Every civics student can tell you that democracy means “rule by the people”. But who hasn’t doubted whether that leaves any role for us as individuals?
I’ve never understood why anyone gets involved in politics, campaigns, protests, or these discussions you’re talking about. As if I can change anything! I’m just one person. How can I influence anything as large as public policy? It’s just too big. It’s not that I have anything against politics, but I’d rather accept things as they are and concentrate on things I can change, such as what’s going on around me at work, at home, and in my community.
Politics can make us feel small and powerless. In addition, living in a democracy can paradoxically heighten feelings of powerlessness, because political equality (to the extent it exists) means dispersed power. Only monarchs and emperors have a palpable and immediate impact on events. In democracies, citizens have to join forces to have influence.
Civil discussion helps counteract the feelings of paralysis that so many of us experience when we think about the big challenges of our time. Their first contribution is to strip such concerns of their impenetrability. Civil discussion won’t make anyone an expert, but it can achieve something even more important: a working knowledge of what’s at stake regarding a particular concern and a solid understanding of various ways it might be addressed. Second, by exploring various responses to the concern under discussion, civil discussion can suggest alternative paths by which citizens can join together to a affect the course of public policy. Civil discussion thus transforms the overwhelming into something that can be dealt with—first in thought and then in action.
*Adapted from Adolf G. Gundersen and Suzanne Goodney Lea, Let’s Talk Politics: Restoring Civility Through Exploratory Discussion, Chapter 3.
