From Travis
Title: Democracy and Freedom of Information
Most of the following thoughts came from: Walton 2007… not sure where I stumbled across it.
“Democracy represents the ideal of a government legitimated by the will of the people.” (Walton, 2007)
Central to Sen’s understanding of freedom is the participation in a democratic environment. This democracy is to include more or less the rational discourse of citizens, groups of citizens, and the government that is representing them. In this article Walton discusses discourse in democracy and I think that the article touches on many things that Sen would agree with.
Walton pulls on Dahl (no idea who that is) regarding public spheres when describing how public opinion is formed – “The public sphere gathers information and processes it through various institutional, cognitive, and technically mediated filters to produce a set of preferences for a certain type of society.” He goes on to say that this public sphere is not a physical location, but rather made up of any and all locations, physical or virtual, where ideas and feelings can be exchanged openly. The diversity of individuals involved in discourse enables a public conception of the common good as amorphous (shapeless – ya, I looked it up) and changing. Walton even goes on to say that the internet has enabled more people to have a voice in public affairs through blogging, which has shaped discourse in new and innovative ways. He concludes blogging thoughts with: a pitfall of blogging is the participation of so many voices which creates a cacophony where it is difficult to sort ‘truth’ (let us say evidence) from opinion. In addition, to participate in the public sphere responsibly individuals are required to stay, at least to some degree, aware of the current affairs, social issues, and government policies that are being discussed.
This led me to consider how the disenfranchised could participate in such a process. Now, mind you, I am still not able to see how CA allows me to see individuals and groups of people without a voice (who NEED? A voice) without seeing that situation from a deficit model [i.e., they do not have a voice and are in need of a voice]. But lets play along that I have a CA understanding of bringing a ‘voice’ to people.
First, those who are without a voice are possibly not even aware that they are able to have one. How is that bridge crossed in a nonhierarchical manner? That appfrica article we read ended by saying that many farmers in Africa DID NOT make use of the application that had been offered them in order to determine a fair price for their wares – why did they not act on this information? Did they reject the very notion that they may have been receiving unfair prices unbeknownst to them? How can they be persuaded of its importance? Regarding voting, or even gathering to share ideas, how can individuals who have never done this been persuaded of its importance? Mitch was a lone voice (well, plus one, Daria) during our “share what you think needs changed in the department meeting” we had with Julie. Graduate students were given a choice to dialogue with one another about changes they might want – and we didn’t. Only one person even bothered to speak up lone-wolf style, only to be shot down. In our case we were made aware that we had a voice, and we chose not to exercise it. That was a group of individuals who are USED to having a voice. Why would be expect a different response from groups/individuals who may never have felt like they had a voice in the first place?
Second, …ok so I am tired. I also don’t know where this post Is supposed to be heading, but hey, I’m participating. … I was thinking along the lines of giving freedom to those will find it to be a new experience – a process needs to be designed where those without a voice are 1)given a voice, and 2) taught how to express that voice in a constructive manner. Seeing dialogue as a means of education and social action could significantly impact the way such a process is constructed. Thoughts?
Ronald Dahl is a very famous writer on democracy and what democracy means. To me he is a little too pedestrian and obvious, but he has some good points.
ReplyDeleteI want to answer Travis' query by talking about democracy and voice and its relationship to the deficit model. The thing to remember is that things are not always as they seem at the immediate moment, and if we are to believe Adam Smith, whenever people act they are acting in what they believe is their self-interest. So the question would be why would being without a voice acting in your self-interest?
The deficit model would answer because you haven't done the things that you need to do in order to have a voice, or that you are somehow too lazy or indolent to have a voice, or - I believe the most insidious of all is that you are happy the way that you are and have no reason to use your voice in this situation. Everything is fine in your life (think of Friere). But most theories of democracy, including Dahl's, is that your voice is the major tool in democracy, and you are always looking to act in your self-interest, so in a democratic public sphere situation you would naturally use your voice in some way. If nobody is using their voice - even to say we want things to continue exactly as they are - then something is very, very wrong in the situation. Now is there something wrong with the people not using their voice (the deficit model) or is there some form of oppression going on.
In the United States we tend not to use the long of oppression. Oppression is something that occurs someplace else to other people (deficit model). Consequently, for us to admit to ourselves that we are somehow oppressed in any situation is close to impossible - we do not have the capability for it in most many situations - especially those from white middle class backgrounds. No, we are great! At least this is what we must project to the world around us. We have the capability of voice, our moms and dads told us so.
Of course you are asking what could cause us to lose the capability of voice. Of course you have to go back to Sen's list (but now we will be studying Nussbaum's as well) - the fear of the loss of Basic Resources (e.g. losing a job - one of the reasons unions increase capability for voice) or more dangerous perhaps the capability to show ourselves in public.
This leads to what I believe are two very unfortunate situations, one personal and one societal. The person one is manipulation. A person or institution can claim to give you voice but maintain some hold on your basic capabilities and you know that hold is there. You become fearful of using your voice for fear of losing other, more basic capabilities. And yet both you and the person giving you the voice maintain the charade that you have been given a voice and CHOSEN not to use it (again, there is not such thing as not choosing your voice in a democratic situation). Often times, again especially depending on class and history, it is impossible to deal with what Bateson called this "double bind" so in order to resolve it you actually interenalize the desires of the oppressor as you own voice (Friere's internalization or the Stockholm syndrome).
The societal difficulty is by not admitting that we can have our voice taken away from us by threatening our own capabilities we lose what Adam Smith called our social mirror and it makes it more difficult to achieve empathy with those who do not have the capability of voice on a grander scale.
Adding to the explanation of Robert Dahl's work - he has been around for a really long time and I am certain you all read his theories when you took introductory American Government. His work in political science focused on (he is over 90 year old) interest groups and their impact on representatative government. In the 1960's he was the one who came up with the concept of "pluralism" which he abandoned later for a theory involving "polyarchies". But since he focuses on representative government, there is no revolutionary thought present.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff regarding Adam Smith the moralist - I was unaware of this side of his writings. Another consideration concerning Smith (although economic in nature) is that he was arguing against mercantilism. By arguing for laissez faire economics and rejecting mercantilism, he was beginning the connection between the rising middle class and the emergence of representative democracy. This is an important historical development for the deficit model for which CA is an alternative.
The suggestion appears to be that losing the personal leads to losing the societal. Basic resource loss (i.e. losing your job) involves the loss of one's conforming identity. And that leads to the belief that something is wrong with you. For example, neoliberals firmly believe that unemployment insurance encourages people to remain out of work longer and they can show you the statistics to 'prove' this point. This belief leads to several questions: what about the human cost of unemployment, is underemployment desirable, and so forth. And here we are talking about the middle class. This attitude towards unemployment leads to the "double bind" for the unemployed individual.
But of course it is not as simple as this and the Az immigration law might be an illustration. Hispanics who are U.S. citizens appear to be supporting demonstrations against the law. If the "double bind" were fully present, one might expect the social mirror to break down.
This is the last week of classes and I have a ton of grading and evaluations - gotta get back to work.
"In our case we were made aware that we had a voice, and we chose not to exercise it. That was a group of individuals who are USED to having a voice. Why would we expect a different response from groups/individuals who may never have felt like they had a voice in the first place?"
ReplyDeleteWe would not expect individuals who never felt they had a voice to speak up. This is the source of my frustration with CA. The approach offers great hope but implementation seems idealistic. Not only do individuals need to feel safe expressing their needs and concerns, but they need to believe their voice will be heard. This is why a room full of 40 graduate students had nothing to say when prompted. Of further concern, if an individual feels safe expressing their voice in certain context but lacks the capability to express their voice in society they may not express their voice at all. I can be an advocate of CA and listen to those in need but if the government/department/anything with power operates in a defecit model then change will never happen. It seems that everyone needs to be on board for this approach to work.
The poiint of democracy is that if you have a voice you use a voice - at least according to people like Dahl. Nobody chooses not to use their voice in a situaiton where there is the possibility of progressive change unless they themselves choose for some important reason - meaning there has to be some type of rationale (protest, religious) not to use their voice. I think this gets really to the crux of CA and we are having a hard time getting over this hump and I'll explain why I think that is in a bit. But nobody chooses a situation where they won't flourish. Everybody given the choice will choose to follow activity in which they do flourish. The idea that you don't say anything because you're shy, or because you're not good in public speaking, or something like that, this is all part of a deficit model. The issue of free will is important here, but from an Aristotelian point of view, if you had free will you would move towards greater flourishing. If the woman who had ten children really had a choice she would not have ten children (or she might, but it would be under really different circumstances). If the man living on the street really had a choice he would not choose living on the street. This is really critical to engaging CA - but we have this myth of individual choice and responsibility which we really can't get over. There is a famous quote from Aristotle - a good life means making good decisions. I had always interpreted from our United States, individual free will viewpoint. But now I wonder if I was wrong. Was he saying the ability to make good decisions.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to add something else here which is I don't think people is the United States are USED to having a voice, especially in the younger generation. I think there is often not the capability for voice. I have been talking with my fourteen year old daughter a great deal about her experiences in middle school, and it feels like to her - and to me - that so much of what she does, the societal training is about actually taking voice away. Then she asks me whether she should say something when she thinks something is not right. Do you know what I tell her? That she shouldn't say anything, that she will get in trouble, that she will face consequences. I, as her father, take away her capability for voice because I want her to remain safe.
ReplyDeleteBut then do middle class people recognize they don't have a voice. I have been thinking about this the last couple of days. The myth of Free Will and personal agency runs very deep in our society - it is one of the reasons Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity causes so much concern. But like my daughter people also know they don't have a voice. This creates what Gregory Bateson referred to as the "double bind" which is a really important concept I think. On the one hand I know my daughter doesn't have a voice, on the other hand I want to say that we have free will and make a choice about our voice. We cannot live with this type of contradiction so we have to resolve it in some way - Bateson would say it is a reaction that leads to a type of schizophrenia - or a type of psychosis. Who knows.
I have often wondered why the worst authoritarian regimes - the ones where everybody buys in and nobody fights back (e.g. Nazi Germany) occur in middle class countries (e.g Germany) - and why those countries then seem to go insane. Perhaps Bateson has pointed us in a direction of understanding.
Travis your post must have created quite the stir! Now the part about the personal sphere....I have to agree I stopped at one point before reading on and thought about it and didn't agree with what was said. Now in a way I didn't understand the message either. Amazingly enough though I read further and low and behold I got it. So there a couple of things for which you made good points.
ReplyDeleteOne, it is important and being part of this personal sphere does require you to stay up to date on issues and topics. It's really hard sometimes to understand what is going on in this class and these posts if you fail to read some of the blogs or the text being discussed, because there is little basis for argument or agreement. Now everyone can input what they want, but in order to share knowledge and discuss key components or issues you have to contribute and have some understanding of what is being said or the contribution is somewhat irrelevent for the discussion.
Two, blogs are a way where everyone's voice can be heard. Think about some of the classes you have taken where people don't talk and don't participate. It's not because they don't care or don't have anything to say. It could be they are just uncomfortable or perhaps they don't understand the influence and the potential that their response could have.
Third, it's interesting to view blogs as a cacaphony. I would agree that this is the type of image that blogs have potential for....but think about it like this. Currently, the publication process as it stands is discouraging to many. Journals control the accessibility to certain types of information and who and what can be published. So what many might perceive it as is a flawed system. So if blogs can be difficult because you can't sort out what's true and relevant from that which is not, then why do so many people put their trust that what is published is true and valid? We make certain assumptions based upon credibility. However, is it not possible that blogs would generate new ideas and explorations and that additionally it could be responsible for changing views and entertaining a variety of new perspectives and ideas? Rather than just being in a zone of comfortability with what we know and working from a base where certain types of things are controlled not by a democracy of individuals that represent a variety of perspectives, but instead a group of people representing all representing a similar perspective or idea?
Research as it is currently will not grow. The approach for not only conveying but receiving certain types of information is limited and controlled. This is not the ideals of a democracy. I think people are going to be intimidated by blogs for a bit, but the fact that views can be heard and ideas unlimited is going to one day contribute to success and new ways for transforming and transferring information.
Here's a question of mine though? What makes blogs successful?
Maggie - enjoyed what you had to say. Though this is my first experience with blogs I have found this to be a useful - if stretching - exercise. We are able to generate thought throughout the week and immediately post it to a community that is free to add it to their current thoughts, dismiss it ; ), and/or comment by expanding, critiquing, and utilizing the comments from previous posts in their response to what you have posted.
ReplyDeleteI think that among those with a)internet access and b)basic reading/writing skills the blog could possibly be implemented in not just research processes but classrooms as well.
How do those without a & b increase their capabilities so that they could participate in something like this? We provide public access at libraries and most schools, however, it could be quite a hassle for some to get to those locations, whereas I just sat on my couch with some cheesy dip and nachos before I started typing away...
Travis, in the blogs to freedom paper I argue about the importance not just of internet access but of broadb and access. That once you have quick access to information people will not only use it, but become expert in using it. I have a paper in press suggesting that the internet acts much like the human mind so we are able to pick up its intricacies incredibly quickly. Here there ever, ever been something like the internet where individuals of all ages and all types simply plug in a modem and become masters over it. The technology is moving so fast that it is just mind boggling.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, when I presented the paper I said perhaps the greatest chance for freedom and capabilities was brining broadband access to poor people, that this would create an information revolution for them and the more they used it the more they would trust it. Of course this engendered an extraordinary amount of push back, with people saying you must have a good water supply and housing before broad band access. But which is the most important capability? Meaning you can get fresh water, food and housing from good information, but you can't get good informaiton even from water, food and housing. You are always in danger of losing what you have.
The United States is far behind most other industtrialized countries in broad band technology and in the cost and ease of accessing it. Shouldn't every neightborhood have an internet cafe. Going back to our Bronfenbrenner class think what that would do for the quality of the neighborhood, a well lit, twenty four hour internet cafe where you can get coffee and discussion the world.