Tag Archives: democracy

Facilitating Many Political Paths

dem vs gopIt seems we Americans are caught up in and even obsessed with dualities. Good and evil, god or no god, democracy or tyranny, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, men are from Mars and women from Venus. It all makes for a compelling competitive narrative and a great show when our team, however that’s defined by a group of us, goes up against the opposition, particularly when our team wins. I even tend to think in the duality of patriarchy versus partnership, and frame my own narrative of the latter (the circle of equals) triumphing over the former (hierarchies of domination and control).

But more and more these days I’m thinking this is an overly simplistic and unsophisticated approach to the world, that maybe sells tickets to some sort of framed contest between two opposing sides, but does not serve the cause of coming to some sort of compromise consensus on a pragmatic path forward for our society. What is needed I think is a different metaphor for constructive conflict that allows for an array of constituencies to form ever-changing relationships with each other.

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Thoughts on Participatory Democracy

In my opinion, there is no more thoughtful and well-written person out there contributing to the discussion about the continuing development of American society than my friend and activist for education alternatives, Ron Miller. His recent piece, “Toward Participatory Democracy”, published in Education Revolution, eloquently elaborates on an activist thread in American history that motivates my own cheerleading for a more egalitarian world.

Ron has done his research and connected a lot of dots in American history from Colonial times through the Industrial Age, 20th century “progressivism”, radicalism of the 1960s, and the political-corporatism of our current situation. Looking at the big picture, Ron writes…

There has always been a struggle in American history between democracy and elitism, and despite the cherished memory of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln, this nation has never fully trusted “the people” to govern themselves. Sometimes this mistrust reflects sophisticated political reasoning, in the tradition of Plato and the British conservative Edmund Burke, asserting that governance is a complex and delicate art best practiced by those who are specially educated or fit for it, or by those who claim to have a greater stake in the outcome.

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Seeking the Essence of Unitarian-Universalism

nullIn her blog piece “Love is More Important than Freedom”, Unitarian-Universalist minister Victoria Weinstein writes…

It has come time for Unitarian Universalists to admit that we have honored free thought over love as an institutional commitment, and to consider the possibility that our obsession with personal freedom of belief has caused our organizations spiritual harm. We have developed a congregational culture that honors intellectual dominance over love and tenderness. We are brilliantly conversant when voicing opinion, but do not know how to engage each other as vulnerable persons in need of hope, grace and healing, leaving it to the self-identified victims in our congregations to motivate and then control most discussion of what it means to love, to welcome and to accept.

There are probably less than 700,000 “UUs” in the United States today (I among them), and not much more than a million in the entire world, and the denomination has soul-searched over the last several decades to find the missing keys to significant growth. The denomination has particularly struggled to gain adherents beyond its white Anglo-Saxon Protestant roots into communities of color. UUism is often criticized as a religion of the head rather than the heart, and thus of limited appeal to most people.

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Young People – The World’s Last Chattel?

This latest round of high-profile revelations of at times systemic cover-ups of the sexual abuse of young people at Penn State and elsewhere has been topping the news lately. There seem to be ongoing issues with this within the Catholic denomination but that is no longer news. Still in much of the world young people are coerced into military service, marriage or as sex workers under the threat of violence and often death. They are essentially “chattel”, human assets that are either owned and controlled by adult family members by accident of birth, or by “legitimate” or illegitimate sale to or seizure by others.

From my reading of history, at least since the beginnings of formal hierarchical organization of society perhaps 5000 years ago, the most prominent civilizations have featured an elite group of male people wielding power and authority (what I and others call “patriarchy”). The overwhelming majority of people – whether slaves, peasants, women or children – were essentially voiceless, owned and/or controlled by this elite group of men. With the ethical innovations of the “Axial Age” (~800 to 200 BCE) the legitimacy of slavery (particularly of adult males) began to be challenged, though it was still practiced in parts of Europe and the United States well into the 19th century CE. And in many parts of the world even today women continue to be virtual slaves to their fathers or husbands.

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Schooled to Accept Economic Inequality

Up front I would like to say that I usually don’t write pieces like this, pieces that are perhaps overly simplistic and provocative and lacking a more balanced and nuanced view of things. But in the best spirit of provocation to encourage the dialog… here goes!

I keep seeing statistics and voices calling out that the economic disparities between rich and poor in this country continue to widen. It makes me wonder… in a democratic society where (at least politically) “majority rules”, how come the most wealthy among us, “the one percenters” as they have recently been coined, seem to continue to call the shots on a government financial policy? Why doesn’t at least a majority of the “ninety-nine percenters” come to an agreement and vote for a more equitable path forward?

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Fully Embracing Democracy

The last five hundred years of Western history have been all about championing the worth, dignity, rights and responsibilities of individual human beings in the context of increasingly egalitarian institutions. Not that it hasn’t been three steps forward and two steps back at times. I just hope that as we settle into this new century, this third millennium of the “common era”, that we try to take a breath, relax, find our balance and our internal compass, and continue to “move the needle” in our egalitarian embrace of “all of us” rather than the millennia of hierarchical “us and them” thinking that we are coming out of.

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