California NIF Network Blog

I’m not a person who would normally say, ‘Go see this movie’…but, go see this movie! The movie is “Avatar”…preferably in 3-D, if it’s offered at a theater near you. No, I’m not on the payroll. My reasons for referring you to this movie experience aren’t found in any of the film critics’ reviews…at least the 10 or so I’ve read. From these reviews, you might have the impression that the special effects dominate the film and that the story is predicable and a bit thin…and from that you might feel it’s not worth your time or money for a theater experience. I had the same initial reaction when our son requested that we go see “Avatar” as part of his recent birthday celebration. We were all shocked by our own responses to the film as we left the theater. Go see this movie!

Yes, the special effects are breathtaking, but they carry much more meaning than just WOW! For many people, the WOW-factor is enough to make the theater decision obvious…for others it may have the reverse affect. I have lots more to say about that in a minute. “Avatar” has a multi-layered story line, but none of the obvious parts of the story are as powerful as the foundational world view. I’ll have more on that in a minute too. It also has significant social and environmental message. Yes, it does have some biases built in, but they also play an important part in the overall affect of the movie. There are many reasons to see this movie, but I’m focused today on the reasons we might have as people who believe in deliberation as a means to the long-term goal of more effective public decisions. To those who practice public deliberation in any way, shape or form…go see this movie!

The special effects in “Avatar” are high-end versions of what is already available in immersive virtual worlds, like Second Life (SL). Yes, here he goes again…the SL thing. “Avatar” is visually spectacular…you are immersed in the awe and beauty of a totally different world, like many places in SL. And…SL has its own 3-D without the funky glasses. In the movie as in SL, the ‘avatar driver’ is somewhere else while the ‘avatar’ is fully engaged in the other world. Why is this important? We simply cannot meet face-to-face enough to talk through the complex dilemmas of our times. The expense and time investments are prohibitive, and the carbon footprint of all this travel is ethically problematic even if we could afford it. SL is not the only virtual world environment…others are available now, and more sophisticated worlds will certainly be developed with greater capabilities in the near future. Behind every ‘avatar’ is a real person with hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations. We can meet in a virtual world or two to share our hopes and dreams with a new and remarkable clarity, and to visit our fears and frustrations so we can develop new tenacity and new partnerships in resolving public dilemmas.

The story in “Avatar” has several layers…some more complex than the others, but even the love story has some surprising parts to it. A foundational world view, however, is present as an emerging theme: everything is connected to everything else. You’ll recognize this theme from many world religions and philosophies (yes, even in Christianity, Judaism and Islam…if you look deeper than the superficial and popular level of each) as an integrated, basic assumption. In the movie, it emerges slowly but steadily, becoming a critical plot connector on several levels. I don’t think this hint will ruin the movie for anyone…just watch for it as it starts small and then becomes more obvious. Why is this important? We should have learned by now that we cannot truly understand or resolve complex dilemmas in isolation. Each one of us is part of the everything…and each issue we face in our communities or as a human family is part of the everything. When we realize that we truly need each other, we’re then ready to enter into a deliberative conversation, seeking all voices rather than just the ones who agree with us already. Every issue is connected in some way with every other issue. When we fail to connect issues with each other, we fail to link our currently pressing issues with the many, mostly-resolved issues that have already been addressed…where some common ground in thinking has been discovered and integrated into public policy. We who believe in inclusive public deliberation can recognize the power of this foundational world view…and find new applications for it in our Practice.

As a new decade begins, we can resolve to be more immersed in both the beauty and the tragedy of our world. We can recognize new opportunities for dynamic partnerships with many more people and groups across the country and around the world. We can decide to respect the issues we’re confronting enough to see their inter-connected nature. I’m more convinced than ever that a breakthrough is possible in deliberation and dialogue when we choose to frame global, systemic issues as a complementary part of our local, state and national issue work. It’s time to expand on the 70’s quote that has been attributed to many people: “Think globally, act locally.” In “Avatar” as in SL as in real-life, everything is connected to everything else. Go see this movie…then let’s dream and act big!

Posted by deliber8ca at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What do we currently consider to be our ‘rights’? What are simply ‘privileges’ or ‘entitlements’? Who has what ‘rights’…and why are some excluded? And then…who gets to decide about these matters? I’ve found it useful sometimes to refer to several online resources for interesting reference materials. Here’s a brief introduction to the entry on ‘Rights’ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

I like this list…a bit humorous, but thought-provoking. When I found it, I chuckled to myself at certain places, and paused with moral questioning at other places. When I pondered the list as a whole, I began flipping these propositions to ask what responsibilities might provide some moral, ethical or practical tensions. This step, however, introduces a whole lot of complex issues...more with some ‘rights’ than with others. I believe at least in theory that all ‘rights’ must have some intrinsic responsibilities, and perhaps even some duties. Of course, I might be wrong about this…but, if I’m right, any conversation that includes a discussion of ‘rights’ should also address whatever responsibilities would fall to leaders and to individual citizens.

From the standpoint of our deliberative practice, this natural association between rights and responsibilities could prove to be important. If we really want to dig in to a topic to discover some of the foundational values behind our opinions, we need to identify and then discuss the tensions and trade-offs in a variety of approaches. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t really seem to matter where we start…we naturally connect with the balancing concept. My feeling is that we can make our conversations more meaningful, if we consistently pay attention to this relationship and if we consistently include the full range of responsibilities that accrue from any proposed right, entitlement or privilege in public policy.

Posted by deliber8ca at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You don’t have to have agreed with anything Senator Edward Kennedy ever said to admire him as a United States Senator. Certainly his legislative accomplishments are significant, but he is being remembered as a friend and colleague of Senators from all political persuasions. In fact, his most noteworthy legislative successes were those where he co-sponsored boldly bipartisan bills in the Senate with conservative colleagues…for the good of the country. At his passing, we can surely be grateful that he chose to devote his life to public service, but we can also be grateful that he trusted democracy enough to learn from those who disagreed with him as much as he did from those who supported him. In that respect, I believe Senator Ted Kennedy will be remembered in the annals of history as one of our greatest United States Senators…and perhaps one of the last great legislative listeners.

Truly effective legislation is not about compromise…that’s a huge misunderstanding of the power of democracy at its best. Compromise requires equal sacrifice of what is held valuable in order to find a legislative solution that really satisfied no one. Effective legislation, on the other hand, is built on common-ground values that are discovered through a deep interest in the whole breadth of thought on a specific issue or topic. Only true-believers in democracy dare to trust this course of action, because it’s so politically volatile…the risks are many, and the success rate is relatively small, but the fulfillment on a personal and national basis is incredible. Sen. Ted Kennedy was one of our premier high-stakes legislators across more than four decades, crafting public policy by listening carefully to those who disagreed with him without ever losing sight of his own values in the process. Now THAT’S an effective legislative legacy.

Listening is an art…and in politics, it’s a miracle! It’s not just what we do in order to know when another person gives us enough time to jump in with our own opinions…it’s a truly responsive conversational practice. An active listener is actually interested in what another person might say…hard to believe, but true. An active listener understands that others…particularly those who have dramatically different views on complex dilemmas…hold the key to long-term public policy solutions. It’s not the people who agree with us who provide the most critical legislative information...it’s the ‘other’ with a totally unique perspective from all supporters who can connect-the-dots for a piece of legislation that exceeds the hopes of all partisan factions. This is the legacy of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

What can we learn from the imperfect life of Ted Kennedy? First, I believe we can recognize the incredible power of our form of democracy…he continued to believe in our democracy against all odds and in the face of terrible personal tragedy. Next, I believe we can dare to actively listen…he succeeded in many legislative efforts by listening to opponents first and crafting legislative parameters second. Then, I believe we can be true to our own values and principles as we listen carefully to others…he could work effectively with many different legislators, but he never lost his own moral compass in the process. In these respects, I believe Sen. Kennedy can be a non-partisan role model…for everyone and anyone.

Yes, I’m deeply concerned about the direction and mood of our country…it seems that few people are interested in understanding the feelings and opinions of others. To me, this means also that few people truly trust democracy. Whether you liked Ted Kennedy’s views or not, I believe all reasonable people would agree…we lost an American treasure. In light of this point, we can each decide that his trust in democracy can be our inspiration for future, careful listening.

Posted by deliber8ca at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone who thinks politics is a game is a danger to the survival of our nation…Democrat or Republican…liberal or conservative…libertarian or federalist…red state, blue state or yellow with purple polka-dots state. Those people who want to extend the life of these United States choose to look past their differences with others to create a useful dialogue where all voices are respected and appreciated. In these times, I believe it’s more important than ever to seek some balance in the perspectives we access through newspapers, magazines, websites and TV talking heads. I’m frustrated most times by the blind partisanship and ideological allegiance. I am refreshed and energized, however, when I read or hear someone who at least appears to get it: Hey, friends…we’re all in it together!

This is not a new question, but in our country in 2009 it is a question with both urgency and importance. It would seem that in the 233 years since the bold statements of the Declaration of Independence were signed we’d be closer to finding some answer…but the undercurrent of suspicion and mistrust in any expansion of federal government authority is profound. Individual instances may seem easy to dismiss, but the cumulative effect is not. The American public needs to take seriously the growing discomfort by some of our neighbors in a perceived nationalizing of more and more control in more and more parts of our lives. We need to start talking about this foundational issue very soon…before it deepens and escalates.

Most recently, angry and disruptive citizens have made it clear that they don’t want more government involvement in health care. Some governors chose (at least briefly) to reject federal stimulus funding for their states, and the Texas governor even broached the subject of secession around the issue of federal spending…and they had enough supporters in their states to make it politically effective. In 2009, a huge jump in the sales of guns and ammunition is said to be the response by gun owners to what they consider to be inevitable increases in gun control by the President and the Congress. ‘Tea Parties’ protested what participants saw as an increasing disconnection between taxation and representation. While it’s probably true that some of these efforts have been encouraged by conservative talk-radio entertainers, opportunistic politicians and high-paid lobbyists, a smoldering anger has ignited a large number of citizens into words and actions they’ve never contemplated before now. This is a dangerous time for our country.

How much unity is too much? I’m pretty sure the response of many people to that question would be: Huh? You can’t have too much unity…there’s never enough. But another legitimate response would be: It’s too much when it threatens our personal freedom…when it takes away our individuality…when it destabilizes states, counties and cities by consolidating more and more tax dollars, programs and authority at the federal level…when it adds additional layers of bureaucracy that local decisions require so much time, so many reports and so much cost to be effective. I addressed some of these issues in a couple previous posts concerning the dismantling of the ‘equality infrastructure.’ The accumulation of power at the federal level has some admirable goals, and it’s accomplished quite a lot for the well-being of all citizens in our country…BUT the trade-offs and unintended consequences are deeply troubling to many who now feel powerless as they try to make everyday decisions that are compatible with their unique values and local needs.

The push-back on the recent town hall meeting disruptions focuses on the right-wind media, and characterizes the noisy protestors as misinformed dupes of big business and radical ideologues. Hey, they might be serving the needs of these groups too, but my impression is that they are expressing their feelings about what they see as a slippery-slope that leads to more and more federal control and less and less personal autonomy. The signs are there…hence the inflammatory language about ‘socialism’ and ‘Nazism’ and ‘Big Brother’ and ‘death panels.’ I believe the worst thing we can do as a public is to dismiss these voices as ‘crazies.’ The August disruptions are not really about health care reform…they are about the balance of power between the federal government and its citizens who depend on their local communities for a fulfilling quality of life.

United…or states…or both? I think many would agree that the United States of America is not so much a completed outcome as it is a vision we’re constantly striving to achieve. What we don’t agree about is how much unity and how much personal freedom strikes a comfortable and sustainable balance in that vision. To use a health care perspective, we can continue to just talk about and to treat the symptoms of a long-term, debilitating illness OR we can include in our discussions on these painful symptoms some attention to what might be frustrating our attempts at healing. In my view, we’ve been in denial about this foundational difference of opinion since the early 1960s. It’s time to bring this emotional and potentially explosive topic into the light of day…not to think we can resolve it once-and-for-all, but to include it permanently in all of our public conversations.

Posted by deliber8ca at 07:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s very sad to see so many angry, disrespectful and intimidating outbursts in recent public meetings on the critical issue of health care reform. Of course, we all have our opinions about how people are conducting themselves…some agree with the anger they hear and see, while others are appalled by the content and the methods of those who are disrupting the meetings. My suspicion is that there’s much more going on here than some confrontations over health care reform. It’s not really about health care or reform or the pending legislation…that’s just the topic du jour. In this post and the next, I’m going to share some thoughts on how we talk as a public about critical issues…and then about what I see as an on-going dilemma for citizens like us who continue to live out the American experiment in participatory government. First and foremost, how we talk with each other when times are tough and disagreements are deep indicates our willingness to invest in a healthy future.

Some of us are asking, ‘How can it be that we’ve degenerated to this point?’ The answer to this question may be both simple and complex...simple in the diagnosis, but complex in the treatment. The current list of symptoms points to a long-term atrophy in our capacity to hold a civil conversation. Sadly, I’m not sure we’ve ever had much of a capacity to converse in a healthy way on difficult topics, but in the past several decades it appears that we’ve neglected the development of personal and small group conversation skills to a dangerous point.

Perhaps we’ve been too comfortable…or busy…or lazy. Or perhaps it’s just too easy now to stay connected to the people we already know through our technological wizardry, so we rarely have the need or opportunity to speak with people who disagree with us on public issues. In past generations, more public issues were discussed in public meetings, and certain standards of civil conduct were the norm. Of course, these meetings most times were focused on local problems, and these are much easier to navigate than national one, but even very emotion-filled topics were discussed in a more-or-less respectful and polite manner. Obviously that has changed.

My point is not that some people don’t follow the rules any longer…my point is that we no longer have a cultural expectation or capacity for respectful yet content-rich conversation. Respectful conversation is its own language…and if you don’t speak a language on a regular basis you will soon find that you’ve lost the ability. In order to be able to converse with one another on critical issues during difficult times, the public must gather to discuss less critical issues during good times. This is why I’m inclined to think our neglect may just be a result of too much comfort for too long…we as the public haven’t had to exercise our skills in public conversation much, so our capacity to do so is seriously compromised.

Now, the tough part…how do we work together to build our capacity in public conversation? First, we have to want this for ourselves, for our neighbors, and even for those who disagree with us. Next, we have be willing to spend the time, energy and resources it takes in long-term practice to create a culture of conversation on all the important topics that continue to be unresolved due to our neglect. Also, we have to be willing to listen to angry and frustrated and disruptive people, because like it or not even they have things to say that we need to hear for outcomes in public policy everyone can live with. The outbursts at meetings about health care reform appear to me to be just the symptoms of a systemic dysfunction…we can expect this kind of behavior to become the norm if we see it as topic-based…or part of a conspiracy…or somebody else’s problem.

Posted by deliber8ca at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is probably not the best time to address this question, but what the heck!? It’s probably not the worst time either. It’s almost midnight on a warm summer evening…listening to the sound of water flowing in our small waterfall and stream just outside my home office…feeling the gentle breeze through the open window. Earlier this evening, I saw a photo that brought an unexpected emotion …our daughter posted a photo of all of our grandchildren on her Facebook page. On July 3, we had a delightful dinner gathering with all 4 of our children, all of their spouses and all 6 of our grandchildren…what a wonderful gathering that was! And then I was reflecting earlier this evening about the fact that we are now the eldest generation for all those beautiful people. Holy crap! That’s a big responsibility…I think we need to do something about it!

But...why bother? Carole came home tonight exhausted after meetings with staff members, working through the troubling consequences and future fallout from our dysfunctional political system. I sent off an email blast to United Methodist colleagues, asking for their help in dramatically changing the way we talk about moral and ethical dilemmas…looking for partnerships as we try to create a more civil way of talking with each other as caring Christians. And then…today I also sent another email blast to a group of NIF colleagues with some information about the latest innovations we’ve worked into our recent publications on California water priorities. The problems are so huge…and the resources are so sparse. So…why bother?

In the quiet of the evening, I hear the answer to this question as clearly as you do: because we’re asked…called…required to bother! We can’t NOT bother! Everyone who’s gone before looks to us to sustain their concern and love through yet another generation…and everyone who will follow looks to us to prepare the way for their beautiful and hope-filled lives. I don’t want to sound sappy, but we’re living at the crossroads of history…every day. We have the knowledge and experience of every generation that has lived and struggled before us…so we can make the wisest possible decisions for our own sakes and for the sakes of all future generations. This is serious business, friends! There is a lot at stake! So, why is it so easy to set it all aside, asking ‘Why bother?’ For our precious children and grandchildren, and for the neighbors with whom they will share life…we must be bold in dealing with our most serious dilemmas! Persistently...creatively…passionately!

Posted by deliber8ca at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yeah, I’m worried! Social and political inertia is incredibly strong in our culture of sound bites and quick solutions…the urge to return to a normal life after a near-fatal illness can lead us to take additional risks where a relapse is highly probable and very dangerous. While numerous voices are signaling their warning, I don’t see or hear any coordinated message about this from the Obama Administration, or the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Congress, or the business media. It appears to me that the public is still just experiencing the Great Recession on an intellectual basis, rather than feeling any real pain…yet. I’d love to be wrong about this, but it appears that we’re dead-set on inflating a new bubble so things can be ‘normal’ again.

Here’s Paul Krugman’s NY Times blog yesterday: “Just a quick note: is it just me, or has the economic news started to darken again? Up through about March, every report was worse than you expected, often worse than you could have imagined. Since then, most reports — although continuing to be bad in an absolute sense — have “surprised on the upside.” But my sense is that in the last few days we’ve been getting reports — Korean trade, Japanese orders, German exports — that are once again surprising on the downside. This thing ain’t over yet.”

We’re nowhere close to the end of this economic train-wreck, but the banks and the Obama Administration seem to be on the same message: they want to put Wall Street right back where it was before the crash…with the exception of some carefully negotiated ‘reforms’ where the bank lobbyists have significant influence in the writing process. Sadly, it appears that we have the wrong people in charge of negotiating for the public…they don’t really believe yet that our economic system needs a serious overhaul…and they have too many friends and former colleagues in the financial sector. It makes me nervous when many of the people who helped to create the crisis are celebrating ‘reform’ decisions.

Unless the public demands a full investigation into the economic meltdown before reforms are decided, forces are in play now to simply inflate a new bubble. Here’s another perspective that’s highlighted in many books and articles that seek to understand our 25-year march into the Great Recession. Many believe that we never really recovered from the 1992 recession. Not really recovered. All we’ve done is float a series of bubbles and make things look like they're prosperous, while most people have been lucky to keep their heads above water. As several recent voices have pointed out…if it weren’t for Wal-Mart’s price suppression, the public would have a much clearer understanding of some much deeper economic dangers that are looming just under the surface of the statistical haze. The Federal Reserve doesn’t control inflation…Wal-Mart controls inflation. Our biggest problem is that there’s lots of inflation in our domestic and global markets that Wal-Mart can’t control.

Job losses are only really just starting…school districts, cities and counties are desperately slashing jobs to stay afloat. When all of these cuts are made and the economic consequences of steeply rising unemployment and increased under-employment with more part-time positions and furloughs become reality, that’s when everyone will ‘feel’ the Great Recession. We are in the eye of the hurricane and the next phase is about to hit…and it’ll hit next with the strongest and most devastating force!

Yeah, I’m worried! I’m worried most that we appear to be willing to let social and political inertia make our most critical decisions. As the local damage grows in the next months, I’m hoping that our deliberative communities across the country will decide to step into the public square with opportunities for conversations about reforms that are grounded on carefully researched analysis and on true transparency in public problem-solving. As you might be able to discern, I believe some of the dilemmas uncovered in the economic crisis are actually at the hub of multiple issues…how we face reality, how we investigate carefully, how we talk with each other, how we discover together our foundational values, and how we defy inertia to create long-term solutions that satisfy our basic needs.

Posted by deliber8ca at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

“Let’s talk about it.” Unfortunately, these four little words are capable these days to create a significant amount of nervousness, anxiety, suspicion and outright resistance. The ‘it’ in this suggestion doesn’t much matter…the response seems to have become almost Pavlovian. When it comes to public issues, however, our ‘conditioned’ resistance is immediate and strong. It’s very disturbing to me that, when we need more conversations on our increasingly complex and inter-connected public issues, we seem less and less likely to talk with anyone about anything.

For almost a year now, I’ve been working on a project of the California Center for the Book as the primary researcher and writer of an issue guide for conversations on California water priorities and choices. Now that the issue guide is published, we’re working with libraries around the state to convene small groups for this important discussion. Unfortunately, we’re finding that some counties feel the topic is just too controversial to approach at all, even in a totally non-partisan conversation where all voices are respected and valued equally. One county appears to be ready to sponsor a local conversation as long as we can provide a “moderator who can keep the small crowd away from becoming upset.”

While finishing a report the other day, I was trying once again to communicate some of the qualities of ‘deliberation’ we see in our everyday, average NIF-style conversations. In these conversations, it’s not clear whether ‘deliberation’ happened or not…or when it happened, and when it didn’t during the conversation…or whether everyone present was actively part of the ‘deliberation’…or how careful and deliberate the process was in weighing various approaches.

Fizzle!...when a group is only interested in paraphrasing statements in the issue guide, no real interaction between participants is evident, and the moderator has to poke and prod the group constantly, it’s easy to recognize no ‘deliberation’ is happening. Kaboom!...when stories are told, fears are revealed, connections are made, listening is intense, you can hear a pin drop apart from the one person speaking, insights are shared and appreciated, and a surprising common direction in the conversation emerges, it’s equally easy to recognize that ‘deliberation’ has broken through that issue’s sound-barrier. But most of our forums don’t bring us to the clarity of a Fizzle! or a Kaboom! For some reason, I immediately thought of Newton’s First Law of Motion. Huh?

In a previous part of my life, I was totally absorbed in physics and math analysis…now it’s just in my deep history, but the principles never go away. I find myself thinking in terms of forum ‘spaces’…group ‘momentum’…overcoming the issue’s and the group’s ‘inertia’…identifying points of ‘friction’ that slow or stop progress…immersing the group in the complex ‘forces’ at play in each approach…seeing individuals connecting with each other around an urgent and important public issue as an increasing ‘mass’…the relative impact of various feelings and thoughts as ‘independent forces’ in a closed forum system…the enthusiasm behind a shared sense of direction as an ‘aggregate vector’ that can affect the world outside of the forum setting. A forum can be a ‘power’-filled experience, where the ‘energy’ of ideas and the ‘momentum’ of hope make the conversations continue first into the parking lot and then into more conversations and networking. But here’s the sticking point…’power’ is always zero, until there is some ‘motion’ in the desired direction.

So…what are people ready to DO at the end of a forum, or series of NIF-style conversations, or community project with a deliberative component embedded? I think we’ve pretty well refined our focused conversational style, fiercely protecting the non-partisan yet purposeful concentration on the tensions involved in every thorny issue with moral and ethical trade-offs. While that attention to detail needs to be retained, I believe our attention to movement needs a significant jump-start. Perhaps we’ve done too much ‘snapshot’ physics in our deliberative practice…also known as ‘statics’…where we basically look at an issue at a specific moment…like holding a single town hall meeting on an important, long-term topic. Perhaps it’s time to get into the really fun stuff…‘dynamics!’...where we only take on one new, national focal issue each year, but then stick with it for at least 5 years as it morphs and divides and reacts and eventually relents under the ‘power’ of a careful and patient application of totally transparent public scrutiny.

Posted by deliber8ca at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had to chuckle when I read one comment to a recent piece…it questioned in a humorous way how we could get our neighbors to feel comfortable with any ‘touchy-feely’ emotional methods as part of an NIF forum. I think we all know that many people would run…not walk…to the nearest door, and we’d never see them again…even in California! After my initial chuckle, I became a bit sad in reflecting on how our suspicion and distrust have made many of us ‘politically disabled.’ We find ourselves living in a complicated catch-22…the issues that are most urgent and important to us touch our lives so deeply that we get emotional when we talk about them, but when we express our natural emotion about an issue our opinions are discounted because we’re just getting emotional and that mean we’re not thinking clearly. We need to figure out a way to include our strong emotions on critical issues in a way that is effective and is culturally accepted.

Sometimes…rarely…a news article creates an immediate ‘of course’ experience. I think we’ve all had these moments when we hear or read something that resonates so deeply with our personal experience and history that it is welcomed like an old friend. It’s like someone connected the dots in just the right way to make a surprising picture appear where we thought an incomplete picture would continue to take shape. Our first response to this new vision is ‘of course…it was there all along!’ Well, I had one of those rare moments this morning as I read the opening lines of today’s New York Times Op-Ed by David Brooks, The End of Philosophy. And here is…the rest of the story.

For more than a decade, I’ve been involved in the practice of public deliberation through the National Issues Forums (NIF) and subsequently with various research projects of Kettering Foundation in Dayton, OH. NIF-style conversations were created to work through the ethical and moral dilemmas of complex public decisions in political and community life. ‘Deliberation’ has been the ‘different way of talking’ that NIF folks create in local community, small group forums, so people can share their deeply-held ‘common ground’ values and then change public policy to match these foundational moral judgments. At the heart of this kind of conversation, we believe that many effective public decisions are blocked by politics-as-usual debates that oversimplify the dilemmas that desperately need a moral resolution.

During the past decade, I’ve been very fortunate in working with other committed NIF practitioners in California and across the country as we’ve sought to continually learn more about how communities gather to talk about their most bumfuzzling public problems. Sadly, we seem to have many anecdotes of deliberative practice, but very little evidence that this practice actually connects ‘moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior,’ in the words of Michael Gazzaniga as quoted by David Brooks.

So, where’s the ‘of course’ in today’s Op-Ed? Of course! Moral judgments are far more emotional than rational…and our emotions evolve throughout our lives as we experience fulfillment and frustration, love and isolation, peace and anger. Of course! As a pastor for over 30 years, I’ve seen time after time that emotions drive most of our decisions for good or ill. Most of these decisions are automatic…they’re pre-programmed to be released for application with few societal safeguards. Of course! Some of these automatic emotional judgments do evolve through pro-active reason, but these adjustments in moral judgment almost never happen in a social vacuum.  Our emotions are most likely to evolve into satisfying moral judgments through respectful and caring conversations with family, friends and neighbors. That’s the role that NIF-style conversations can and do play when deliberation includes how we feel along with what we think about a critical public issue.

Didn’t we already know this? No, not really. We know that many of our anecdotes about what makes deliberation work well have an emotional component where a person shares a powerful experience, but our deliberative methods haven’t matured much with that recognition. To be relevant and effective, our practices need to be less like a ‘town hall meeting’ and more like an ‘immersion experience’ where the intricacies, frustrations and trade-offs of a sticky issue are exposed with all of their emotional baggage included. Our NIF Practice can and should start with the emotional nature of moral judgment in order to provide an evolutionary public conversation where communities are strengthened, cooperation is learned, and shared values are trusted as the foundation for public decisions.

Posted by deliber8ca at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

All conversations have a set of underlying assumptions that can either deepen or derail a meaningful exchange.  Almost always, these assumptions remain in the background, making magic or doing mischief, until someone decides it’s time to step back for a clearer perspective on the conversation itself…calling for a ‘meta-communications moment’ where we talk about how we are talking. But wait…what if we were clear about at least a few of our assumptions as we entered a conversation? Perhaps…just perhaps, we could get a little more magic and a little less mischief in conversations that matter to us the most.

In the framing of issues for NIF-style conversations, I’ve tried to identify and clarify some of the assumptions that are operating in an issue as I’m doing the research, analysis and writing. In a small-group conversation a couple days ago, we talked briefly about our recent NIF projects in California. In a couple of the brief issue guides, a basic contextual assumption was written into the introduction. In several others, however, we decided that the basic assumption wasn’t clearly written, but it should have been.

Here are a few examples. In a framing on ‘Tax Cuts’ the assumption was that some kind of tax cuts were desired by most people during the 2008 Presidential campaign. In the framing on ‘Agricultural Sustainability’ the assumption was made explicitly that agriculture should be sustained rather be allowed to die through neglect. In the Kettering Foundation framing on ‘Alcohol’ the assumption appeared to be that the abuse of alcohol caused significant enough harm to warrant a new look at alcohol-related laws and public acceptance of alcohol abuse. In the framing on ‘Immigrant Neighbors’ the assumption was also made explicit that many of our neighbors are recent immigrants so we should discuss how we interact with them in healthier and more respectful ways.

Concerning issue framing in our deliberative NIF practice, I’m thinking that a clear statement in the text of the basic assumption of the framing would help in the ultimate deliberation in forums. As moderators, we’re asked to focus the forum conversation on a topic the participants already feel is urgent and important in order to build a ‘deliberative momentum’ that doesn’t stop when the forum concludes. In my perspective, the basic assumptions of the framing give the approaches their meaning and tensions. Without clarity about these assumptions, the approaches don’t push and pull at each other to create a cohesive conversation. In the practice of issue framing, I believe one of our most important tasks is to understand and to make explicit whatever assumptions are needed to make the approaches work together effectively. If we don’t do this, we make deliberation more difficult…and it’s already quite a challenge!

Posted by deliber8ca at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our current economic crisis is being called ‘a perfect storm’ by some columnists and experts. That’s probably accurate. A crisis this deep and this pervasive cannot be created by just one or two errors in judgment, but requires a series of short-sighted decisions that each brought their own unintended consequences.

One of the priceless moments in recent media history literally took a popular TV program off the air for evading their responsibilities in critical public discourse. On October 15, 2004, Jon Stewart appeared on CNN Crossfire to personally challenge the two co-hosts on their journalistic ethics. This exchange has become one of the most blogged news items of 2004, and is now part of the popular culture as citizens think about the role of media in 21^st century politics. Most important reflection I have from this event is not that a TV program was quickly canceled after an on-air confrontation, but that it took a comedian to expose the shallow nature of political discourse in much of our media.

Alas, not much has changed. The specific format of Crossfire has not been duplicated, but the foundational political premise of the show has basically taken over: politics is a power struggle between predictable ideologies. I believe it was the predictability of the nightly Crossfire interviews that fueled the strongest of Stewart’s criticisms. It was ideological theater where predictable questions brought predictable answers, and where no one was expected to go “off script.” Fortunately, Stewart went “off script.” 

Last year at the sudden and shocking death of Tim Russert of Meet the Press, we had the opportunity to reflect on a journalist who hadn’t fallen for the ideology trap, and we mourned his rare gift as a critical and humble political interviewer. Russert’s questions never became predictable. His style and content challenged us to think about the political choices our leaders make as complex and interconnected, rather than reinforcing our political stereotypes in simplistic policy sound bites.

Posted by deliber8ca at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By now I think most of us are familiar with the concept of the ‘housing bubble’…the over-inflation and explosion of housing prices across the country, but most troubling on the coasts. Unfortunately, this bubble leads to another and another and another. As Paul Krugman pointed out in mid-December in the NY Times, our economy and the Madoff scheme look amazingly similar. One is legal and one is not…both depend on greed…neither is sustainable.

Posted by deliber8ca at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)