Democracy, peace, dialogue & deliberation

Second, while I often saw things in left vs. right terms, that axis doesn’t always translate globally. Others saw things more as the difference between talking about peace and talking about rights. “This was a very rights-based discussion,” said one person. And indeed this was true. We heard about women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, trans rights,... See more

I was surrounded by peace nerds talking about inclusion and plurality, but I have to confess, sometimes the event didn’t feel very inclusive or plural. Speakers often talked with the unstated assumption that left-ish politics are obviously correct. At times I felt the uncomfortable dissonance of being around a group of people explicitly talking... See more

Azzin’s answer is simple: “Show them how much we are going to lose if we don’t work together.”

Titled “A Bigger We,” FTF’s report argues that today’s democracy crisis is rooted in a crisis of agency, in that most Americans rarely, if ever, experience themselves as having the collective ability to change the world they live in. Or, to put it in a simpler vernacular: people don’t give a shit because they don’t think they matter. And too often,... See more

If democracy is this challenge of people coming together to figure out the kind of shared lives they want to forge, then the behaviors that they use to negotiate difference are going to flow from the commitments they have to each other. So when my husband and I fight, we fight like we want to stay married. We may deeply disagree about things, but... See more