Democracy and Citizenship
In 1984, Benjamin Barber observed in Strong Democracy that:
“…democracies have rarely perished at the hands of armed aggressors or foreign enemies or alien ideologies. they have eroded gradually from within, consumed unprotestingly by complacency in the guise of privatism, by arrogance in the guise of empire, by irresponsibility in the guise of individualism, by selfishness in the guise of obsessive rights, by passivity in the guise of deference to experts, by greed in the guise of productivity. Democracy is undone by a hundred kinds of activity more profitable than citizenship; by a thousand seductive acquisitions cheaper than liberty.”
Effective and responsive democracy begins with the conversations we as citizens have with each other about our shared interests and about the choices we make to build the kind of community we want for ourselves and our childrens’ children. The success of democracy depends on how all of us choose to live our public lives – the lives we have at work, at schools, and in the community where we act on diverse self-interests to solve our common problems.
Whatever the outcome of the state and national elections on Tuesday, it will still be up to us, not those we elect, to have the ongoing conversations necessary for our communities, our nation, and our democracy to work. In his best-selling The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey writes that between every stimulus and response, there is a gap, and in that gap is our freedom to choose how we will respond.
I believe that we all have the freedom to think of ourselves as productive people who come up with ideas and resources; people who are bold and resourceful; and people who build civic things of lasting and great value. We have the freedom to choose to be civil in our discourse, deliberate in our discussions, and co-creators of our governance and our communities.
We have the freedom to choose. But what will our choice be?