Democracy and Diversity

                One of the most difficult problems facing an attempt to reboot democracy is how to think about and act on the issue of diversity.  Even though we are a country who prides itself in being diverse, it is hard to point to any evidence that we have made diversity a productive part of politics and education.  For the most part, we have tended to work toward consensus and conformity as the expression of the majority without engaging the issues surrounding those who don’t get easily homogenized into the ‘melting pot’ of American culture.  In education, we have tried to squeeze diversity out of the curriculum by promoting a false narrative of standardization.  We have become stuck in some bad habits that prevent us from moving forward.

                I don’t think a radical democracy has the same need for consensus and standardization that a formal democracy based on an oligarchy has emphasized.  An oligarchy can only be so diverse, there isn’t a lot of room for divergence.  We have used the idea of experts, good schools and testing to entrench a limited range of voices and standpoints into the public discussion.  At the same time, the rapid advancement of information technology has made it easier and easier for people to express their views.  The debate over what to do about the resultant conflict has tied us in knots.  Figuring out a way to reconcile these forces is a major challenge to rethinking our politics and our education.

                The idea that we used to be unified and now we’re not is false.  We appeared united because only a very small slice of the people got to speak at all.  Gradually and thankfully that has changed some, but what happens when the legitimate demands from the new participants are at odds.  Both Feminist and Queer studies programs have opened up valuable new ways of thinking about art, society and politics, for example.  At the same time, a resurgence of white supremist and other hate speech has flourished.  In the academy the reaction has been to promote one and silence the other, but that isn’t an answer that seems to satisfy anybody.  Formal democracy has typically used institutions to censor and regulate public speech.  Libraries used to sort and code information, and schools used to enforce codes of speech and action.  There were some things about that scenario that were comforting.  There was an attempt to filter out bogus information and create some form of civility to public and political communication.  The price was that we only heard from a limited spectrum of people and views.

                Censorship is not the answer.  A radically democratic society wouldn’t recognize the authority to censor.  We cannot ‘protect’ people from the speech of others or act like that issues within censored speech are resolved just because they are limited or removed from sight.  A radical democracy has to openly engage all points of view without necessarily trying to resolve them.  My intent is not to privilege or valorize any particular type of speech.  I think there are things that a radical democracy has to challenge and contain, but it can’t use the tools of formal democracy to do it.  A radical democracy is a messy, loud and conflicted space.  There are limits.  Speech is democratic, but violence isn’t. 

                Dewey thought that inquiry would lead to consensus.  He put too much emphasis on the way that science and rationality would produce that consensus.  Schools have put a lot of emphasis on assimilation, of making sure that we all blend to whatever their view of cultural dominance happens to be.  I think a radical democracy has to drop the pretense that our differences can be smoothed over by letting some form of authority play judge.  Communities based on radical democratic principles need not resolve the differences within them.   In fact, the differences should be the dynamic energy that motivates the community to realize and sustain its principles.  The enemy of democracy is not difference, it’s purity. 

                One of the major structural and historical weaknesses of the American system of democracy has been the residual influence of the Puritans and a Christianity driven to expel all non-believers.  Radical democracy is not pure or even trying to be pure, but it is inclusive.  It is not inclusive because it doesn’t matter what people say or think, it is inclusive because it has a higher aspirational horizon: survival.  Only a political and educational system that forces hostile views into the public conversation about how we save the planet and each other, even if we hate each other, is capable of breaking down the emotionally entrenched believes that threaten our survival.  It will not happen because of reason.  Everybody thinks they are being reasonable.  We don’t have to agree to get along.  We don’t need consensus.  We need a truce held in place by the common threats to our existence.  This might not sound as lofty as Jefferson made it out to be, but it might be the only shot we’ve got.