic and
political systems we have in the U.S. are based on a different set of
values, one that, despite the mythology, is profoundly anti-democratic.
Consider, first of all, this concept, stated by the Bertalanffy Center
for the Study of Systems Science: "A system is the unavoidable outcome
of organized intentions." What this means is that the people who set up
a system set it up because they want it to do something. If it doesn't
do what they want---that is, if it doesn't reflect their "organized
intentions"---then they will set up a different system if they can.
If this idea makes sense, then it should not be surprising to discover
that any given system will tend to support and reinforce the values
(intentions) of the people who set it up.
Now let's think about the people who set up the economic and political
systems of the United States, the so-called Founding Fathers. We know
that they were all men, and that they were all "white" and that they
were thus representative of only a minority of the human beings in the
new nation. But they were also, as Jerry Fresia points out in his book,
"Toward An American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution and Other
Illusions," without exception "rich and powerful men who sought to
maintain their wealth and status."
Knowing, as they surely did, that the "common people" would challenge
their privilege if they could, Fresia says that "the Framers repeatedly
expressed what they felt was the need to /check and balance/ the
political expression of people who were not like themselves, who were
not involved in the market economy, who did not own much property, and
who were not very rich." [Emphasis in the original.]
The market economy that has been the norm in this country for over two
centuries now is based on what is called the "rational-actor model"
which, says economist Robert H. Frank, "assumes that people are selfish
in the narrow sense" and that "the world out there is bitterly
competitive, and that those who do not pursue their own interests
ruthlessly are likely to be swept aside by others who do."
Frank tells us that "studies have found that repeated exposure to the
self-interest model makes selfish behavior more likely. In one
experiment, for example, the cooperation rates of economics majors fell
short of those of nonmajors, and the difference grew the longer the
students had been in their respective majors."
It is "troubling," says Frank, that "the narrow self-interest model,
which encourages us to expect the worst in others, often brings out the
worst in us as well."
Those of us who say that we value and support Democracy thus face a
choice: Do we willingly participate in---and thus support and
reinforce---a system that subverts Democracy by "bringing out the worst
in us"? Or do we seek out and attempt to engage in practices that will
bring out the best in us, ones that will promote a self-reinforcing
cycle of Democracy?
I think the choice is clear, and next week I'll talk about what policies
and practices deserve the support of people who love Democracy and the
values of Solidarity, Community, Compassion, Respect, Trust, and
Altruism that are at its foundation.
**********
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Jeff Nygaard
National Writers Union
Twin Cities Local #13 UAW
Nygaard Notes
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