Monthly Archives: September 2017

Using Thick and Thin Engagement to Improve Politics

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The NCDD network specializes in structures and processes for better civic engagement, which is why we wanted to share an insightful piece written by Matt Leighninger from Public Agenda, an NCDD member org. In the article, he gives concrete ways to improve politics from the ground up, by strengthening networks using both thin and thick ways of engagement. We encourage you to read Leighninger’s article below or find the original on Public Agenda’s blog here.

Fixing Politics by Strengthening Networks for Engagement

As David Brooks pointed out in his column on “How to Fix Politics,” our political system has reached a perilous state of dysfunction and distrust, and it is unlikely that any solutions to this crisis will come from the political parties or their presidential candidates.

Brooks is also right that the partisanship and incivility that plague our politics are not just due to poor manners or bad process skills. They are based in much deeper structural flaws in how leaders and communities engage each other around important issues and resulting strains in the relationship between citizens and government.

Brooks argues that strong community networks are essential for successful politics, and uses a 1981 quote from one of our founders, Daniel Yankelovich, to illustrate how long the weakening of those networks has been going on. “If we’re going to salvage our politics,” Brooks says, we’ll have to “nurture the thick local membership web that politics rests within.”

This kind of argument is often dismissed as a sentimental notion, or a lament over our lack of civic virtue, but it shouldn’t be. There are specific proposals and measures that can accomplish it.

Strengthening networks for engagement should be one of our top public priorities, and there are in fact a number of concrete ways to move forward on it. Much of our work at Public Agenda centers on these challenges, and we are part of a field of other organizations and leaders – from neighborhood organizers to innovative public officials – who have pioneered more productive formats and structures for democratic politics.

There are two kinds of communication that need to be happening for those networks to strengthen and grow. One kind, as Brooks references, is “thick” engagement that is intensive, informed and deliberative. In these kinds of settings, people are able to share their experiences, learn more about public problems, consider a range of solutions or policy options and decide how they want to act.

Other tactics produce “thin” engagement, which is faster, easier and potentially viral. It encompasses a range of activities that allow people to express their opinions, learn about other people’s views and affiliate themselves with a particular group or cause.

When thick and thin engagement activities are common and interwoven in community life, they can:

  • Facilitate faster, more far-reaching dissemination of information from governments, school systems and other public bodies.
  • Allow citizens to provide information back to the institutions, in ways that are convenient for people.
  • Foster discussion and connection, and the strengthening of personal relationships, among different groups of citizens, and among citizens, public officials and public employees.
  • Provide choices for people to make at the level of the family and neighborhood;
  • Create deliberative processes in which people can make informed public policy choices;
  • Encourage and support citizens to contribute their energy, ideas and volunteer time to improving their communities.

By understanding what thick and thin engagement look like, and what they can accomplish, communities can assess and improve their systems of engagement, or “civic infrastructure,” defined as “the laws, processes, institutions, and associations that support regular opportunities for people to connect with each other, solve problems, make decisions and celebrate community.”

Stronger civic infrastructure could include more productive and participatory public meetings, revitalized neighborhood and school associations, and vibrant local online forums. Overall, it should establish a better “ground floor of democracy” that fosters new leaders, creates social connections and helps people work together on common concerns like ensuring public safety and improving the quality of education for our young people.

The structural elements that support these activities can include:

  • new laws and ordinances on public engagement;
  • tools for engaging residents for neighborhoods and schools;
  • annual participatory budgeting processes;
  • public engagement commissions;
  • tools for measuring engagement and the strength of networks;
  • citizen advisory boards that engage rather than just trying to represent residents; and
  • protocols, job descriptions and professional development that help public employees understand how to support productive engagement.

While some of these elements are clearly the province of governments and school systems, many other components are ones that should be supported by neighborhood groups, nonprofits, businesses, faith communities, universities, foundations and other stakeholders.

David Brooks is right that strengthening the web of community networks can help fix politics, at every level of government. There are practical ways to do this – this is a matter for policy, law, cross-sector collaboration, and long-term planning. We should be proactive, and think constructively, about how we want our democracy to work.

You can find the original version of this article on Public Agenda’s blog at www.publicagenda.org/blogs/fixing-politics-by-strengthening-networks-for-engagement.

Bag of Words

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A common technique in natural language processing involves treating a text as a bag of words. That is, rather than restrict analysis to preserving the order in which words appear, these automated approaches begin by simply examining words and word frequencies. In this sense, the document is reduced from a well-ordered, structured object to a metaphorical bag of words from which order has been discarded.

Numerous studies have found the bag of words approach to be sufficient for most tasks, yet this finding is somewhat surprising – even shocking, as Grimmer and Stewart note – given the reduction of information represented by this act.

Other pre-processing steps for dimensionality reduction seem intuitively less dramatic. Removing stop words like “the” and “a” seems a reasonable way of focusing on core content words without getting bogged down in the details of grammar. Lemmatization, which assigns words to a base family also makes sense – assuming it’s done correctly. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter much whether I say “community” or “communities.”

But reducing a text – which presumably has been well-written and carefully follows the rules of it’s language’s grammar seems surprisingly profane. Do you lose so little when taking Shakespeare or Homer as a bag of words? Even the suggestion implies a disservice to the poetry of language. Word order is important.

Why, then, is a bag of words approach sufficient for so many tasks?

One possible explanation is that computers and humans process information differently. For a human reading or hearing a sentence, word order helps them predict what is to come next. It helps them process and make sense of what they are hearing as they are hearing it. To make sense of this complex input, human brains need this structure.

Computers may have other shortcomings, but they don’t feel the anxious need to understand input and context as it is received. Perhaps bag of words works because – while word order is crucial for the human brain – it provides unnecessary detail for the processing style of a machine.

I suspect there is truth in that explanation, but I find it unsatisfactory. It implies that poetry and beauty are relevant to the human mind alone – that these are artifacts of processing rather than inherent features of a text.

I prefer to take a different approach: the fact that bag of words models work actually emphasizes the flexibility and beauty of language. It highlights the deep meaning embedded in the words themselves and illustrates just how much we communicate when we communicate.

Linguistic philosophers often marvel that we can manage to communicate at all – the words we exchange may not mean the same thing to me as they do to you. In fact, they almost certainly do not.

In this sense, language is an architectural wonder; a true feat of achievement. We convey so much with subtle meanings of word choice, order, and grammatical flourishes. And somehow through the cacophony of this great symphony – which we all experience uniquely – we manage to schedule meetings, build relationships, and think critically together.

Much is lost in translating the linguistic signal between me and you. We miss each other’s context and reinterpret the subtle flavors of each word. We can hear a whole lecture without truly understanding, even if we try.

And that, I think, is why the bag of words approach works. Linguistic signals are rich, they are fiercely high-dimensional and full of more information than any person can process.

Do we lose something when we reduce dimensionality? When we discard word order and treat a text as a bag of words?

Of course.

But that isn’t an indication of the gaudiness of language; rather it is a tribute to it’s profound persistence.

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assessment criteria for participation in a seminar

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Thinking that I should be explicit about how I define good participation in a seminar that I’m teaching, I circulated these eight criteria:

  • Being responsive to other students. (Responsiveness needn’t always be immediate, verbal, or occur within the class discussion itself.)
  • Building on others’ contributions, and sometimes making links among different people’s contributions or between what they have said and the text.
  • Demonstrating genuine respect for the others, where respect does not require agreement. (In fact, sometimes respect requires explicit disagreement because you take the other person’s ideas seriously.)
  • Focusing on the topic and the texts, which does not preclude drawing unexpected connections beyond them.
  • Taking risks, trying out ideas that you don’t necessarily endorse, and asking questions that might be perceived as naive or uninformed.
  • Seeking truth or clarity or insight (instead of other objectives).
  • Exercising freedom of speech along with a degree of tact and concern for the other people.
  • Demonstrating responsibility for the other students’ learning in what you say (and occasionally by a decision not to speak).

Students also privately wrote how they will assess themselves. Their assessments will be for their reflection alone–I won’t ever see them.

See also: responsiveness as a virtue; what makes conversation go well (a network model); and network dynamics in conversation.

Opinion Change

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While there are differing views on whether or not a person’s opinions are likely to change, there’s a general sense of “opinion change” as some clear and discrete thing: one moment I think X, and the next moment I think Y…or perhaps, more conservatively, not X.

Coming to opinion change from a deliberation background, I’m not at all convinced that this is the right framework to be thinking in.

Perhaps in a debate the goal is to move your opponent from one discrete position to another, or to convincingly argue that your discrete position is better than another. But in deliberation – which very well may include aspects of debate – the very notion of “opinion change” seems misplaced.

I think of deliberation more as process of collaborative storytelling: you don’t know the ending a priori. You create the ending, collectively and uniquely. A different group would tell a different story.

As the story unfolds, you may shift your voice and alter your contributions, but the X -> Y model of “opinion change” doesn’t seem to fit at all. 

The challenge, perhaps, is that standard conceptions of opinion change take it as a zero-sum game. One person wins and another person loses. Or no one changes their mind and the whole conversation was a waste.

But deliberation isn’t like that. It is creative and generative. It is a collective endeavor through which ideas are born, not a competitive setting with winners and losers. In deliberation, all participants leave changed from the experience. They come to think about things in new ways and have the opportunity to look at an issue from a new perspective.

They may or may not leave with the same policy position they had going in, but either way, something subtle has changed. A change that may effect their future interactions and future judgements.

Standard conceptions of “opinion change” as a toggle switch are just too narrow to capture the rich, transformative interplay of deliberation.

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American Founders’ Month in Florida: Benjamin Franklin

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Sept 8 Franklin

Our celebration of American Founders’ Month here in Florida continues with a look at Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Franklin may be one of the most fascinating of the people who contributed to this country during the Founding Era. He was known for his wit, his charm, his brilliance, and yes, even his way with the ladies. He may be introduced to younger kids with the story of his decidedly unwise but ultimately legendary act of flying a kite in a thunderstorm, but truly, he was so much more than that. Take some time and check out this great DocsTeach resource on dear Mr. Franklin’s time as a politician and diplomat!

Grab the PowerPoint slide featured in this post: Ben Franklin AFM

And the wonderful musical 1776 is always worth checking out for some excellent historical debates and discussions. Here, Benjamin Franklin talks about what makes Americans different from their English cousins, featuring some of the wit and charm and especially intellect and passion he was known for  (relevant clip begins around :34).

 

Additional entries in the American Founders’ Month series:
Introduction to the Founding Fathers
Who Was George Washington?
Abigail Adams: Founding Mother and so much more


John Kasich is trying to hog the DREAMers, and that’s not fair

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I know it’s become standard fare for liberals to criticize Republicans for injustice. But I want to take a strong stand against this disgusting display, in which the Governor of Ohio, acting as a public official, told the world: “We want all the immigrants to come to Ohio, because we know how much they contribute to America!”

Notice that “all”? Kasich is edging for a monopoly. And that’s where I have to draw the line: this country was built on competitive federalism, and Ohio doesn’t have the right to all the DREAMers. Ohio should have to woo them the same as everybody else. Maryland has a right to DREAMers, too, and I’d argue we need them more.

Now I know many people will argue that Kasich is just engaging in salesmanship, a crucial part of the job as governor. He’s making a rhetorically strong pitch, not actually trying to use his office to allot an unfair advantage to his state. Maybe so. Donald Trump set off this absurd bidding war by changing the rules of the game in ending DACA. That was a dumb move, because now there’s a feeding frenzy as states compete to fill in the vacuum left by the federal government. Some states will win and some will lose. I think Congress should act to reset the playing field levelly, calm the market for the best and brightest citizens, workers, and entrepreneurs, by passing the DREAM Act.

Once they’re done, it’ll be time to deal with this gluttonous monster, Eli Bosnick:

Bosnick seems to think that his home state should get all the refugees, too. There are five million Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war there, and the United States already has far fewer of them than we deserve.

Bosnick exacerbates the problem by bogarting the Syrian refugees for himself. Steve Jobs was a Syrian immigrant, and Bosnick is saying, basically, “I want all the iPhones!” (Which, to be absolutely honest, just isn’t quite as good of a get since Jobs died.) But that’s not the American Way! Americans should be able to all have an opportunity to resettle Syrian refugees through their churches, synogogues, and mosques! Matthew La Corte and David Bier have argued just that, and we should listen.

(I’m sorry for the uncharacteristic satire, but I don’t know how else to express the intensity of my anger and outrage. We all feel some issues so deeply that we can’t engage in careful policy arguments about them; this is one of my weaknesses. I can tell you about the economic impact on growth, the effect on employment for native-born, the benefits to the home country through remittances, but it just seems silly to make this fight about numbers. Immigration makes me feel practically biblical:

When the alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt:  I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

But here’s something sort of rational: I’ll be voting on this policy. So far, Kasich is the only potential candidate for 2020 who has come out this strongly: that means that right now, Republican or not, he has my vote. (If Kamala Harris can get the DREAM Act passed, though, I’ll definitely reconsider. And if we can get serious action on refugees from some public official of any party, I’ll be sold.)

my fall philosophy class on the question: How should I live?

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This introductory course will emphasize one of the great philosophical questions: “How should I live?” The readings will specifically consider whether truthfulness, happiness, and justice are important aspects of a good life, and how each should be defined. …

Moral Mapping Exercise: With colleagues, I have been developing a method for moral introspection that involves making and revising a network diagram (or map) of your moral ideas and the connections among them. I will ask you to make a private map early on and to revise it regularly. I will ask you to bring a copy to class that you are comfortable sharing: it should omit any ideas that you prefer to keep private. At the end, I will collect your final map and a 2-page reflection on it. Instructions are here.

Syllabus: Subject to Change

Sept. 6: Overview and introduction

I. Truthfulness

Is there an obligation to seek the truth? To say or teach the truth to others? How does truthfulness relate to happiness and justice? Can we know truths about ethics?

Sept. 11: Plato, Apology, sections §17-35. Also Justin P. McBrayer, “ Why Our Children Don’t Think There are Moral Facts ,” The New York Times, March 2, 2015. Or in this PDF if you have trouble reading it on the NY Times site.

Sept. 13: Plato, Apology §35-42. Also read the “introduction to moral mapping” section of this Google doc.

Before Sept. 18: Do the first two tasks of the moral network mapping exercise (1. “Generate a set of moral beliefs” and 2. “From a list to a network”). Bring a copy of your map that you are comfortable sharing with a partner during class.

Sept. 18: Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorisms §1-12

Sept. 20: Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorisms §13-32

Sept. 25: Bernard Williams, Truth, Politics, and Self-Deception, Social Research, Vol. 63, No. 3, (FALL 1996), pp. 603-617.

Sept 29, midnight. First paper due. Describe a situation in which it’s problematic whether to be truthful or not. Argue in favor of being truthful or not being truthful in this situation. Define what you mean by the term “truthful.” Give reasons for your position and explain and counter good reasons against it. Cite at least one relevant passage from Plato or Nietzsche.

I. Happiness

What is happiness? What are the best paths to happiness? Do we have a right to pursue our own happiness? Can we make others happy?

Sept. 27: Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus” (We will also discuss Socrates’ remarks about happiness in the “Apology,” already assigned.)

Oct 2: “Buddha” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (You can also optionally consult “Buddha” from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

Before Oct. 4. Do the third task of the moral network mapping exercise: “Investigate the shape of the network.” Make changes to the map if you have had any new ideas or changed your mind. Bring a copy to class to discuss.

Oct. 4: “Buddha” (continued)

Oct 9: No class (Columbus Day)

Oct. 11. Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

Oct. 11: More discussion of the “happiness” readings.

Oct 13. (midnight) Second paper due. Essay prompts (pick one):

  1. Many words seem related to the word “happiness”: for instance, “pleasure,” “satisfaction,” “equanimity,” “acceptance,” “joy.” Choose one such word and explain why it is a good goal and how one should pursue it.
  2. Socrates, Nietzsche, and Emerson recommend independence or self-reliance. Is this the best path to happiness? Why or why not?
  3. What is one belief about life or the world that would bring happiness if people accepted it as true? Is this belief true? Should people embrace it?

Regardless of which prompt you choose, summarize and respond to objections to your position.

III. Justice Toward Others

What are principles of justice? Which principles of justice are binding on whom? How do they relate to each other?

A. Welfare

We discussed happiness in the previous section. Could maximizing the happiness of all human beings–or something similar to that–be the main principle of justice?

Oct. 16: Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 2 (“What Utilitarianism Is”) and chapter 5 (“On the Connection Between Justice and Utility”)

Oct. 18: Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Part I, chapter 1, §5 (versus utilitarianism)

Before Oct. 23: Do the fourth task of the moral network mapping exercise: “Consider the Location of the Nodes.” Make changes to the map if you have had new ideas. Bring a copy to class to discuss.

Oct. 23: More discussion of welfare.

B. Liberty

Oct 25: Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958), in Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (1969).

Oct 30: Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, Chapters 1, 4 and Postscript (pp. 11-21, 54-70, 397-411.)

Nov. 1: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Part I, 1 §1-4, 2 §11-17, and 3 §24

Nov. 6: Discussion of Rawls continues.

Nov. 8: Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, pp. 149-177

Nov. 10 (midnight) paper due. Suggested essay prompt: Individual liberty and public happiness (or welfare) can conflict. Give a real or imaginary example of such a conflict, say whether you favor liberty or welfare/happiness in that case, and explain why, considering objections to your position. Cite at least one assigned author.

B. Equality

Nov. 13: [possible cancellation due to professor’s travel]

Nov. 15: Tim Scanlon, “When Does Equality Matter?”

Nov. 20: Bayard Rustin, “From Protest to Politics: Future of the Civil Rights Movement,” Commentary (February, 1965)

Nov. 22, midnight: Fourth paper due. Suggested topics: (1) Describe an example of an inequality that you consider unjust. Explain why some might reasonably consider it to be just. Argue that it is actually unjust and explain why. Cite at least one assigned text. (2) Give an example of an unequal situation that you consider justifiable. Explain why some might consider that situation to be unjust or unfair. Explain why it is actually just. Cite at least one assigned text. (3) What should we consider when we reason about what a just society is like? Is Rawls right that we should ignore our own situation and beliefs? Is Nozick right that we should pay attention to past actions that have created the current situation? What forms of information do you consider relevant to justice, and why?

D. Democracy

Nov. 27: Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and its Critics, pp. 106-52

Nov. 29: Kwasi Wiredu, “Democracy and Consensus in Traditional African Politics” (http://them.polylog.org/2/fwk-en.htm) and Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, “Democracy or Consensus?” ( http://them.polylog.org/2/fee-en.htm)

E. Identity

Dec 4: Audre Lorde, “ The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House ” and Steve Biko, “Black Consciousness and the Quest for True Humanity”

Dec. 6: Todd Gitlin, “The Left, Lost in the Politics of Identity,” Harper’s Magazine, 1993; and Susan Bickford, “Anti-Anti-Identity Politics: Feminism, Democracy, and the Complexities of Citizenship,” Hypatia Vol. 12, No. 4.

Before Dec. 11: Revise your moral network map again. Prepare a copy to hand in (omitting anything that you consider private and don’t want to share. Also write a note of up to 2 pages reflecting on the map.

Dec. 11: More discussion of the readings on democracy, diversity and inclusion.

Dec. 15: Fifth Paper due. Topic TBA.

The Uses of Anger

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“Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger,” says Audre Lorde in The Uses of Anger, her 1981 keynote talk at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference.

I have been thinking a lot about this piece recently. It feels sharply relevant today, 36 years after it was written.

Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger. An arsenal built from fear; from the constant slights and dismissals; from living and functioning in a world which takes us for granted, insists we are not enough, and half-heartidly feigns distress over the violence used against us. Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger.

I know I do.

Lorde argues this anger is a strength, that it has powerful, transformative uses. Anger, she argues, leads to change.

Importantly, in conflicts between the oppressed and their oppressors, there are not “two sides.” The anger of the oppressed leads to growth while the hatred of the oppressors seeks destruction. As Lorde writes:

Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is the grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change.

Anger is the grief of distortions between peers. Anger arises when you and I fail to understand each other, when we fail to listen genuinely and to acknowledge each other’s experience. Anger arises when the world insists that your perceptions and experiences aren’t real.

It’s gaslighting on a societal scale.

But anger has it’s uses, Lorde says. “Anger is loaded with information and energy.”

Anger, articulated with precision and “translated into action in the service of our vision and out future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification.”

Anger at the distortions between peers creates space for us to clarify and remove those distortions; to genuinely accept the experiences of others.

This is particularly important in the context of gender because the experiences of women vary radically across numerous dimensions of race, class, and identity.

In order to successful use our anger, we must “examine the contradictions of self, woman, as oppressor.”

Lorde is diplomatic on the topic, recognizing that she, too – a lesbian woman of color – has at times taken on the role of oppressing other women. But drawing on my own identity, I’m inclined to be more direct here: white women, and particularly white cis women have played a long and important role in building and maintaining systems of white supremacy and cisnormativity.

We have suffered our slings and arrows, no doubt, and with good reason our personal arsenals are well-stocked with anger. Yet we, too, are oppressors. We have oppressed our sisters directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally. Recognizing this is, as Lorde describes, a painful process of translation. But is a process we must undertake; a process we must engage in order to radically change the systems of power, privilege, and oppression we are embedded in; the systems which oppress us and our neighbors.

Furthermore, Lorde argues that anger can bring out this change – guilt at our own complicity does nothing:

I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.

Guilt is a proxy for impotence; for inaction. But anger is transformative. As Lorde writes:

…The strength of women lies in recognizing differences between us as creative, and in standing to those distortions which we inherited without blame but which are now ours to alter. The angers of women can transform differences through insight into power. For anger between peers births change, not destruction, and the discomfort and sense of loss it often causes is not fatal, but a sign of growth.

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the Obama Foundation Fellowship

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The Obama Foundation is recruiting their first cohort of Fellows. This inaugural class will have a special opportunity to shape the program for the future. The fellowship takes the form of four face-to-face gatherings over two years, plus a lot of opportunities for professional development. The Foundation is looking for a “diverse set of community-minded rising stars – organizers, inventors, artists, entrepreneurs, journalists, and more – who are altering the civic engagement landscape. By engaging their fellow citizens to work together in new and meaningful ways, Obama Foundation Fellows will model how any individual can become an active citizen in their community.” More here.