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Dialogue--Democracy

We have this great program every Wednesday at the library.  Its the "dialogue series" put on by the Philosophy Department of TSU.    Its a regular class at the University, held every weekday on the campus, but once a week they meet at the Library in an effort to engage the local community.

Those in attendance were mostly students from the college; of the thirty or so attendees, perhaps 7 of us were mere citizens, albeit older citizens.  The younger people always hold back until they size up the older people in the group--today was no exception.

Last week the subject was:  Democracy-Are We Ready for It?

The two pages on the link are a good place to start, so please read this as it sets a good stage for the comments which are to follow.

Democracy Handout

The group wrestled with a number of aspects of democracy, but most came down to the government not really representing people---well, at least "not me"---was a common theme.

That degenerated into back and forth arguments that one must vote or "don't complain".  Voting morphed into arguments about whether all citizens had sufficient knowledge and wisdom to handle all the issues of this modern democracy. Most agreed that it was difficult, but no one dared get into the subject of having to demonstrate that you are competent to vote---that would make the voter ID controversy seem like small change.

Well, there were no winners and losers in this 90 minute class, as it was not a debate, but a dialogue.  You will note that one of the pillars of democracy is that we have healthy dialogue on important issues.

But on more than one occasion, it was demonstrated that dialogue is not achieved in a democracy if one person lectures to another about some issue.  Accusation of one position should not be disguised as dialogue.  Implications are here that politicians can inform, but should not lecture.  As part of the process of informing, the politician should foster dialogue with constituents.

I wish that I had taken better notes.

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