Participedia team members from Simon Fraser University, Co-investigator, Joanna Ashworth, and Research Assistant, Tyler Carlson, recently co-wrote an article for Municipal World, a journal distributed to all local governments in Canada.
Reading Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman’s Networked I was struck by their rebuttal of the argument put forth by McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears; an argument which rings throughout the work of Putnam and other scholars: modern individuals are sad, hollow, isolated shells of humanity and modern technologies like the internet is what made this so.
Perhaps I was struck simply because this is an argument I have given so little serious attention. I am way past even considering concerns that video games make you violent, rock n’ roll leads to devil worship, or that the internet has led to the collapse of our civic infrastructure. It is interesting to consider as a factor, perhaps, to scapegoat the internet – to use Rainie and Wellman’s term – strikes me as absurd.
Rainie and Wellman argue that this “fixation on the internet” ignores “nearly a century of research showing that technological changes before the internet – planes, trains, telephones, telegraphs, and cars – neither destroyed relations and communities nor left them alone as remnants locked up in rural and urban villages.”
In defense of the internet, they point to the fact that “when asked, few people say that they, themselves, are living lives of lonely desperation.” And thus they find it wearisome that “even with these realizations, some people – and commentators – believe that they are the exceptions and that the masses around them are lonely, isolated, and fearful.”
“There is,” they assure us, “no reason to panic.”
Perhaps what is most striking about this debate – internet: friend or foe? – is that the problem isn’t really one of the modern moment; it is more properly a problem of modernity; an era that stretches back as far as one might dare to extend the concepts of modern thought or sensibilities.
In 1854 – which is, if I’m not mistaken, before the widespread popularity of the internet – Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Thoreau went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately; because he yearned to escape the crushing speed and pressures of modern life. 1854 modern life that is. As he famously opens Walden:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…
A contemporary Thoreau might say the same about turning of Facebook or sticking with a flip phone; it’s a challenge of modernity not a problem of technology.
1942 Albert Camus wrote of the absurd tragedy of Sisyphus, that Greek hero who was condemned to “ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight.” Camus, too, points to the challenge of modernity: “The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.”
From this perspective, the internet and other technologies have given us increased distraction; increased refuge from the crushing reality of the emptiness that is life. Which is not to say without these technologies our burden would be relieved; no, we would simply find other ways of burying the truth, of hiding from the void.
The problem, then – if, indeed, there is a problem at all – cannot be laid at the feed of the internet or of specific online platforms. The challenge is much deeper and much more mundane. It is not a challenge of how we live in an ever connected world, it is a fundamental challenge of modern life: how do we live an average, daily life knowing everything that we deeply know?
How, in the words of modern youth, do we even?
There was the expectation that Presidential Travel Ban 2.0 would be upheld as constitutional.
As NPR reports, it was specifically amended to address previous concerns: “It omitted Iraq from the list of barred countries, removed references to religion and excluded green card holders and people who already had visas, among other changes.”
So it was surprising – perhaps even shocking – when a judge in Hawaii issued a temporary restraining order and a judge in Maryland soon after issued a preliminary injunction; both of which blocked the nationwide implementation of the ban.
Proponents of the ban howled at it’s continued blockage; opponents celebrated the victory; and reasonable people from both sides wondered what was constitutionally right in terms of future present beyond the scope of this immediate issue.
The U.S. Department of Justice believes strongly that the ban is legal – indeed, they revised the previous Executive Order language with the explicit goal of issuing an order that would stand up in court. Proponents of the ban further argue that the judges who have moved to block it have overstepped their judicial bounds; issuing rulings from partisan passions rather than from the blind legal ideal.
But Judge Derrick K. Watson – the U.S. District Court judge from Hawaii who issued a temporary ban – sees the matter differently. Watson argues that he was simply considering the wider context, something which is fully within his legal purview to do.
As NPR describes: “The judge concluded, based on the historical context of the travel ban and public statements made by the president, that “a reasonable, objective observer … would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion[.]””
In other words, it doesn’t matter if the specific wording of the new order is carefully crafted to be technically constitutional: it’s the implementation and spirit that is everything.
While this defense may ring of judicial overreaching, I’m inclined to favor the judge’s interpretation – and I’m fairly confident my opinion isn’t simply due to my own distaste for the order.
President Trump himself has made it clear that he favors a “Muslim ban,” that he wants to block people from a specific religious group from entering the country. The injunctions against this ban say, in no uncertain terms, that such a goal is unconstitutional, no matter how you dress it up.
In the days following the initial travel ban order, there was chaos and confusion as people tried to figure out what was going on. Lacking clarity from the order itself, those tasked with the actual enforcement of the ban had a lot of leeway in how it was interpreted and how it was carried out.
There is nothing to prevent a Muslim ban which is gracefully worded to avoid the word Muslim from becoming exactly what it is intended to be. The letter of the law doesn’t need to read “Muslim,” but as long as the intent is clear – as long as there’s the risk of unconstitutional treatment at our borders – such a ban is and should be considered unconstitutional. A little window dressing doesn’t change that.
The article, Practicing Civic Courage in Our Time, was written Martha McCoy and published February 2017 on Everyday Democracy’s site. In the article, McCoy shares different ways in which to have more civic courage by reaching in, reaching out, and creating spaces for democratic participation. You can find the full article below, as well as, on directly from Everyday Democracy’s site here.
From Everyday Democracy…
The day after the election, we shared a piece by our board member Peter Levine, in which he called for civic courage. As division, uncertainty, and anxiety continue to grow, I find myself coming back to this important idea. When messages of fear become louder and more frequent, what does civic courage look like? How can we practice it?
At difficult times throughout our history, many people have exercised civic courage. What kind of courage do we need to practice today? What will it take to advance a democracy that values the voice and participation of people of all racial and ethnic groups, economic means, creeds, ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and walks of life?
Since Everyday Democracy is a national civic organization that focuses on providing ways to lift every voice, we have opportunities to work with and learn from civic practitioners and visionary leaders across the country. Here are a few lessons about civic courage we have drawn from their experiences:
Reach in: The work of strengthening democracy is ultimately collective, but it is also an “inside job.” Those whose words and actions touch us most deeply draw on their inner strength – often rooted in their faith in God and grounded in deeply held beliefs, such as a strong sense of compassion and justice. Many leaders we work with spend time apart – in quiet retreats, with others of their faith tradition, in nature, in poetry, in meditation – so that they can enter more fully into the work of strengthening voice, participation, and justice. They show us that when we take the time to listen to and nurture our own longings for wholeness and connection, we are better able to find the courage to operate from our best selves and to persist through great challenges.
Reach out: It requires courage to connect with and seek to understand others, especially those who have experiences and beliefs different from our own. As our politics become more prone to personal attack, overgeneralization, and stereotyping (“all conservatives believe this, all progressives believe that”), it is becoming even more difficult to open our hearts and minds. But it is possible. In our work, we have heard thousands of people tell their own stories, speak from their own values and experiences, listen deeply to others’ stories and concerns, and find human and civic connection.
The willingness to speak honestly and listen to others creates the empathy that is essential to democracy. Empathy helps us put ourselves in another’s shoes, understand the meaning of justice, and form relationships across difference. It enables us to be hard on ideas but not on people. It helps us make conflict productive. It prevents the “us vs. them” that is at the root of violence. It provides the foundation for working together, even when some disagreement (inevitably) remains. It makes it possible to stand for our convictions, even while we make room for others to stand for theirs.
Stand up: It takes courage to use our voices to stand against anti-democratic behaviors and practices and to stand for more democratic ways of governing ourselves. Speaking out against racism is one of the most powerful examples of “standing up.”
People are learning that racism goes well beyond bigotry. Racism is a web of attitudes, practices, and policies that treats people of color as inferior and creates unfair disadvantages. It has been a primary impediment to democratic practice since our very founding. And it has laid the foundation for other forms of disadvantage and inequity – such as those based on income level, education, gender, age, religion, ability, language, immigration status, and sexual orientation.
The more people understand the true nature of racism, the more they understand that it affects all of us – people of all colors, ethnicities, and income levels. Since our society provides very few ways to learn about this, it can be difficult for many to recognize those times when racism is being used to divide us from each other.
Today, growing numbers of people of all backgrounds are demonstrating civic courage by standing up to name the effects of structural racism and call for racial justice. People of color and white people are showing that it is possible to use a clearer understanding of racial justice to strengthen their advocacy for all kinds of justice and their efforts to bring all kinds of people into dialogue and public problem solving. And growing numbers of white people are showing the power of “standing with.”
Create spaces for democratic participation: We work with hundreds of leaders who bring people together across all kinds of divides for honest, sometimes difficult, conversations that are organized to lead to action and change. Such conversations allow people of all backgrounds and views to build trust and create solutions to public problems.
It takes civic courage and skill to build a welcoming public space where people of all backgrounds and views can share honestly and listen deeply, especially in the face of so much division. It takes courage to take part in dialogue, to sit down with others, especially when messages of distrust and fear bombard us daily. And it takes courage for elected leaders at all levels to sit down with everyday people and commit to listening to them.
Yet, all of this is possible. Diverse coalitions of community groups, grass-roots leaders, and public officials are creating opportunities for all kinds of people to:
We and many of our partners are working toward a society in which these opportunities and practices become routine – in the ways we relate to each other, strengthen community, solve public problems, and make public decisions.
In fact, that is what “everyday democracy” would look like.
Cultivate hope: The late civil rights leader Vincent Harding once famously asked: “Is America possible?” He wondered whether it was possible to create a multi-racial democracy that works for all people. His answer: “Yes, but only as we make it so.” Harding practiced civic courage in his own life, and then he shared his stories and lessons with many young people. He understood that advancing democracy was a multi-generational journey for the long haul, and that each of us can (and must) contribute.
At Everyday Democracy, we are committed to making America possible, to creating an authentic democracy that works for all. We stand against fear and for hope. We stand against demonizing others and for encouraging the voices and participation of all. We stand against implicit and explicit bias in ourselves and others; we stand for understanding and attending to the ways that structural racism has shaped our relationships with each other and how we govern ourselves.
There is great power in sharing stories of courage and hope and of how you are using these principles and values in your communities and in your work. It is possible for all of us to embrace civic courage by working to create positive change – in ourselves, our relationships, our institutions, and our systems.
Please share your stories and thoughts with us:
Please send your stories, thoughts, and photos to us at naflalo@everyday-democracy.org, and check back for updates from around the country. We stand with you as you take this important work forward. In this challenging time, your commitment and work are vital. Together we will make America possible.
About Everyday Democracy
Everyday Democracy (formerly called the Study Circles Resource Center) is a project of The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a private operating foundation dedicated to strengthening deliberative democracy and improving the quality of public life in the United States. Since our founding in 1989, we’ve worked with hundreds of communities across the United States on issues such as: racial equity, poverty reduction and economic development, education reform, early childhood development and building strong neighborhoods. We work with national, regional and state organizations in order to leverage our resources and to expand the reach and impact of civic engagement processes and tools.
Follow on Twitter: @EvDem
Resource Link: www.everyday-democracy.org/news/practicing-civic-courage-age-civic-anxiety
The Talloires Network Leaders Conference (TNLC) 2017 convenes 21-24 June 2017 at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico.
The conference will explore the theme, “Social Responsibility and Human Dignity in Higher Education Engagement.” Within this overarching theme, the conference will explore three sub-themes:
The Conference Program is available here.
Featured speakers include rectors and chancellors from several countries, a former US ambassador to Mexico, and cultural figures. Register here. Veracruz travel logistics here. Conference materials en Espanol.
Last week, NCDD and Journalism That Matters (JTM) co-hosted a special Confab Call between journalists and public engagement practitioners, and it was an incredible discussion. We had just shy of 70 practitioners, journalists, and others from our network who participated, along with some distinguished guests.
Peggy Holman and Michelle Ferrier of JTM kicked us off with a discussion of some of the amazing potential of more meaningful collaboration between the D&D world and journalism professionals, then we launched into examples of what’s already been happening. Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center and 45-year journalism veteran Doug Oplinger shared stories of how they collaborate to help Ohio journalists rebuild public trust in the press. Betty Knighton shared about how the W. Virginia Center for Civic Life has partnered with public broadcasting groups to help regular people explore the interconnections between hot current issues. We also discussed how journalists can provide a much-needed “community listening infrastructure” for public officials and many other critical topics in our break out group discussions.
If you missed the call, you missed an exciting and thought-provoking conversation. But don’t worry – we recorded it, and you can hear (and see) the whole thing again by checking out the recording below or here. You can also follow along with what was happening in the live chat during the call by downloading the saved conversation here.
We know that we only scratched the surface on this call, and that the conversation about how we can strengthen our field’s connection to the power of the media world will continue to percolate over the coming months and years.
If you want to delve deeper into this topic, we highly encourage you to register to attend JTM’s Elevate Engagement Un-Conference this May 18th-21st in Portland, OR where journalists and public engagement/D&D practitioners will all come together in person to take this collaboration to new heights. We also recommend checking out the recent NCDD podcast on the same topic here, or revisiting the D&D-journalism panel discussion that we hosted during NCDD 2016 here.
Thanks again to Journalism That Matters, all of our featured speakers, and the participants for helping make this a great conversation. We look forward to continuing it in the future and seeing the fruits of where it can lead our work!
In ancient Greek philosophy, the role of citizen was both noble and consuming. You couldn’t be a laborer and a citizen, you couldn’t engage in mundane work and be a citizen. Being a citizen was a full-time endeavor, it involved keeping up on the news, participating in your community, and being informed enough to wisely rule over all those non-citizens who actually made the world work.
Our sensibilities have grown a bit more egalitarian – engaged citizenship is no longer the sole purview of gentlemen of leisure. Anyone can be a citizen, and furthermore – everyone has the right and responsibility to engage as in the work of collective rule.
But while I fully support this inclusive vision of citizenship, it does come saddled with the jaunty air of trying to have it all.
Citizenship is hard. It is a full time job. Especially now with our 24-hour news cycles and better connected world, it is literally impossible to stay perfectly informed on every subject – much less spend time thoughtfully debating and reflecting on them.
In Michael Neblo’s book “Deliberative Democracy between Theory and Practice,” I was struck by a statistic mentioned near the end of his analysis: in one survey, he finds that 42% of respondents felt they “didn’t know enough to participate” in a deliberative session. I’m fairly certain I’ve seem similar statistics around voting and jury participation, though I’m afraid I don’t have the wherewithal to track those down right now.
The current challenge of engaged citizenship isn’t just one of apathetic citizens, too unenthused to exercise their rights – it’s one of under-confidence in one’s own ability to learn, think, and engage critically and productively.
Some of this, I feel, comes from the increasing professionalization within the civic space: why muck up the works when people who really know what they’re doing are involved? But I think some this all comes from this “having it all” notion of citizenship.
Of course, I want engaged citizens to be informed and reflective – but perhaps we need a better bar of what it means to be informed. I watch, listen to, and read the news regularly, and yet I often find myself feeling badly that I am not more informed. Unlike an ideal Athenian, I’ve just got other things to do.
But below that over optimistic bar of ideal citizen and above that disconcerting low of fake news, it’s entirely unclear to me just what the informational habits of a good citizen ought to be in a world that is more crazed than ideal.
I deeply oppose the Trump travel bans on two main grounds: 1) We should strive to admit refugees from the terrible war zones of the world, and 2) a policy that’s rhetorically linked to anti-Muslim motivations threatens the standing of Muslim citizens and residents of the US, as well as the religious equality and tolerance that should be important to all of us.
Nevertheless, I thought the revised travel ban was probably both legal and constitutional. One interpretation of the injunctions against the ban is that certain federal judges have overstepped their bounds because of objections to the policy (and the president) that I share, but that shouldn’t influence them in their judicial roles. I’d advance a different interpretation, however. These judges are relaxing some traditional norms and constraints because the Trump Administration has shed its commitment to norms that have constrained previous presidents. The resulting conflict is dangerous for the constitutional order but preferable to an alternative in which only the executive branch ignores key norms.
I’d have thought that the revised ban would be upheld for several reasons. First, Congress may regulate immigration by statute, but the law it has chosen to enact (8 U.S.C. § 1101) says:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
Second, people who are neither citizens nor residents of the US are typically seen as having no rights under the US Constitution. Third, in a wide range of situations, courts don’t inquire into the motivations of policymakers when they assess legality and constitutionality. Finally, the argument that the revised order is a Muslim ban, and hence detrimental to US Muslims and every citizen’s religious liberties, could founder on the fact that of the ten countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world, only one (Iran) is on the banned list. The banned countries seem rather to be sources of refugees, and the president is not legally obliged to admit refugees, even if human rights and morality demands that.
Yet two federal judges have blocked the order, one with a nationwide injunction, and a Ninth Circuit panel has refused to reconsider its block of the earlier order.
Critics of the injunctions note that they seem to exceed precedents and they seem to rely on critiques of Trump as a person. Josh Blackman writes:
Judge [Leonie] Brinkema has applied a “forever taint” not to the executive order, but to Donald Trump himself. For example, the government defended the selection of the seven nations in the initial executive order because President Obama approved a law that singled out the same seven nations for “special scrutiny” under the visa waiver program. Judge Brinkema rejected this reasoning: “Absent the direct evidence of animus presented by the Commonwealth, singling out these countries for additional scrutiny might not raise Establishment Clause concerns; however, with that direct evidence, a different picture emerges.” That is, if Barack Obama selected these seven countries for extreme vetting, it would be lawful, because he lacks the animus. But because Donald Trump had that animus, it would be unlawful. … It will always a “Muslim ban” because of comments he made on the O’Reilly Factor in 2011, a policy he adopted in 2015, and abandoned after his lawyers told him it was illegal. She admits as much. “A person,” she writes, “is not made brand new simply by taking the oath of office.” Not the policy. The person. Trump.
Blackman thinks the courts are overstepping their bounds. See also David Frum on the “dangerous precedent” these injunctions could set. In his 9th Circuit Dissent, Judge Jay Bybee warns, “We cannot let our personal inclinations get ahead of important, overarching principles about who gets to make decisions in our democracy. For better or worse, every four years we hold a contested presidential election. We have all found ourselves disappointed with the election results in one election cycle or another. But it is the best of American traditions that we also understand and respect the consequences of our elections.”
Indeed, it’s worth worrying about what will happen if our courts start assessing individual presidents when they rule on legality and constitutionality. But this is my take (reminiscent of a piece by Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic):
The Constitution vests the various branches with powers and doesn’t say a lot about how they should be exercised. Like people playing a board game that has simple rules printed on the inside of the box, our officials have developed a long set of norms, some written as precedents and some unstated, to complement the basic rules. The board-game players know that no one will take an hour to decide on her move or start yelling insults during the game. Judges know that presidents will not single them out for abuse, deny the legitimacy of judicial review, blatantly lie and maintain their lies in the face of evidence, or say things–even informally–that undermine the basic principles of our republic, such as religious neutrality. Presidents, for their part, can count on judges to believe their assertions about national security and to read their executive orders charitably.
At least some judges believe that Trump is like a board-game player who is technically following the rules on the back of the box but violating the norms that make the game playable. So they are going to use their express powers under the basic rules to counter him and either force him to play by the norms or reduce his power. Even Judge Bybee (previously known to me only as an author of the “torture memos”), who dissented in the Ninth Circuit judgment, ended his dissent with a rather extraordinary coda:
Even as I dissent from our decision not to vacate the panel’s flawed opinion, I have the greatest respect for my colleagues. The personal attacks on the distinguished district judge and our colleagues were out of all bounds of civic and persuasive discourse—particularly when they came from the parties. It does no credit to the arguments of the parties to impugn the motives or the competence of the members of this court; ad hominem attacks are not a substitute for effective advocacy. Such personal attacks treat the court as though it were merely a political forum in which bargaining, compromise, and even intimidation are acceptable principles. The courts of law must be more than that, or we are not governed by law at all.
The prime danger is that Judge Bybee’s colleagues have judged Trump wrong and been biased by the abuse directed at them. But on balance, I think their response is for the best under these dire circumstances.
The Participatory Budgeting Project team recently launched the exciting PB Network – a learning and collaboration infrastructure for cities and institutions using participatory budgeting – which is hosting periodic “study sessions” online, and the NCDD network is invited! Their next study session will be a webinar focused on citizens juries and deliberative methods of decision-making this Wednesday, March 22. We encourage you to learn more in the PBP announcement below or sign up here.
We’d like to invite you to the PB Network’s next PBP Study Session on Wednesday, March 22nd!
One of the ideas behind participatory budgeting is that we need to get beyond the simple yes/no votes we’re usually presented with at ballot boxes. Choosing between 2 options doesn’t capture the breadth and subtlety of the needs that many communities face. Deliberation and new voting techniques can help get better decisions that benefit broader groups of people.
The study session will feature Kyle Bozentko of the Jefferson Center, who will share some lessons from “citizen juries“, which take a randomly selected and balanced group of citizens to deliberate and make informed and thoughtful recommendations about a public issue. We’ll also learn from Ashish Goel of Stanford’s Crowdsourced Democracy Team, who works on collaborative decision-making, including developing innovative ballot platforms for participatory budgeting in many cities across the US.
Join us for a discussion on new innovations in participatory decision-making with broad sets of stakeholders.
The webinar will be:
Wednesday, March 22nd
1pm EST/10am PST
Click here to register and receive the webinar info