Deep democracy: a new model for politics?
It's been said often these past few days that Tony Abbott's prime ministership achieved little of substance. But that doesn't mean it didn't leave a legacy.
Adding to the dysfunction of the Labor years, for many it left a deeper disillusionment with politics, a thicker poison. Our disdain for politicians, our fatigue with their combativeness and repetition, remains. We got a lot of blame but few solutions. Malcolm Turnbull's win doesn't yet seem real. Could we really hope for something more sophisticated?
Abbott talked about creating opportunities but shut blinds, narrowed pathways. His pattern of support for powerful interests such as banks and coal mining companies over their customers and competing interests further disempowered the least powerful.
Abbott talked once about looking after "forgotten families" but made us brittle, more anxious and heartsick. However, he didn't kill our interest in politics. For some he did the opposite - he fertilised the fruits of activism. He got us more involved in an attempt to rebuild our democratic process.
Seeing action as an antidote to despair, all sorts of Australians became incredibly active, waging "lawfare" in the courts, blazoning walls with protest art, marching through cities and staging candle-light vigils even as Abbott made those things more difficult.
Now with a new prime minister, restoring confidence in our democracy will require far more than tweaking the way senators are elected.
Keeping promises is vital, as is articulating a vision. Vision leads directly to values. What is politics for? What is the purpose of public life, its meaning, its shaping and guiding principles? And, most important, what is a good society?
But in enunciating a vision, public alienation can only be turned around with something more, something that shifts us from the superficial form of democracy based on voting and majority rule.
The movement is called deep democracy. It treats majority rule as merely a starting point. It engages minorities as well as the majority, seeking out what they have to say.
The approach asks the question: "what would it take for you to come along and join the majority?". The question isn't an invitation for anyone to betray their views. The process is a means of respecting other views so that majority decisions are better. The idea is that after being listened to, minorities are less likely to disrupt the decision reached by the majority.
It's an approach that can be used whenever there's a difference of opinion - in politics, in workplaces, in the home. It changes the atmospherics by acknowledging where people agree as well as where they differ. It mines the wisdom of alternatives and minority views, tries to find grains of truth and common ground. Deep democracy has been used to great effect in corporate South Africa, where hierarchies have been flattened post apartheid and people need fresh ways to get along.
Woody Allen once joked that relationships are like sharks: they need to move or they die. Democracy is a relationship. It needs respectful engagement. Turnbull seeks to connect with Australians via technology, in a way Abbott never did.
Writing on the future of democracy in his book All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies and the Politics of Dignity, American social reformer Robert W. Fuller holds out the prospect of a "dignitarian model of politics". It's another version of deep democracy. Rankism, he says, is a major cause of disrespect and stops us from going beyond the surface. In Fuller's version, conservative and progressive parties openly engage without fear or malice until they reach a common understanding, instead of being locked in stalemate. Australia's adversarial system doesn't support that approach. It fosters conflict; Abbott's war mentality.
Many Australians, including this writer, are fed up with our hyper-adversarial system of politics. If Turnbull is serious about intelligent conversation (as he says he is) he will not only consult with his own but also reach out to others, knowing that the very act of reaching out is important.
In his first question time with Turnbull as leader, Labor's Bill Shorten extended an olive branch, offering an honest exchange of ideas. What if Turnbull took it up? It would build more confidence in democracy than any of the arm wrestles we see in the Senate.
If deep democracy became entrenched in our culture personal attacks would backfire, discrediting their purveyors instead of their targets.
We would still have arguments, but they would be respectful and civil. They would acknowledge agreement as well as differences. They would acknowledge what matters. Otherwise, it's business as usual and history repeating itself, as it often does.
First published in The Canberra Times, September 24, 2015
Adding to the dysfunction of the Labor years, for many it left a deeper disillusionment with politics, a thicker poison. Our disdain for politicians, our fatigue with their combativeness and repetition, remains. We got a lot of blame but few solutions. Malcolm Turnbull's win doesn't yet seem real. Could we really hope for something more sophisticated?
Abbott talked about creating opportunities but shut blinds, narrowed pathways. His pattern of support for powerful interests such as banks and coal mining companies over their customers and competing interests further disempowered the least powerful.
Abbott talked once about looking after "forgotten families" but made us brittle, more anxious and heartsick. However, he didn't kill our interest in politics. For some he did the opposite - he fertilised the fruits of activism. He got us more involved in an attempt to rebuild our democratic process.
Seeing action as an antidote to despair, all sorts of Australians became incredibly active, waging "lawfare" in the courts, blazoning walls with protest art, marching through cities and staging candle-light vigils even as Abbott made those things more difficult.
Now with a new prime minister, restoring confidence in our democracy will require far more than tweaking the way senators are elected.
Keeping promises is vital, as is articulating a vision. Vision leads directly to values. What is politics for? What is the purpose of public life, its meaning, its shaping and guiding principles? And, most important, what is a good society?
But in enunciating a vision, public alienation can only be turned around with something more, something that shifts us from the superficial form of democracy based on voting and majority rule.
The movement is called deep democracy. It treats majority rule as merely a starting point. It engages minorities as well as the majority, seeking out what they have to say.
The approach asks the question: "what would it take for you to come along and join the majority?". The question isn't an invitation for anyone to betray their views. The process is a means of respecting other views so that majority decisions are better. The idea is that after being listened to, minorities are less likely to disrupt the decision reached by the majority.
It's an approach that can be used whenever there's a difference of opinion - in politics, in workplaces, in the home. It changes the atmospherics by acknowledging where people agree as well as where they differ. It mines the wisdom of alternatives and minority views, tries to find grains of truth and common ground. Deep democracy has been used to great effect in corporate South Africa, where hierarchies have been flattened post apartheid and people need fresh ways to get along.
Woody Allen once joked that relationships are like sharks: they need to move or they die. Democracy is a relationship. It needs respectful engagement. Turnbull seeks to connect with Australians via technology, in a way Abbott never did.
Writing on the future of democracy in his book All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies and the Politics of Dignity, American social reformer Robert W. Fuller holds out the prospect of a "dignitarian model of politics". It's another version of deep democracy. Rankism, he says, is a major cause of disrespect and stops us from going beyond the surface. In Fuller's version, conservative and progressive parties openly engage without fear or malice until they reach a common understanding, instead of being locked in stalemate. Australia's adversarial system doesn't support that approach. It fosters conflict; Abbott's war mentality.
Many Australians, including this writer, are fed up with our hyper-adversarial system of politics. If Turnbull is serious about intelligent conversation (as he says he is) he will not only consult with his own but also reach out to others, knowing that the very act of reaching out is important.
In his first question time with Turnbull as leader, Labor's Bill Shorten extended an olive branch, offering an honest exchange of ideas. What if Turnbull took it up? It would build more confidence in democracy than any of the arm wrestles we see in the Senate.
If deep democracy became entrenched in our culture personal attacks would backfire, discrediting their purveyors instead of their targets.
We would still have arguments, but they would be respectful and civil. They would acknowledge agreement as well as differences. They would acknowledge what matters. Otherwise, it's business as usual and history repeating itself, as it often does.
First published in The Canberra Times, September 24, 2015
