Subject: Fixing our broken democratic system
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 04:02:30 -0500 (EST)
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 04:02:30 -0500 (EST) From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net> To: tp roundtable - messages <roundtable@cni.org> Subject: Fixing our broken democratic system Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980402040046.6942E-100000@access5.digex.net>
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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol VI, Issue No. 2 (136 lines) March 31, 1998
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Fixing our broken democratic system
By Vigdor Schreibman
Among the most important issues affecting the lives of the American
people at this time, is the need for a civic infrastructure to
reinvigorate democracy and obtain a fair balance between the
public, private, and civic sectors of society. These needs are
beginning to gain some public consideration, for instance:
* the US President's Council on Sustainable Development has
stressed the interdependency between the pursuit of economic
prosperity, social equity and ecological integrity as mutually
reinforcing goals (Feb 1996);
* the US Congress has rejected "fast track" legislation in the
absence of protection for workers, the environment and various
other paramount public goods (Nov 1997);
* the negotiations for approval of the Multinational Agreement
on Investments (MAI), collapsed when confronted by wide spread
condemnation by NGOs, for failure of balance (Mar 1998).
Nevertheless, in the coming US presidential election, for the
beginning of the new century, it may be anticipated that such
issues will be inadequately articulated by the mass media, to best
protect the interests of the major investors who own the media.
Instead, the election campaign following tradition will be based on
"crowd politics," to best manipulate the emotions of the citizens
around marginal issues. There will be little chance for
development of informed voter unity on any of the controversial
issues of importance to the nation. The outcome of the coming
presidential election, consequently, will likely be driven either
by the tyranny of the minority (investor politics), or by the
tyranny of the majority (mob rule).
We find ourselves in this situation because our political system
has been modeled upon the archaic sixteenth century individualistic
movement, largely centered on the individual as an independent
unit. This model disregards the social process, which gives life
to the individual. Mary Parker Follett, the early 20th-century
management scientist and philosopher of democracy, described the
interdependent relationship between the individual and society:
We cannot put the individual on one side and society on the
other, we must understand the complete interrelation of the
two. Each has no value, no existence without the other. The
individual is created by the social process and is daily
nourished by that process. There is no such thing as a self-
made man. What we think we possess as individuals is what is
stored up from society, is the subsoil of social life. We
soak up and soak up and soak up our environment all the time.
"The New State" (1918): ch. VII, "The Individual"; now available
online [Fins-MPF-01]. Follett's conclusions with regard to the
interdependence between the individual and society, are fully
consistent with the cognitive, social, and ecological realities
described during recent periods by a host of scholars, which I have
recounted elsewhere [Fins-TKO-01].
Because of this disregard for reality, there was no sound public
support for the vital civic role of the individual in our
democracy. Trapped between corrupt government and corrupt big
business there was, therefore, no adequate way to fix the
responsibility of either government or business. "A condition
of chaos was the result," Follett related in "The New State" (ch.
XX, "The Growth of Democracy in America") [Fins-MPF-01].
The post-modern transformation of the nation's systems of
transportation and communications have enlarged the oligopoly
powers of big business, while Federal monetary policies have
instituted a nasty restraint on the rights of workers to bargain
for fair wages. Globalization has deepened this trend. These
conditions have greatly exacerbated the historical disregard for
the role of citizens in democracy, and the corresponding corruption
and lack of responsibility of government and big business.
The problem of majority voting in our ill-structured and ill-
informed political process has drawn the criticism of Dr. John N.
Warfield, director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the
Integrative Sciences, at George Mason University. In an online
interview with this writer, Mar 26, 1998, Warfield observed:
Majority vote on large issues is irrelevant, because the large
issues are not adequately understood or articulated; at least
not the way we run elections now.
As one interim step for the time being, the ballot for
president now ought to include the possibility of voting "NO"
as a way of saying that none of the candidates meets the
minimum standards of acceptance. A large count of NO
votes would be meaningful to almost any political party as a
message saying "shape up or ship out".
The democratic system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.
Engagement by Americans in the political process by way of "crowd
politics," without a sound civic infrastructure, has historically
led to continuing cycles of crisis. This advocacy strategy, which
promotes civic organization in forms that are manipulative and
superficial, is now leading toward a catastrophe.
In the long term what Americans, and others striving for
democracy must have, is a "technique for democracy" much as
anticipated by Follett: a method to attain "a genuine union of true
individuals" [Fins-TD-01]. During the last quarter of this
century a method possessing many of the characteristics sought
by Follett's "technique for democracy," has been produced by
scientific research and development. Now in use at various
locations around the world mainly in support of group dialogue by
government and private industry, and other large institutions, this
method is called "Interactive Management" (IM) (a.k.a. "People
Science") [Fins-PS-01, et seq.].
A "technique for democracy" should, in time, become widely
available to citizens at popular cost, through distance learning.
When this occurs, the large issues facing society, Professor
Warfield suggests, "ultimately become transparent through
aggregation of thousands or tens of thousands of linked little
issues; and by that time the society knows enough to know how to
move ahead without a vote."
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LEARN A TECHNIQUE FOR DEMOCRACY & MAP THE THOUGHT PATTERNS OF CIVIC SOCIETY!
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Federal Information News Syndicate, Vigdor Schreibman, Editor & Publisher,
18 - 9th Street NE #206, Washington, DC 20002-6042. Copyright 1998 FINS.
Internet: fins@access.digex.net. Coming soon from FINS, via distance
learning, a popular course in a "technique for democracy." Browse the new
Fins Information Age Library now located at URL http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/.
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