Civic Engagement
Keely Adler and
Civic Engagement
Keely Adler and
Nearly half of Zoomers talk about politics and current events with their close friends at least once a week. But among voting-age Americans under 25, only 30 percent said they would “definitely” be voting in the November elections, compared with 60 percent of Americans 26 or older.
We [also] build our sense of civic identity and opinions about government through social interactions. […] Our social capital — which Putnam defines as the overarching belief about society that facilitates co-operation — diminishes when we lose opportunities to engage with people outside of our regular social networks.
As we collectively figure out how to facilitate and evaluate positive externalities, there needs to be possibility for involvement, participation and exchange with other groups and potential future stakeholders; a public outside the dark forest .
while voting is symbolically powerful, this model misses an important truth: we do not discover shared values through individually revealed preference. If public goods are to satisfy shared values, then public discussion of what's of value matters!
A value system is fostered through storytelling and negotiation in forums of public discourse.
ohn Podesta, a senior advisor to the Biden White House on clean energy, put it bluntly: “We got so good at stopping projects that we forgot how to build things in America.”
A big part of the reason America can’t build like we used to is that we’re victims to the tyranny of the minority. A small group of people with strong opinions, and a lot of free time, can block things that are supported by the majority of the population. The people who are willing to show up to community meetings have an outsized say in what gets
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