(00:00:00) Benjamin Barber will speak to us on the topic Politics as a spectator sport is voting enough in our democracy. I think it's fair to say that no election in recent times has offered more to The Spectator. One can wonder what it's offering for democracy? Mr. Barber will touch upon what he considers to be effective ways for Citizens and democracies to have a voice in issues and events that affect their lives. An author scholar and outspoken advocate of effective citizen participation Benjamin Barber is the Walt Whitman chair of political science and director of the Walt Whitman Center for for the culture and politics of democracy at Rutgers University. He is the author of eight books including his controversial strong democracy the artist and political vision and most recently the conquest of politics liberal philosophy in Democratic times. (00:01:02) He edited the international quarterly political theory for a decade (00:01:06) was a Guggenheim fellow rights essays articles and reviews for various journals and magazines including Harper's the Atlantic and the new Republic and he has also written for the stage. Following his presentation as is our custom questions will be addressed from the audience. You'll find on the tables on your tables cards on which you can note your questions Steve Young an attorney with the firm of Winthrop and Weinstein and the former dean of the Hamline law school along with Jane Moore essec will be with us during The Question period to field your questions and give you the opportunity to ask them directly to our speaker. It is now my very great pleasure to present. Today's speaker Benjamin Barber. (00:01:58) Thank you. Mr. Hutchison. Thank you. Jane Marisa for your kind invitation. I'm delighted to be in Minnesota. I had come prepared with some Jabs about the Minnesota Twins, but after what Tommy Lasorda did to the New York Mets, I don't think I'll say anything about that today. I do want to talk about democracy. I congratulate you on getting Marilyn Quayle next week. I think you have the better of the two quails coming to speak to you. But in fact, I want to talk about what the quails in the bushes and the do caucuses and the Benson's represent in our democracy. And whether in this election season what we are looking at has very much to do with democracy. I want to talk about what it means to be a citizen in this we say greatest democracy in the world in what Lincoln called the last best. Hope for humankind. (00:03:03) Let's (00:03:03) talk then not about the candidates, but about us (00:03:07) about citizens since democracy is supposed to be not simply about nominees for office for people elected to office, but about a citizenry. (00:03:15) What is it that we (00:03:16) do as Citizens? What is our relationship to this campaign? (00:03:23) Well what we see (00:03:24) mainly to do though, not very well is vote. And in fact, social scientists journalists commentators and our politicians don't talk very much about citizens. You won't find that word used frequently the word that uses voters they talk about us as the voters the consumers of what they have to sell us. (00:03:47) Well, we as Citizens do vote though. We don't vote very (00:03:50) often. We don't vote very much and not very many of us vote. The statistics have changed radically in the last 150 years in the early part of the 19th century when Alexis de tocqueville came to the United States when it was still a young Republican the Jacksonian age something like 75 to 80 percent of the electorate voted regularly and both national state and local elections. Back in 1960. (00:04:19) Mr. Kennedy and mr. (00:04:21) Nixon fought their first television debates. Together we had a voting turnout of almost 65% in the presidential election, 1972 15 16 years ago McGovern Nixon. It was down to 55 56 percent in 1984 the most recent election. It was 53 percent of the eligible electorate and pundits are currently predicting that it may dip down almost to 50% one of two in this election. That's presidential elections in primary elections. The figures are far worse in state and local elections there far worse primary election turnout figures are often as little as fifteen fifteen percent of the eligible electorate and if you break these figures down by age or by wealth, they look much more devastating. (00:05:19) The wealthiest (00:05:20) 20% of Americans continue to vote at a fairly High rate 75% although that still means one in (00:05:29) four. Americans who have a decent (00:05:34) income failed to use their vote of (00:05:36) those (00:05:37) poorest 20% of Americans 61 percent do not (00:05:42) vote. (00:05:44) I understand. Mr. Buckley when he was here a while ago thought that was a pretty good thing on the whole. I don't think anybody who cares about democracy can think that that is a good thing. If you look (00:05:58) by age at the (00:05:59) electorate the statistics are even more frightening. Between the age of 18 and 24 currently only 16 or 17 percent of that group is voting. And voting of course is only the least of what's the citizens are supposed to do in a democracy. What we expect voting to do is to keep our politicians accountable keep them honest make sure there is a turnover at least what the cynical social scientist of the turn-of-the-century used to call a circulation of Elites in a democracy. (00:06:40) But in (00:06:40) fact because of the power of (00:06:43) money and the power of incumbency in our system nowadays, there is very little (00:06:49) turnover in public office in the House of Representatives 90 to 95 percent of incumbents are re-elected half of them by more than 55 percent of the vote. (00:07:03) Of 432 races this year. (00:07:08) All but 24 will be incumbents running again. The average in the last 10 years has been about 40 non incumbents 40 or so open elections. Of the ones running 70 are entirely unopposed and at least 300 could expect little (00:07:26) in the way of a battle so that even those citizens who do vote can (00:07:33) wonder what difference in most elections their vote will mean pollsters have come to usurp the Privileges of citizens as it is now a lot of people a lot of pollsters are (00:07:48) already telling us the presidential race is over (00:07:52) and the impact that will have on voting turnout. Is I think (00:07:57) alarming. Well, we want to say but (00:08:03) citizenship is not just about (00:08:05) voting is it it's about more than that citizens do other things we as Citizens do other things don't we? Well, yes among other things as Citizens we watch television. In fact, the key Civic activity (00:08:20) in our nation seems to be watching (00:08:24) television because politics has become more and more in the last 30 or 40 years a spectator sport not so different than the (00:08:32) World Series the football playoffs the Olympics the same hoopla the same concern with ratings (00:08:41) our politicians and our politics and our political events are (00:08:45) increasingly measured by their Nielsen ratings rather than their service to democracy. (00:08:52) roone Arledge, (00:08:54) the news director of ABC (00:08:57) said after the Democratic Convention if these things stay as boring as they are we may have to cut (00:09:03) back even to less than two hours next time around we may not televised these things anyway more (00:09:11) That with (00:09:13) what is fancifully called public (00:09:15) Airwaves (00:09:17) those Airwaves belong to the public the government representing us licenses (00:09:21) them and those to whom they are (00:09:23) license then have the hubris to suggest that they may not be made available for the most significant Civic events in our public life so that we may not even be permitted to play the distant role of spectator to Convention politics saying with the debates candidates, the incumbents never liked debates it seen by them as a disadvantage. Mr. Bush said very very clearly no more debates and there's never been an incumbent who wanted a debate. We've only had a few they've been run as joint news conference has without any real interchange among the candidates know hard questions between them no chance for them to think on their feet to talk freely. And increasingly a spectator sport politics dominated as a consequence of the (00:10:18) role that the media play in American spectatorship. by image (00:10:24) rather than by substance. I needn't tell you every editorial commentator has been talking about over and over again in the past few months the so-called Spin Doctors the handlers. Terms that are foreign to democratic politics, but fit very well into an age of image politics and age of spectator politics where Reagan was only the first actor to be elected to national office, but surely will not be the last since nowadays politicians who want to be elected to office have to become (00:11:02) actors. (00:11:03) Plato said a long time ago unless philosophers become Kings or Kings become philosophers. There can be no wise government nowadays unless actors become politicians are politicians become actors. They don't get (00:11:15) elected to office. (00:11:19) And as politics becomes a spectator sport increasingly like other spectator sports, it becomes a creature of Market forces of financial forces. What counts in politics increasingly is (00:11:34) money democracy is supposed to be about talk, but in our democracy, it's money that does most of the talking. It is the financially articulate who increasingly find themselves in a position to buy the television time necessary to be elected to office (00:11:53) as (00:11:54) yeast shall spend so ye shall (00:11:57) serve. (00:11:59) Do a correlation of the primary results in various States, you'll find an excellent correlation between dollars spent and the success of the candidates. It's not a perfect correlation by any means but it's a strong statistically significant correlation. Increasingly millionaires run for and are elected to office in my state of New Jersey Frank Lautenberg came into a primary with zero political experience, but a great deal of money bought the primary nomination away from two or three, excellent candidates with long political experience and is now the senator from, New Jersey. (00:12:39) Well, what else could (00:12:40) happen with campaigns that now cost for the House of Representatives a half million to a million dollars Senate campaigns run five to (00:12:48) ten million dollars somebody who hasn't got six or seven million in his pocket can't really think about running a (00:12:53) successful Senate campaign in a large State (00:12:56) State Assembly campaigns can now cost twenty-five fifty thousand a hundred thousand dollars particularly if you're a challenger and not an (00:13:04) incumbent with the advantages of out of the office. (00:13:08) Spending (00:13:09) limits instituted back in the 1970s simply lead to new abuses particularly the development of political action committees. And the money that they feed to particularly incumbents increasing still further the advantage that incumbents have so that nowadays. The only players left on the field of spectator sport politics are the candidates who are relatively unimportant their handlers who are considerably more important and those with the funds either the organized special interest groups in their packs to back them or the individuals who are in a position to spend and funnel money on their behalf. (00:13:55) In campaigns of this kind issues (00:13:58) vanish substance disappears and we see a kind of politics of cowardice a politics rooted in negatives. They also we're saving our positives for the last month. But all we get is the negatives over and over again. A politics of polling (00:14:17) polls are interesting things a lot of people talk about the importance of poles. As far as I can make out. What political campaigns do today is first go out and create impulsive irrational opinions and private Prejudice and then conduct polls to measure the prejudices. They've created only then to complain about the irrationality and (00:14:40) shallowness of the public and the fact that they have to run a campaign based on negatives because that's what as their polls show the public responds to. So that the real issues debt (00:14:56) taxes and I prophesize here today for you. Whoever (00:15:00) is elected will raise taxes in the next four years. It is inevitable. But no candidate will speak about it. Honestly, no candidate will act as an educator to the public the environment they mutter about the environment, but they don't talk about the catastrophic character of the precipice on which we stand and which within just a few years we will increasingly see the consequences of because the politics of polling the politics of spectator sport don't lend themselves to that kind of leadership to that kind of education to that kind of honesty. (00:15:38) And all of this, where are we (00:15:40) the citizens? Passive apathetic manipulated reluctant alienated Spectators (00:15:48) fought over by the elites who despise us to extract that last (00:15:55) ounce of Civic blood that we have left in us our vote. (00:16:01) And by the way, my colleagues (00:16:03) and political science think on the whole like William Buckley that that's a good thing they talk about what they call Democratic excess if more than half the voters actually participate in politics, they talk about system overload, if people take seriously their public responsibilities and begin to make demands on the political system. Well, no wonder half the country doesn't vote doesn't care. No wonder cynicism is rampant apathy everywhere. No wonder people increasingly give up even (00:16:34) watching. And prefer baseball (00:16:39) or football or cheers or whatever other circuses television makes available to (00:16:46) us. Well, what I want to say to you today is not (00:16:52) simply that our electoral politics which passes as democracy has little to do with (00:16:58) genuine democracy. I want to talk about another (00:17:01) form of democracy (00:17:02) a democracy that in fact to a much greater extent than we appreciate we actually already have but refused to identify and Define and talk about I want to talk about a form of democracy which is concerned not with electing those who govern us but is concerned with governing ourselves very different notion of democracy. Democracy not as what (00:17:26) Jefferson like to call elective despotism the right to elect the despots who then do all the governing for the next four years. Or elective oligarchy. We have a chance to have a say in the circulation of Elites (00:17:41) who actually control the nation. I want rather to talk (00:17:45) about democracy as men and women coming together in communities and governing themselves. (00:17:54) One of our problems when we talk about democracy is that we immediately think of Washington DC (00:18:00) that's where it happens. We think of the politics of (00:18:03) distant Heroes men and women. We (00:18:06) wish at least on white horses in some ways. I think we're very much like the Russians we sit around wondering who the next first Secretary will be in will he trash the country or save it? But as if it has nothing to do with the rest of us and all we can do is watch and wonder hope and pray where the pundits say or the JFK as of today. The FDR is where the Lincoln's in the Washington's. Some are so desperate even to be asking where are the (00:18:34) Reagan's of today (00:18:38) what we need they say is better candidates better nominees better leadership. Well, I want to suggest that what we need is better citizens. What we need is a better Civic art of politics and few are talking about that. Berthold brecht has play Galileo has a wonderful exchange one character is watching the country fall into a mess and says pity the country that has no Heroes. (00:19:09) And the other responds (00:19:10) no pity the country that needs Heroes. America is increasingly a country that needs Heroes. And that is a pitiable circumstance for a democracy to be in because what a strong democracy needs is strong citizens strong participants a people willing to shoulder responsibilities themselves. And then the heroes are less important who is president becomes less importance (00:19:39) and to find that kind of politics. You have to look away from Washington DC to a different kind of Politics the politics of Dayton the politics of Louisville the politics of Missoula the politics (00:19:50) of Colorado Springs the politics of st. Paul, Minneapolis. (00:19:56) Because in fact I want to suggest there is a democracy extent (00:20:03) here in America, which (00:20:05) is defined by what goes on in our towns our cities our counties are municipalities. Defined by citizens doing rather than citizens watching defined by Civic engagement and participation. And I want to suggest that the reality of this form of democratic politics is much more widespread than the appreciation of it or even then the language we have to (00:20:31) talk about it. One of the problems is the language of our Democratic politics has been developed by social scientists with their eyes on Washington and it is a language of power. It's a language of money. It's a language of Elites and masses a language of Elections and voters. (00:20:52) But in fact if you look out around America, you will find I think in every town in every city. Great numbers of men and women involved in local self-government that they often don't call it that it may be sitting on a library committee or a PTA or national issues Forum or church group or a voluntary Association Civic Action Group Home Owners (00:21:18) Association neighborhood or block (00:21:20) group manufacturers group a (00:21:24) group like this one that comes together to hear people and talk with them about a variety of Civic (00:21:29) issues. An awful lot of people don't identify that with democracy. In fact, when I ask people are you interested in politics? They often say oh no, I haven't got time. I'm much too busy on my church committee and the PTA (00:21:42) and I've gone to the (00:21:43) zoning board and so on so I have no time for politics. That is politics that is democracy. That's where it begins again when talk Phil was here in the 1830s and walked around this country. He didn't go to Philadelphia or Washington or New York and spend much time. He went to the small towns the General stores and it's there. He discovered what he called the spirit of Liberty and the activities and the talk and the Intercourse and the discussion and debate that went on among people in their (00:22:16) localities about what was happening in their localities. (00:22:22) People say cynically that (00:22:25) nowadays our citizens simply are not competent to govern themselves not competent for democracy, but I have never met a man or a woman who did not want to control their own lives. I have never met anyone (00:22:41) who didn't think that if you got together with some friends and neighbors, you couldn't (00:22:45) make some cooperative and collaborative progress. You couldn't find some common ground and that is the beginning of democratic citizenship. (00:22:57) What do we say that about (00:22:59) this form of democracy (00:23:01) the form of politics that we find the towns and (00:23:04) cities of America rather than in Washington DC or on NBC and CBS. The first thing we see is that the very (00:23:12) understanding of what a citizen (00:23:13) is is radically different from the passive voter the apathetic non-participating spectator of national Politics. (00:23:23) The citizen locally is not simply a client a consumer feeding at the public trial (00:23:30) but an actor and a participant in local affairs. In a democracy, we don't ask what the government can do because we our we ourselves are the local government. We are the community and in speaking to the government we speak to ourselves. And the more participation there is the more that is true. In this realm the local realm the citizen is not a (00:23:57) private person with private (00:23:59) interests making (00:24:00) private demands on governments, but a public person with public responsibilities often distinctive from and even in conflict with their own private interests. We tend to think that citizens are merely private persons who go into the public realm to argue their own interests. But in fact the word key way that word citizen has a very different meaning it means someone who thinks about what it means to be a participant in a community and to think in Civic terms is a very different kind of thinking than to think in private or Market terms. As private persons we asked what do I (00:24:39) want and our social scientists often say (00:24:42) that's what our politics should be about individuals and groups and we want a b and c and then government arbitrates and umpires those (00:24:48) interests and gives divides up the pie and give his pieces to all of the group's screaming for their own private (00:24:56) interests, but that's the wrong (00:24:58) question the Civic question the public question. The political question is not what do I want? But what is good for our community? And that's a very different question and it elicits a very different way of thinking. It makes us think in I like to call we terms rather than me terms that makes us think about what is a we what is a community and what do I share with the community? I'm not pitting self-interest against Community interest. I am saying that citizens are people who see themselves as a member of a community and therefore ask of themselves. What would be good for me as a Civic member of this community? And that in fact leads to a very different view of what interests look like we tend and are privatized Society to think that all interests are private fixed (00:25:50) immutable a consequence of our class or are religious or ethnic backgrounds. (00:25:56) But in fact any psychologist any sociologists will tell you that interests are in reality mutable changing evolving we each in our own lifetime change our sense of what our own interests are. Need think only of the bachelor who gets married. as a bachelor, we have a set of interest (00:26:16) that are circumscribed by our own career our own private life, but then you fall in love and you marry somebody and it's not just a matter of signing a contract with them and saying, okay now your interest have to be kind of cut in here on the (00:26:29) deals a matter of saying my interest now includes somebody else's and is not I myself don't want to do something that will hurt you because we are now in Austin, it's not just a me there's an us and then those (00:26:41) That wife that husband have a child. (00:26:45) And what happens then is there matter of cutting the kid in on the deal? Treating the children like new contract. He's to a bargain know we even have a word for parent and a parent is a new way of thinking about ourselves. It says as an individual I now have children. I am a parent and my interests are in large to (00:27:05) Encompass the interests of (00:27:07) children and I don't strike deals with my children because my interests are my children's interest. I have the interest of a whole family now, I'm a member of a family then you live on a block you move into a neighborhood and you have neighbors and you begin to think about yourself as a neighbor and that word neighbor doesn't mean that the private Bachelor makes a contract with a neighborhood. It means that we think of ourselves as members of a neighborhood and we have new interest as part of that neighborhood and they change and transform and alter some of our own private interest in how we think about ourselves and of course the final extension of that gradually enlarging sense of who we are and what our interest looks like (00:27:47) is the word Citizen and when we become True citizen not the private consumer of American political life, but a true citizen (00:27:55) we are thinking about ourselves as members of st. (00:27:58) Paul and Minneapolis of Minneapolis or even of the United States of America or possibly even citizens of a globe where we share with people around the world certain interests in common. (00:28:12) That's a very different way of thinking (00:28:14) about politics. (00:28:17) It's a way that puts a great (00:28:19) focus on imagination. And in (00:28:22) fact, I'd want to suggest that Democratic politics is above (00:28:25) all a politics of imagination and what we often lack in our national politics is that kind of imagination imagining ourselves as belonging (00:28:35) to communities that give us (00:28:37) larger more extended interests than we thought we (00:28:41) had before (00:28:43) so that the chief political question then becomes what is the art of democratic politics if it's to be rooted in imagination in empathy in a sense of public thinking or public judgments or we thinking what does that look like? I just want to make a few comments about the art of politics seen from this perspective because I think you'll see it looks very (00:29:05) different than the art of politics understood as electoral spectator sport. (00:29:13) The first thing I think we want to say about (00:29:14) the art of politics understood as an act of imagination and act of public judgement of we thinking (00:29:23) is that listening is as important as talking. It's an unfortunate feature of the history of Western political thought that we have emphasized (00:29:34) in democracy the role of rhetoric the role of talk democracy. We say is about talking we have parliament's not audio mints, unfortunately. (00:29:46) We do in this political system. Listen, very little to one (00:29:50) another we stake out positions. We make arguments. We (00:29:55) bargain and exchange our interests, but there is very little listening that goes on and there are few institutions that (00:30:02) encourage listening (00:30:05) which creates an (00:30:06) adversarial Setting for our politics a legalistic setting a litigious setting no wonders have our politicians or lawyers of adversary adversarial relations are what politics is about then of course lawyers are going to be very good at it lawyers make terrific adversary politicians on the whole they make lousy citizens because they don't know how to listen that's not what their art on the holes about. I (00:30:35) don't blame them. That's not what they're trained for. (00:30:40) That's not what they do. (00:30:41) Well, and in (00:30:43) that they only follow America generally because our (00:30:46) politicians don't listen to one another watch Dukakis and Benson watch. (00:30:53) Mr. Bush watch Quail talk to one another and argue with their adversaries. The one activity that will not be going on. There is listening. They do not they cannot afford to listen to (00:31:08) one another but listening is an (00:31:11) extraordinary thing. It has an egalitarian quality that talking does not as stalkers. Some of us are good. Some of us are bad (00:31:18) eloquence can be a dangerous thing in a democracy because eloquence (00:31:23) Creates Elites (00:31:25) Elites of the rhetoricians and sound Democrats never talked people who trust people who talk too well in ancient Greece they used to in fact send them away. They used to ostracize people who were too good at the Arts of eloquence. (00:31:41) What we want in a democracy is good listeners and listening hearing is an egalitarian art. We can all potentially be good at us. There's no natural hierarchy of listeners. (00:31:53) There's a natural hierarchy of stalkers, but not of listeners (00:31:56) so that if we make listening the center of the democratic art, we have a much better chance at putting a faculty. That is a Gala Terrian at the very center (00:32:05) of our politics listening is the great equalizer. And it's the thing that makes us understand and see what we share in common talking is how we analyze disclose our differences and create an adversarial special (00:32:23) interests. But it's not just any old talk. And any old listening that we're talking about here because another feature of our system which is undemocratic at the national level. Is that most of the talking and even the listing that goes on is what I call vertical (00:32:41) talk and vertical listening (00:32:43) the politicians (00:32:44) talk we listen they talk at us. We listen the mayor talks. (00:32:50) We listen you go to even a town meeting. (00:32:53) And (00:32:55) Maori old town meeting or President Carter's town meeting in the president (00:32:58) talks at us. (00:33:01) What there is very little of in our democracy is lateral talk and lateral listing. There's a lot of vertical (00:33:08) talk leaders talking to followers Elites (00:33:11) talking to masses. We rarely have the opportunity and there are few institutions that let us talk to one another. This form is perhaps one of the few that allows you to talk some to each other as well as that people like me come and talk at you, but even here (00:33:29) mainly I talk at you and then at the end you have a little bit of a chance to (00:33:32) talk to me and perhaps a little bit with one another. But how few times in America citizens come together not with an expert not with a mayor not with the councilman not with a president not with a speech of fire to talk at them but simply come together to talk to one another about Civic issues. We don't have institutionally the opportunities to do that. How can we have a democracy where citizens cannot talk to one another (00:34:00) cannot listen to one another? (00:34:05) politicians talk about (00:34:06) Outreach Often reaching out and trying to (00:34:09) hear what's going on. But even that gets at most citizens (00:34:13) talking to politicians as well as politicians talking to Citizens (00:34:17) rather than citizens talking to one (00:34:20) another. Lateral communication then (00:34:24) is an imperative of genuinely Democratic (00:34:28) politics. (00:34:31) third dimension of local Democratic participatory politics Is the search for what people share the search for common ground most of our politics is concerned with discovering our (00:34:46) differences and then arbitrating them (00:34:49) rather than trying to find out what people share what it is. They have in common yet without an understanding of what we share No collaboration. No cooperation is (00:34:59) possible. and again at (00:35:02) the local level very often neighborhood groups citizen (00:35:05) groups are as much concerned with finding out what is shared as in finding out what divides us we met in many cases not share very much, but we often share more than we think we do (00:35:20) blacks and whites women and men right-to-lifers and those who oppose that position (00:35:27) if we would but listen to one another and if we had the opportunity but to talk to directly one another fourth dimension (00:35:37) Is agenda Creation in our democracy (00:35:41) at best occasionally as Citizens, we get a chance to choose between option A and option b, we rarely get a chance to talk about what the options ought to be. (00:35:52) And how those options should be (00:35:55) worded. You know what you (00:36:00) call things as Adam discovered in Eden has a lot to do with what they are. (00:36:06) Is abortion fetus murder? because if it is you'll find 60 70 80 percent of Americans who are dead set against it is abortion the right of a woman to control the reproductive functions of her own body because if it is you'll find in this has been polled this way at least 60 percent of Americans who are for that the battle is over before it starts in terms of what you call (00:36:30) things. (00:36:33) Mr. Reagan wanted to call his. militarization of space the space defense (00:36:41) SDI It ended up being called Star Wars and I'd say he lost half his battle right there simply because of what it was called. Not too many people were first Star Wars more people might have been for what they took to be a space Defense Initiative Strategic Defense Initiative. That sounds better. So (00:37:02) what you call things is important we on the whole as citizens have little to say about what things are called what our choices are. If somebody asks you are you for Star Wars? Or the worldwide Dominion of the evil empire. Most people will have a single (00:37:24) answer (00:37:26) if that's what the choices are. (00:37:29) We need the right as Citizens to be participants in the setting of the agenda. In naming what the options are that we are then supposed to (00:37:38) choose (00:37:41) an any local group that thinks it's Democratic because it has the right of referendum to choose a or b (00:37:47) is fooling itself because (00:37:48) it's what's on the agenda. (00:37:51) That counts and (00:37:52) how what is on the agenda is worded (00:37:57) that counts. (00:38:00) Well, these are all features (00:38:02) of a form of democracy (00:38:04) that I am not urging on you as a utopian and saying we ought to have it. I am saying to a large extent this form of democracy is already going on in our local community citizens talking to one another not just two leaders people listening to One Another seeking Common Ground looking for ways to do things together trying to control the agenda. (00:38:25) As well as having a right to decide the outcomes of that (00:38:30) agenda these things in fact are going on, but we tend not to think about them in terms of our national politics in terms of our democracy. What it seems to me then we need to do to make this real to make this more part of our national politics is to find institutional ways to empower. (00:38:56) Citizens who in (00:38:57) fact are already at work in many different ways in their (00:39:01) local communities. The (00:39:03) problem is empowerment. And never forget that empowerment is itself the best Civic teacher we have I am tired of elitists and there on the right and they're on the left. Mr. (00:39:16) Buckley's not alone there plenty of socialists in America who above all don't trust the people because if you take a poll the American people aren't socialist and the right doesn't trust the people and every time there's a referendum with an outcome that the experts (00:39:30) and the Quasi liberal Elite don't like they say see the people are incompetent. Look at Proposition 13. Well, I'm tired of the bum rap the people get Because what we do is give no Enlightenment, no civic education. No power to the American people and then complain when occasionally they have the right to make a decision and they make the wrong one. Our politicians have months (00:39:54) years decades to learn their (00:39:56) craft citizenship has to be learned to But you learn through being empowered Thomas Jefferson said if we don't like the way our citizens use (00:40:09) their power the remedy is not to take (00:40:12) it from them but to inform their discretion to teach them how to use it in the best way to do that is to give them an opportunity to empower them. (00:40:22) In other words. (00:40:24) Now, you may say to me. Well, you know, we here in (00:40:27) this room, we generally have people from the real political world coming here the tough kind everybody likes the tough politicians the tough social scientist and you sound kind of idealistic you sound kind of utopian. This is a pretty picture of citizenship that you've given us, but it doesn't have very much to do with the real world that we all have to live in that will hear more about in detail next week from people like Marilyn Quayle that world of the tough politicians, but let me tell you something. I'm a tough social scientist and democracy (00:40:59) cannot survive. Long term as elective oligarchy and as a social scientist, I am alarmed about the apathy and the alienation and the low voter turnouts. Yes. I'm something of a utopian when I talk about citizenship. But democracy itself, even in its weak representative form is a utopian idea for most of history and most Nations. The standard form of government has been dictatorship despotism. And for good reason Rousseau said freedom is a food easy to eat but hard to digest. And Nations learn that over and over again in America just now is having a hard time (00:41:42) digesting its freedoms and a lot of people on both the left and the right would prefer the efficiency of expertise and Elites to run this country and to keep the American people out of Politics the way in the 50s and 60s mothers were kept out of childbirth. I remember my first child was born at the doctor said, you know, we really have such a (00:42:04) good way of getting children born. If only we could keep the (00:42:06) mothers out of it somehow. I know a lot of (00:42:09) Americans say we have a wonderful democracy. If only we could keep the public out of the (00:42:13) thing. It would really work much better. (00:42:17) but in fact realistically and talking tough lie democracy only survives when the public is involved in what is involved in a competent fashion. We will either have a politics rooted in participation and active engagement by citizens or in the long run. We will have what is first an electable agar key and is eventually a tyranny. We can see it in the world's history of we just look at it again. And again democracies have lost their freedoms. Athens went down the Roman Republic went down. It's A Hard Way democracy and it (00:42:55) makes great great demands on its people (00:42:58) but we need now to begin to (00:43:00) think about democracy as the art (00:43:03) of citizenship and not just the art of leadership democracy as the art of politics at the local level as well as the art of politics in Washington. If we do that, I think American democracy can Revitalize itself and become that last best. Hope the Lincoln hoped it would be (00:43:23) If we do not do that, then I fear increasingly. There will be little difference between America and those unhappy enslaved Nations that in its public (00:43:37) policy. It despises and opposes. Thank you. Members of our radio audience. We are here discussing whether or not America has democracy with Benjamin Barber of Rutgers University and I will be feeling your questions. If you could just raise your hand will come by and take your questions and Sonia will be in the back of the room to pick up questions where I not the first I do want to comment not as a lawyer but as a citizen that I hide it (00:44:17) somehow ironic that the holder of the Walt Whitman share at Rutgers is (00:44:21) presenting us with Edmund Burke vision of the conservative corporate Community where the small platoon (00:44:29) is what we should Aspire for and that leads me to my point before I go to John Herman a Minnesota politician and newspaper editor that we here in Minnesota not in the media capitals of New York or Los Angeles probably do a lot of revising and successful implementation of the small platoon philosophy John I'm going to have to defend mr. Buckley here. Mr. Buckley did not take a position. That was very much difference in your own. In fact, he often repeated his statement that he'd rather be governed by the first hundred people in the New York telephone directory than the faculty of Harvard. But what he did say is that more voters participating uninformed voters would not add to the quotient that it wasn't numbers. It was the basically the informed voter now you use the figure 90 to 95% of the congressman a real like that. He used the figure ninety four. Ninety eight point four percent of the incumbents are re-elected and that that the House of Lords had more turnover because they died off faster than that now can we have a democracy in this country? If we have a life tenure in our Congress (00:45:40) one of the problems that people who live (00:45:43) ideologically have is that there are friends and enemies and acute way we have responding to each other is suggesting that the people we say our enemies are We are friends. I don't have any friends or enemies in the history of political thought I find that Rousseau Burke Hagel marks all have a great deal to teach us. So I don't mind that Burke as indeed. He did spoke of the small platoon and the need to start with the local community. If you're going to build anything like a like a (00:46:13) Civic Republic on the question of the educated voter though, of course, there is no question that democracy and this is one of the fundamental misunderstanding of our time democracy is not the rule of the masses democracy is not the government of private men and women democracy is the government of citizens and a citizen is a person who has been (00:46:35) educated in a certain form and thinks in a certain form and I (00:46:38) couldn't agree more with you sir that in fact in our democracy we lack institutions and we lack the forms of empowerment that allow our citizens to become competent to become good at what is an acquired art. Nobody is born a citizen. Nobody's born to politician you learn that crafts and you need an opportunity to learn it. We don't have such opportunities. (00:47:00) John I happen to know that you were at the present time were very involved in trying to increase civic education in our high schools. So don't you and mr. Barbour really agree on the fundamentals even if you disagree on presidential candidate or I think we agree on the fundamentals. What about the 98% of the incumbents being re-elected? How does that figure into your (00:47:18) / just ice I would suggest you again? That's one of the problems with a politics that is oriented completely about around National politics National candidates the House of Representatives and the Senate. I don't know how much we can do (00:47:29) about that. I think we can do something about it, but I would rather not focus on that so much is The (00:47:33) pundits Have and (00:47:34) focus rather on how we can improve the quality of our citizens. So that who's in the House of Representatives becomes a little bit less important to (00:47:40) us a question back there. So on you (00:47:43) Jim Campbell, I was (00:47:44) interested in how we can bring the healthy local participation to bear on what you've characterized as our moribund National TV politics. You mentioned about empowering the citizens. Can you be more specific give us some examples of how that might be carried (00:48:00) out? (00:48:02) Thank you for that question that wasn't the plants but it is a good question because it allows me to say to you that in a book called strong democracy. I have detailed at (00:48:10) length 12 institutions both (00:48:13) national and local that might Aid Us in trying to empower local citizens and overcome the Gap that exists now between local Democratic politics and National Democratic politics. Let me just mention a couple of them. I can't really defend them in any detail (00:48:27) in the time we have here, but just to suggest you the kinds of Institutions that might be available. I am for a national initiative and referendum process if it is linked to an education process and my suggestion specifically is for a to vote referendum you The first vote the public then can think about it debate about it and six months later. You take a second vote and the outcome of the second vote is the one that holds second suggestion occupation of office by lottery. I would suggest that every State Assembly in this country makes five to ten seats available by lat two members of jury polls if we can have citizens on juries trying life-and-death questions. I think we can afford ten percent of our state assemblies to be chosen by lot from jury poles, which would make every citizen potentially a politician every politician a citizen third suggestion a system of local assemblies where citizens can talk to one another not just talk to their politicians every Ward every County in America should have citizen (00:49:29) assemblies that meet on a (00:49:31) weekly basis for those who want to come and talk (00:49:34) to their fellow citizens about public issues. There are (00:49:39) three 1/4 would be a form of (00:49:41) National citizen service at Rutgers. (00:49:43) Diversity we have a plan for (00:49:45) mandated graduation requirement of community service for every student there. I would like to see a lot more done with community service and National citizen service. There are in other words (00:49:56) concrete specific institutions we can talk (00:49:58) about I don't want to take all of your time to talk about (00:50:00) them here, but I detail (00:50:01) them in about a hundred Pages length in strong democracy. (00:50:04) Thank you very much. Mr. Howard self Mr. Barber as you know, our Republic was founded on a premise of a balance of powers and I think in your presentation you decried and I think rightly so that there's an imbalance of power somehow in our society from the media are the effect of the media on society. Have you thought out some proposals to redress that balance or to correct that imbalance that we have right now are do you think it's simply a question of Education of the people? (00:50:40) Well, it's that but there are I (00:50:41) think specific remedies available to us and I let me just mention to one is I'd like to suggest that we retrieve our control of the airwaves for civic (00:50:51) uses that is to say when we wish to do civic education have debates put on conventions when we wish to have candidates speak to the public that the public Airwaves ought to be made available for (00:51:05) free to such uses. I mean it's observed that our Airwaves are controlled by private corporations for profit and sold back to us for our own Civic uses. That's one (00:51:16) number two, I would suggest that we could benefit by a national telecommunications Cooperative which on cable television made available in National Civic Network (00:51:27) c-span's begun to do that a little bit, but that's focused (00:51:31) on the national not the local (00:51:32) level. In other words. I would (00:51:33) like to see the new technologies utilized for civic purposes currently when you Tries a cable Corporation and get a local contract with them there perhaps compelled to make available Public Access, but they don't make available the kind of resources that allows the community to use in a professional way those (00:51:53) technological resources for civic ends a (00:51:56) public terminal for computer information networks and every school and Library would be a good way to begin to make that (00:52:03) technology available so that it's not just (00:52:06) public education there specific things we can do with technology and with the media to make them more hours again to repossess them and use them for our own business not by taking them out of the public realm not by not by doing anything (00:52:19) to NBC and CBS, but simply by creating our (00:52:23) own uses for Technologies and for Airwaves that finally belong to us as a people. (00:52:28) Thank you have a question for mr. Thomas Wayne is a past president of the Citizens League a group which mobilizes citizens to study very complicated issues and has a fine track record of having the politicians follow where the citizens Mr. Swain, a lot of luck stand at that rather than spoiling my going on. Are you began your list of ways to involve a citizenry and agenda formation and wording of issues with a proposal on the initiative and referendum there probably isn't any place in the country where that's practiced more extensively than the state of California. I don't know for sure, but I understand this year in California voters will be looking at something over a dozen issues on initiative that have qualified five of which relate to the subject of auto insurance of which I know a little bit about I know something about that issue and yet I can't even begin to comprehend what the difference is in the various issues that are being proposed there and so far over 52 million dollars has been spent in California try to educate people to the various proposals doesn't that suggest that this process also has its serious pitfalls. (00:53:36) I guess the question is what's the alternative I mean (00:53:38) who is going to make those decisions? If not the public who is going to make the errors if indeed they are errors, (00:53:45) you know, we it's interesting. We demand so much of the public (00:53:49) in the way of Civic competence (00:53:50) often more than the we demand of our politicians. A lot of people say to me, you know, the average Joe and the street isn't in a position to make (00:53:56) decisions on Star Wars and make decisions on (00:54:00) international monetary policy and trade policy. These are complicated technical issues. Well, in fact the best politicians in the country are not those who are experts the experts get in trouble. There are those who have an overall sense of what their goals and purposes are an overall sense of strategic. Correction, and then they make their choices in that fashion. That's what good politicians do that's in fact what Ronald Reagan has done very successfully. I'm politically not a friend of Ronald Reagan, but I think he's been very good at seeing the large picture and making the large choices. I ask no more in the way of competence or intelligence of the American public Then I then I asked of Ronald Reagan. I don't think that asks a (00:54:38) great deal (00:54:39) of them and I think most Americans are up to that challenge and I don't mean that as an insult to Greg and I mean, is that a compliment to the American people it's a generalized generic ability to distinguish between values that I think is at stake here. There are still technical questions that are difficult to resolve but they're no more difficult for the public than for the (00:54:58) experts to resolve and I don't think in a democracy we can afford to let experts make those decisions. (00:55:03) Thank you last question from George Pillsbury concerned Citizen and politician. Thank you. And thank you. I've enjoyed the talk very much and I feel so strongly about the matter of being active in. See that I carry a quotation from Robert Hutchins. The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from Ambush. It would be a slow Extinction from apathy indifference and undernourishment and I think that's what we are speakers been talking about. But again, he raced these statistics about who votes and percentage of votes and goes back to before the Civil War days. One of the things that's happened. So dramatically since the Civil War has been the expansion of those who could vote. We now let people (00:55:48) 18 (00:55:49) vote thank goodness. We've added women to the electorate but we've explained cheapened in the sense the franchise and here in Minnesota. We've treatment at such that you don't even have to plan on voting until the day of election. You don't even have to think about who your candidates are and who you're going to vote for until election day at least for example, we ought to tighten. And give everybody the opportunity to vote but at least encourage somehow our voters to be more educated more interested in so more (00:56:24) involved in the issues (00:56:26) and I wondered what your comments are to some sort of Education of the voting public or restrictions (00:56:34) on how they vote (00:56:38) but mr. Pillsbury, I certainly agree with you that without civic education (00:56:43) without competence what you get is not democracy, but that thing the founders so feared. Mobocracy the rule of (00:56:52) the mob we've got to have civic education, but I again want to just emphasize that in addition (00:56:56) to many things that were not doing and ought to be doing in the way of community service and the way of (00:57:00) Ceviche civic education seminars in the way of informing the public about substance of issues. There is one crucial way that you help people towards Civic competence and I come back I said it at the end of my talk and that is empowerment you've Ought to empower people you have to give them a stake to make them care. The reason the founders wanted to limit the vote to property holders was that property holders had a steak. They had their property it meant (00:57:28) something and they (00:57:29) the founders figured well people who had property we're not going to we're not going to act arbitrarily. Well, it's the same with people outside and inside the system people outside the system have no stake. They care about nothing people inside the system have a stake in the best steak. You can give people is some genuine power. Once you give them power. It's remarkable how suddenly they become responsible thoughtful begin to look at other issues. So part of the solution is not simply civic education part of the solution I think is genuine empowerment.