Democracy as Dialog

As a system of values, I think it is reasonable to suggest that democracies can be measured by the degree to which they represent the will of the governed. They must also be able to respond to events in the world in a manner that is timely enough to protect the body politic, but that is an issue I'll discuss some other time.

The minimum standard for a functioning democracy has to include a fair means of deciding who gets to vote. In the US, we have adopted the stance that after the age of majority suffrage should be universal, with some exception for those who by virtue of criminal acts have been deemed to have separated themselves from the body politic. Another minimum standard is protection of the minority. If the losers of an election are executed afterward, it is not democratic.

It is my sense however, that these minimum standards are not the essence of democracy. In my view, the essence of democracy lies in the ability to harness diversity of thought to provide better, clearer, and more innovative decision making than individuals on their own can. This is the source of "American inventiveness." It does not lie in some genetic extra we have in the US that others don't. It does not lie in western European ancestry. It lies in creating a forum where ideas can be put forward to contest with one another, to sort them out according to correctness and suitability to circumstance, and often to imagine unique and creative opportunities that (at least initially) only a few see in those juxtapositions.

If there is truth in my assertion, then how we protect freedom of the press, free speech, and the freedom of peaceful assembly matter critically to or democracy. But they are minimums. If we truly want to have the advantages of a free commerce of ideas, we must pay the price for that commerce. We need to listen to one another. We need hear what our fellow citizens have to say and then we need to let let them know we have heard them. We need to include the powerful and the dis-empowered. We need to create spaces where conversation can happen, and we need to nurture that conversation.

That national dialog is the heart of our democracy. Voting rights and first amendment protections, as important as they are, are only the mechanisms by which we protect that conversation which is our democracy.