Show me what democracy looks like
(This is what democracy looks like)
What do we do about the mess that we’re in?
I’ve heard this question in many forms from so many people over the past few months, usually accompanied by a more-than healthy dose of despair.
There are many newsletters with action steps about calling Senators and donating money to worthy causes. While these might be short term salves, this newsletter is devoted to the long-term project of building democratic life.
The Interwork is a space for us to determine together what it means, as Hannah Arendt would say, to share a common world. As the illusion of American democracy crumbles before us, we have an opportunity to build anew. What that looks like, well, that is for us to decide.
This newsletter isn’t just about the political. Democracy that functions at the national level rests upon beliefs we have about ourselves, trust we have in one another, and structures that allow us to connect at the micro-level. Ultimately, this newsletter is about how each of us can make changes within ourselves and our locus of control—changes that can ladder up to something like democracy.
Each newsletter will feature an interview with someone with insight into what I call democratic practice, or the mechanisms by which people come together and shape collective life, along with a prompt for how you can connect the conversation to your life. In this first newsletter, I’m interviewing myself because you, as a reader, deserve to know more about who you’re joining on this journey.
And you can also shape where we’re headed. Subscribe to this newsletter to let me know what you think and who I should talk to.
- Lia Weintraub
The Interview: Lia Weintraub
There’s a lot of talk about democracy, but we lack a shared definition. What does democracy mean to you?
Democracy is a system of governance where all people living in a place have the power and opportunity to shape its future. The process of shaping could take many forms, from direct participation to a representative system. What is most important is that people have a say in determining the structure and have a mechanism to change it if it no longer works.
I recognize that this definition runs counter to what a lot of people think. We have called ourselves a democracy in the United States for so long that, for many, it has become synonymous with the American way of government. Our democracy, according to this way of thinking, is the rule of law, the system of checks and balances that were enshrined in the Constitution. Protecting democracy means protecting the pre-existing systems of government that have, up until this point, upheld the Constitution.
Yet when we peel back the curtain, we realize that these very systems have allowed our democratic muscle to atrophy. They have allowed for the elite capture of politics and information, while giving people who have not been elected to office relatively few opportunities to inform public debate and decision making. Many of us are left wondering if the avenues that we thought were mechanisms for people to effect change even work. Does protest matter? Why bother voting? What can I do to make an impact?
To live in a democracy means that each person, regardless of their level of educational attainment, identity, or geography, has something to contribute to our shared world. Not just political consultants, lawyers or people with Ph.Ds. Everyone. Of course, we can’t just snap our fingers to arrive at this reality. We have to build the practice, the skills, and the pathways to truly function democratically. Because democracy is not a system that should be imposed. It is a system that is created through participation.
Where did this belief come from for you?
As a child, I desperately wanted to be respected for my ability to contribute. I remember being in conversations with adults where they would ask me banal questions about my day or about school. I remember thinking, “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself? Why don’t you engage in a back and forth conversation with me?” I knew myself to be capable of exchange, but hated that the construct of conversation between an adult and a child assumed this would not be possible.
Though this type of conversation was the norm, there were bright spots that showed me that something different was possible. As a five year old, I developed a friendship with my across-the-street neighbors, a couple my parents’ age. I loved them because they took me seriously. They talked to me about their lives. They were genuinely interested in what I had to say about my experience. Their openness led to us developing a lifelong friendship.
Something opened up in me when there was a pathway for engagement. I don’t think that this is unique to me. I think that we are all desperate to matter. To feel like we can contribute something. Yet the contracts that govern our life together reinforce messages that no one has anything to contribute, unless you have billions of dollars to spare or are in a position of power. This extends beyond government to our workplaces, our schools, and our religious communities, many of which have a top-down approach with few mechanisms for feedback or iterative design. To exist in a democracy requires each person to have an opportunity to play a role, but this reality requires a change in how our systems are structured and how we engage within them.
It’s interesting that you bring up democratic practice beyond government. What exactly does it look like to have structures that encourage us to engage democratically?
Any place where we come into contact with other people offers an opportunity for democratic engagement, from a dinner party to a team meeting and a farmer’s market. Encouraging genuine connection and participation in these spaces requires intention in practice and design.
Think about the workplace. How are decisions made? Has that process ever been made explicit? I work on the civic engagement team at a nonprofit organization. We recently had a conversation about how, if we want to encourage civic participation externally, we have to model it internally on our team.
I started scouring the Internet for models of effective democratic structures in the workplace and was shocked by how little I found. After some digging, I found an 100-page guide from the Democracy at Work Institute, an organization that supports worker cooperatives. Though I do not work at a cooperative, I reasoned that I could still learn something. One of the recommended activities in the report was to collaboratively create a list of “rights” and “responsibilities” to determine what are we owed and what we owe to the team. Another was to set a decision making grid to codify who makes what type of decision and how. For example, a financial decision might be made by the leader of the team with input from team members, while the decision to take on a new client requires the whole team’s consent. I had never seen different decision making structures laid out so cleanly, nor had I ever had a discussion about when to use which type.
The process of following these activities with my team was revelatory. We established a contract of what we owe/are owed as members of the team. We created a grid of the types of decisions that we make and determined what decision making process would work for each. Even just discussing these new guidelines created a culture of investment and buy-in that we lacked previously. It helped us to strengthen our democratic muscle.
If we stop and question the norms that govern our shared spaces, we realize that many of them are not designed for connection, creativity, collaboration, transparency, or empowerment. This affects our relationships with others and even our belief in ourselves.
You’re starting a newsletter about democracy at a very interesting time. What is your hope for the newsletter?
My Internet rabbit hole about democratic practices at work helped me to recognize that we lack a shared vocabulary for engaging equitably with one another. This is not to say that these ideas don’t exist. I think that very many people are grappling with how to engage with ourselves and each other, and many people recognize that our structures — and our relationship to one another — do not promote democracy. Much, though not all, of this conversation happens at a theoretical level. Practice happens in siloed corners.
I believe wholeheartedly that, to live in a democracy, we must learn how to be with ourselves and each other. This requires individual discipline, but also contexts that facilitate connection. The Interwork is my exploration into what these traits and contexts are so that each of us can put them into practice and, perhaps, bring a democratic reality into being.
I hope that this newsletter will start off as a conversation and an exploration into democratic practice. Over time, I could see this newsletter becoming the foundation for a community where we try out the practices together.
The Prompt: Show Me What Democracy Looks Like
I shared a story from my childhood that showed me that democratic engagement was possible. Now it’s your turn: Can you remember a time when you felt like you could effectively contribute to a shared project? What was special about that situation that helped you to feel this way?
If you feel so moved, become a subscriber and email your response to me! I’ll try to respond to every message I get.