diversity

hello

mentoring

"supportively guiding others in learning these arts of public life"

hello.

evaluation and reflection

"assessing and incorporating the lessons we learn through action"

So I figured I would have to write a blog about this since I have been writing all of the arts of democracy in sequential order and I would eventually get to this. And I figured that for this blog I would assess how I as an individual have been implementing the arts of democracy in my daily life. So, as I thought about the different arts of democracy which I use everyday, like negotiation and active listening, I found that since the beginning of this class I have not effectively began using the skills I've learned in a way that has actually made a difference in my democratic encounters.

So, I decided that for the next disagreement I got into, no matter who it was with or what it was about, I would at least try to incorporate the arts of negotiation and active listening since they seemed like the easiest both to do and to implement. Unfortunately, the other individual who I was arguing hadn't taken arts of democracy and had no intention of implementing any of its arts when it came to our disagreement. And I finally broke down and just went back to my usual way of ending a disagreement with this person, which would be to use some poor words and then we wouldn't speak for awhile until we had both forgotten about the disagreement. (which should show that most of what we argue about is very petty, since we forget about it so quickly, which should be a lesson to me just to bite my tongue and not get into the disagreement in the first place.)

Which, is exactly what I've been trying to do when it comes to most of my disagreements: bite my tongue and try not to get into one. Maybe that's not the art of democracy that we were supposed to learn when it came to this class, but it's one I've learned over the past while. While I have difficulty sticking to the biting the tongue policy since I have such a quick and sharp one, I'm trying my best. And in any case, prevention is supposed to be the best policy, isn't it?

celebration and appreciation!

"expressing joy and appreciation for what we learn as well as what we achieve"

Last night as I was planning on writing this blog today I had a rather odd dream that I am certain that related to this blog in someway. I can't remember at all what the dream was or what it was about, so unfortunately I can't repeat that here to be able to share it with you. However, it made enough of an impression on me that I figured I might as well mention it for kicks.

I am not sure exactly what to write for this blog. It seems as though it would be easier to write than the blogs which dealt specifically with conflict, but actually I think conflict is easier to talk about. Mainly because with conflict there is more to complain about than with something like celebration and appreciation. However, I'm sure it wouldn't be mentioned in the arts of democracy if it wasn't important to democracy.

In the United States, the dates on which we really celebrate and appreciate our rights as American citizens would be President's Day, Veteran's Day and Independence Day. However, I think that most Americans, particularly youth since that is what I am and what I've had the most experience with, don't really take the time to appreciate or celebrate the rights we have in a democracy. Therefore, we never really take the time to consider what has been done in order to give us these rights in the past, especially on a day like Veteran's Day when we consider the soldiers who have fought in past and current wars for our freedom. Mainly those two holidays, meaning Veteran's and President's Day, are nice days to have three day or even four day weekends and visit Portland or Vancouver. And, the fourth of July is usually a day that we spend with our friends and family and watch fireworks. But, I do not think that many people take the time to reflect and celebrate and appreciate on those designated days.

So, I suppose this art of democracy is important otherwise people take their rights for granted, which is what they do in this country. At least I know I take my rights for granted and do not take the time to celebrate and appreciate our democratic achievements.

thanksgiving conflict journal

Over the holiday break when keeping my conflict journal I was disappointed with the relatively limited material I got to work with. Generally speaking anytime that my family gets together to do anything there is some sort of conflict. In fact, I would say that every time my family gets together there is conflict. Perhaps not major, in fact, it rarely is major, but of course, it usually is the minor details that stirs up a big fight I've observed. That is not to say that major things have not stirred up controversy, it just comes up less often.

Thursday, the day of Thanksgiving, would be the day that my family went to my Aunt's house to enjoy the lovely Turkey Day.

The Gift Exchange

Every year, the adults in my family have a gift exchange so they don't have to buy gifts for every individual member of the family. We used to have a gift exchange among the children in our family as well, but it ended up just being the parents buying the gifts, so we disbanded that practice. Anyway, my mother's cousin is the one that leads up this exchange and forces it upon everywhere every year.

Well, some adults in my family don't particulary care for the gift exchange. One individual who would particurly adament against this forced insitution would be my father. It doesn't really actually matter if my dad "participates" or not, because in the end, my mother is the one that buys all of the presents, which is pretty safe to assume is the case for every woman in my family. Sometimes I think holidays would be a lot more enjoyable if there were no men. This year before going over to my aunt's, my dad specifically told my mother that he did not want to be a part of the gift exchange. There are several reasons for my father disliking the gift exchange. The first would be the crappy gifts that he's received in the past. One year my uncle bought my father a chia pet, which my father didn't like. Additionally one year he received a walkman, which he did not particularly care for considering walkmans are no longer in style. My mother has also received her fair share of bad gifts via the gift exchange. One year her brother purchased a particularly hideous brown vase for her enjoyment.

Anyway, the message apparently did not get across to the gift exchange planning commitee, so when it came to drawing names for the gift exchange, my father's name was still in the basket. The main reason would be the fact that my mother "forgot" to tell them to take his name out. So, when the basket came around to my father, he refused to draw a name. This created a rather awkward situation, although not as awkward considering my father is generally a very stubborn, somewhat anti-social person. The resolution was that my cousin, Samira, had to instead draw for him and gave the name to my mom so that she could buy the present for him that she was going to have to buy anyway. Then my father decided to leave and sit in the other room to pout for a while because he was mad at my mom.

Conclusion: Not so great.

The Dirty Politics

My family is fairly divided when it comes to politics;

public judgment

"public decision making that allows citizens to make choices they are willing to help implement"

When I first heard the term, "public judgment", the first thought that came to my mind was that it was where the public judged other people. Which, would obviously make sense since that would be the most natural conclusion to draw from the term "public judgment", would it not? So, when I did figure out what it meant according to the textbook and whatnot, it still confused me so I decided to do some further research on the idea. I found a somewhat interesting article by typing in "public judgment" into google and skimmed it to try and better understand the concept. The title of it was "A Call to Move Beyond Public Opinion to Public Judgment".

Just thinking about that title alone, it gave me a somewhat better idea of what it means. If public judgment is a step higher than public opinion that's better than not knowing what it meant at all. But, it went on to discuss the various ways that Americans have opinions about the matter of our government. But, they rarely move beyond these opinions since a general sentiment among the American public is that one person is too small to voice their opinion in a way that it can make any difference. But, in order for a democracy to be healthy and functioning, it is important that people do voice their opinions, otherwise we more or less become an elected republic. And in many ways we currently are only an elected republic since so few "normal" people do anything in politics to change issues.

The importance of public judgment is that it moves beyond individual people just having an opinion of what is going on in a far-away land known as Washington D.C.. It is about the realization of the power that each person has and in realizing this power, grabs it and makes a difference. This is the concept of public judgment -- where the public actively decides which direction our country is going to be going. Which is exactly what was said at the beginning of our nation's formation, that we were to be a government "for the people, of the people and by the people". Our government is for our citizens and is of our citizens as well since all elected officials are citizens of the United States. But, without public judgment, our country is not by the people.

The article had at the end a call to individual citizens about how they can become involved in a way that they will be a part of the public judgment. And there were some excellent ideas were things like citizen deliberative councils and to become involved in organizations advocating deliberative democracy based on citizen dialogues. Public opinion is where citizens find themselves complaining about the government; public judgment is where citizens change what they dislike about the government. It is that difference between passive participation in democracy and active participation in democracy.

public dialogue

"public talk on matters that concern us all"

One of the things that I consider to be most important for any democracy to be healthy and functioning is to have an open forum. And within this open forum to be able to freely discuss and debate whatever issues are at hand within the democracy. This element of democracy reaches back to one of history's strongest advocates of democracy, Socrates. In Socrates' honor we refer to small group discussions and debates as Socratic Dialogues. In my educational experience I have been exposed to many different examples of socratic dialogues, all of which were experiences that I thoroughly enjoyed. There is something immensely refreshing and exceptional within a socratic dialogue because it allows individuals to express their thoughts and opinions in a forum where diverse ideas are celebrated and welcomed.

Diversity, which is something that has been stressed in arts of democracy, as something that is imperative for strength, vitality and longevity in a society is certainly true when it comes to ideas. I read Plato's work on the Life and Trial of Socrates and was immensely impressed of the power that Socrates placed in ideas. But, most of all, Socrates placed a high value in questions.

Questions, I believe, are the root of public dialogue. The reason that we have public dialogue is so that individuals can discuss, debate and examine the different possibilities for our society. But, if no one questions the current norms, then there never will be any different solutions created or presented. Questioning is also essential to public dialogue because if we blindly accept what others tell us, then we will not question and think for ourselves what we actually truly believe. However, if we question and consider and reform ideas based off of our own personal research, we find that the public dialogue can be far more healthy and functioning in a democratic sense.

-- mediation --

"facilitating interaction to help people in conflict hear each other"

Since I was a kid I think that I've always had a negative impression of people who try to be peacemakers. The reason was because I knew them by a different name, "meddlers". I even still think of those who try to mediate conflicts as meddlers. And, I don't have a very good view of meddlers. And, while mediation has been presented as an important art of democracy, I still disagree with the idea that people should mediate other people's problems. That bad impression of "peacemakers" has always stuck with me and I don't think it's going to disappear very soon.

Granted, I'm sure that mediation has a place in the arts of democracy. That place would be also known as, "to be used as little as possible". I suppose I'm honestly not giving mediation enough credit though and you're probably thinking that I'm just shrugging this off altogether and I guess in a way, I am. But, I have such a bad impression of people who are meddlers that I can't look towards someone who is a mediator as not being a meddler.

I dislike people who stick their noses into other people's business. Everyone should just keep to themselves and solve their own problems without judging other people to the point where they think they can solve someone else's problem better than they can. Though a fresh perspective could be useful, I think that no one knows a problem as well as those involved, therefore no one could propose a solution better than those involved as well.

active listening

"encouraging the speaker and searching for meaning"

I've found that in most of the arguments that I have, the main part where they break down is where the other individual doesn't listen to what the other person says. While this is true on both sides of some of the arguments that I have, if I think about the person I argue with the most, they are an individual who never listens to me. I suppose it is probably because this individual is an authority figure over myself and therefore thinks that they have no obligation to listen to what I am saying.

But, how could a disagreement ever be solved properly if they are always one-sided? Otherwise, it's one person getting what they want and the other person never getting what they want, even if the other person may be right. Because without active listening, you're not paying attention to what the other individual is saying, you're simply preparing for your next amazing point to refute everything that they had said before.

But, in my experience that passive listening isn't even alive in the arguments that I have. It simply is an automatic shut-down of what the other person is saying and therefore nothing is ever heard. Or one person shouting over another person because they refuse to listen to anything that they are saying. Which is why the art of democracy of active listening is so imperative for a healthy debate that's going to get things done.

creative conflict?

"confronting others in ways that produce growth"

There is a particular episode of the "The Office" called "Conflict Resolution" which I think would be a perfect example of all of the things that you are not supposed to do when it comes to mediating conflicts between other people. The general background to the episode is that it is a typical office where employees will have complaints about their fellow co-workers that they will submit to their HR representative. When the boss, Michael Scott, who, although is a very caring person, is also very immature and injudicious individual, decides to solve his employee's conflicts, it ends up to be a negotiation nightmare.

One of the main conflicts that he "negotiates", while it would be an excellent example of creative conflict, it unfortunately satisfies neither of the two parties. The two fueding parties, both accountants, Oscar and Angela, are arguing over a poster Angela has on the wall that Oscar dislikes seeing. In order to achieve a perfect, "win-win-win" solution (a solution where both parties and the mediator win), Michael suggests that Angela make the poster into a t-shirt that Oscar wears. While this is a very creative solution to the problem, perhaps a better one than the secretary Pam's idea of a compromise of having it up Tuesdays and Thursdays, it really didn't satisfy either Oscar or Angela.

Continuing with his quest, the boss Michael, furthur stirs up controversy when he forces additional fueding parties to meet with each other to "resolve" their conflicts. The problem would this would be that neither party had come willing to meet with each other and therefore were not ready to meet, nor were they coming with a willing heart to compromise to find a solution. The end of the day resulted in several employees mad at each other because controversy had been stirred up without a proper plan of action for a resolution. So, basically, I think that this would all be an excellent example of what not to do when it comes to mediating a conflict between a group of other people.

negotiation

"problem solving that meets some key interests of all involved"

One of the things that's pretty characteristic of my household would be the general din of bickering between various members of my family. I'll do them the honor of not specifically mentioning their names, even though by process of elimination some things are just blatantly obvious. Their disagreements are generally over very minor things, though this is definitely not always true. However, generally speaking it's just a snide comment and an overreaction to it is enough to escalate to a full out world war between the two parties. The idea of discontinuing these sort of rude and obvious comments that are going to anger the other party and cause them to lash out because of their general lack of keeping their cool never seems to register in either mind negatively. There is the general lack of learning from past mistakes and adapting according to their findings.

I suppose the main difficulty would be with their personalities, which unfortunately, because they tend to be related by blood, are quite similar. In fact, they both have the exact length of a fuse when it comes to exploding, which is pretty much as short as they come. Their obstinate personalities causing a friction between the two persons that could easily be eliminated if both parties simply came to an agreement to keep their cool when interacting. Unfortunately, they seem to lack a common sense know-how when it comes to problem solving. They generally butt heads over something completely minor and irrelevant, such as the state of one's hair, a comment that while fairly minor, can be misconstrued to a terrible extent when you bring in every past grievance into every new conflict, demonstrating an inability of just being able to bury the hatchet is nonexistent. The disheartening part is that when they're not fighting, they get along really well but their matching set of short fuse personalities, which at times are a good thing since they have several of the same interests, causes them to have this friction.

If these two individuals could just learn to come to some sort of consensus and agreement over their attitudes and learn to deal with each other, they could be extremely close. If they simply applied the rules of compromise, discussion, problem-solving and just plain old getting along, they would be two peas in a pod, just as they should be. However, until they learn to, which they may never, history is full of cases of individuals who had too close of personalities for their own good, Benjamin Franklin and his son William would be an excellent example, which is also an unfortunate example because it pretty much breaks down my agreement of confidentiality, but until they do, their relationship will never be able to grow and prosper like it should. But, I hope someday it will.

political imagination

"reimaging our futures according to our values"

This is my first arts of democracy blog and I'm not sure exactly how to start it, so I guess I will do it in the only way I know how to do anything: just start talking. I've always been a pretty passionate person about government and politics and that sort of stuff, but I suppose my first real educational experience with democracy would be in ninth grade. We were all required to take our highschool graduation requirement of a social studies class, the reasoning behind it being that we would get it out of the way so we wouldn't have to take it later. That was probably my favorite class that I've ever had. I've always been a language arts junkie, but the language arts classes I've attended could never compare to my civics class. My success in a class is almost directly related to how much I enjoy what we're learning and in that class I ended up with the highest grade of anyone. When I say that, I don't mean to say, wow, look how amazingly cool I am, although I'll admit, I rarely am the top student,so I was pretty darn proud.

We went through the constitution in that class, the backbone of America's democratic system that's infused with our notions of a republic. It was an odd mixture of history, politics, current events, debate and basic human rights. Basically, it was a mixture of everything that drives me wild. I am fascinated with the idea of government and political science. I have strong principles and ethics and ideas and I have gained these based upon my own convictions of what is right and wrong. I have a firm respect for democracy; I believe that it is the driving force of human freedom in this world. Without democracy, there is no voice.

I guess I've always been attracted to the democratic forum of ideas though. I'm pretty close with my dad and one of the unique parts about our relationship is that everything we converse about is driving towards some logical conclusion about humankind. Our discussions range from politics to religion to philosophy. I'm close with my mom too, but we don't have the same philosophical relationship that my dad and I have. I really admire my father for raising me the way he did, in an open forum of ideas. I'm not saying my dad isn't narrow-minded, he is, but he's a firm proponent of democracy. I think it was him that taught me to love it too.