Choosing engaged democracy and building the good life

I recently discovered that there is research to confirm my concerns about the media and the way it can isolate us into our own echo chambers that undermine societal dialogue and democratic cross-fertilization. Cass Sunstein, law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of this research. He focuses on the internet in particular, but I would suggest his findings translate to cable television, talk radio and other highly segmented media outlets as well. 

The wonderful thing about the modern world is the explosion of new options, technologies, ideas and possibilities. Old assumptions drop away, leaving us with new opportunities to choose. As we interact with others from increasingly different cultural backgrounds and with new ideas, new ways of looking at things and new technologies that make new ways of working and living feasible, we discover choices we didn't know we had. This is really exciting...

BUT the downside is that the traditional practices that held cultures together, that provided people with meaning, and that structured lives in ways that fostered healthy lives and communities are also being questioned and abandoned. 

At this point in history, it is difficult to know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. What is the wheat? What is the chaff? In the past, cultures had developed their own notions of "wheat" and "chaff" that members of those cultures accepted and used. Perhaps they would change subtly over the years, but there were few major rifts or disruptions. And by and large this separating of the world into good and evil, what works and what doesn't work, etc. worked for the members of those cultures. 

However, I would suggest that these systems of meaning worked for those members of cultures unevenly, and that there was significant room for improvement for many, but in the absence of any alternatives that could be easily compared people just went along. Consider the inherent patriarchy and second class citizenship of women in most cultures prior to the women's liberation movement of this century and you have a sense of how a culture might have uneven benefits without rebellion. The internalized oppression of patriarchy was powerful because it was not perceived clearly, or the alternatives were not understood, and so it continued on. 

Of course, even in the republican democracy that was created for the first time through the Constitution of the United States, as great a leap forward as it was, African Americans (and women) were initially denied full participation. Due to a combination of overt oppression and internalized oppression, this system continued without change for many years.

So when we look at cultural conflict and change in the past, there are a few alternatives. 

1. No change
   
2. Secession and establishment of an alternative culture somewhere else
3. Civil war between factions with a winner and a loser
4. Compromise between disparate interests: This is what we have in the U.S.
   
5. Transformation and transcendence: through dialogue and wisely engaged conflict, old divisions and compromises are transcended and new win-win alternatives are invented.
   

Over time as we have learned more about democracy, we have moved slowly down this list. I think right now we in the U.S. are somewhere about a 4.3 on this scale and the world as a whole is probably a weighted average of 3.6. I would like to see the whole world reach 5.0, and I will believe we will in time.

So to return to the "echo chamber" concept I have discussed above, in the past the echo chambers were formed primarily by discrete cultures that operated within their own systems of meaning and logic. Without deep and regular dialogue with "outsiders," cultures were essentially closed systems of meaning. People knew what society expected of them, knew what would happen if they didn't do what society wanted and society had ways of marginalizing the perspectives of others outside their culture so as to discourage defection or challenge. Whether these others were "infidels," "heathens," "the damned," "barbarians," "primitives," etc. cultures knew how to elevate their own views and attack and defend from contrary views. This ensured the continuation of those cultures.

But today the situation has been reversed. Traditional cultures have very little ability to protect their systems of meaning because the interaction of disparate cultures is unavoidable. (This is why we see a polarization into fundamentalists and the rest of us. Some people are trying to cling to what has been lost, and others are floating along with the rapid changes.) What we see emerging are new self-selected echo chambers forming fueled by radical individual choice and an ever expanding menu of media choices. This is the problem I referred to at the start of this post. 

So it is interesting how much things have changed! 

But the essential point of this post is that I think we need to examine our meta-choices, if you will, our choices about our choices. We need to recognize that we have the ability to choose not just as individual consumers of prepared content, but as co-creators of new systems of meaning. We can choose not just to watch certain media or consume this or that, but we can choose to create entirely new cultures! This will be appealing to many people because what what most people want is not unlimited choices throughout their day (which is overwhelming and unfulfilling), but instead for their daily experience to automatically and without effort to reflect their values and provide them with satisfaction. This can only happen if we can choose an entire culture to participate in.

1. First, we need to recognize the value of culture and comprehensive systems of meaning in creating healthy, happy lives.

 

2. Second, we need to begin thinking for ourselves about what cultures and systems of meaning might appeal to us, and articulating this for ourselves and others.

3. Third, we need to begin reaching out to others around the globe who share our cultural desires and vision.

4. Fourth, we need to get together with these others and decided to put these cultural ideas and principles into practice tangibly and experimentally.

5. Fifth, we need to record our experiences, both positive and negative, as clear-eyed as possible. We need to discuss these impressions with the others in the particular experiment we have chosen and see what collectively we have learned. We need to make adjustments and improvements to our experiment and then reevaluate periodically over time. 

6. Sixth, after a period of time, we need to take a break and engage with other people from other experiments and compare notes. What has worked for us? What has worked for them? As a result of this cross-fertilization, some people will have new ideas to bring back to their experiment, others will choose to abandon their experiment, and others will choose to join the other experiment.

In this way, we will invent new cultures that work better and better for more and more people. It will take time, but it is possible. The key is to recognize that we have choice at the level of culture itself.

The 60's were a time of social experimentation and society both benefited and was harmed by this experimentation. People were so intoxicated by their newly discovered freedom that they went wild. 

What was lacking was a scientific orientation and discipline to the experimentation (even if the experimentation itself is about something entirely different than science and discipline). A recognition that we don't have the answers ready-made and that we need to carefully create and invent them together was absent.

I am hoping that we are exiting the period of backlash to that experimentation and entering the next wave of experimentation. The difference this time is that we will experiment more maturely, more effectively, and more consciously. This will make all the difference in setting us on a course toward The Good Life and Heaven on Earth, one small considered step at a time.