Written Rebellion

(in my humble opinion)

I agree with Aristotle who said that we are political beings. There is a fundamental part of a person's humanity that emerges only to the extent that individuals participate in public life, exercise their sense of what is good and excellent, and institute these values into communities by the decisions and actions of every citizen. The Greeks were on to something when they suggested that politics was a role of "amateurs," ordinary citizens who engaged in deciding and acting precisely because it was part of their way of being rather than an endeavor left in the hands of a few, often wealthy, paid professionals. When we abdicate our politics, we surrender a birthright that calls forth the most necessary dimensions of our humanity - the right to decide what is importnat and the capacity to act on those decisions. This is perilous. To the extent that social policy becomes divorced from us, and politics becomes the purview of mass political processes in control of the influential, we are disallowed from making crucial choices that determine the shape of our social environment. (More here.)

Thus, to be fully human and for our democracy to survive, the populace can no longer afford to leave the machinery of politics to the wealthy, the professionals, the influential, or the government officials. This is why it is imperative that we exercise our right to vote.

But that is not enough.

Ernesto Cortes said, "focusing on the least important elements of political action - voting, elections and turnout - trivializes our citizens by disconnecting them from the real debate and power of public life. We fail to recognize that voter participation is the wrong measure of the health of our politics. Voter turnout was high in Pinocet's Chile nor was it ever a problem in totalitarian countries. Becoming mere voters rather than citizens renders people incompetent" because it renders people who have the capacity of thinking and acting into mere spectators. The pervasive disengagement of Americans in our political process is disheartening at best. We are proud of calling ourselves a government "of the people," but we are rarely, if ever, engaged as direct actors in our political processes.

We need to create a grassroots democracy engaged in community-centered policy analysis. This means that policy issues ought to be resolved by the people who are directly affected by social issues and concerns, not by professional analysts or huge issue-based think tanks. Who knows better what people need than the people themselves?

Some people may dismiss me as young, naive, or idealistic. That's just not the way the world works, some might say. All of these things may be true.

But unless we dream big, and I mean really big, we will never have a chance to find out what could be, and we won't make any gains toward what ought to be.

Tuesday is a step, but it's just one step, toward reclaiming our country.