I strongly believe the strategies used by the Democratic Party are “old school,” too focused on raising money and unable to understand that candidates need to be educating the public as well as presenting themselves as problem solvers. I am 80 years old, still an idealist, but sick at heart over the waste of time, money and energy that yielded the worst result.
Excellent article. This quote from Arendt nails it:
“Americans knew that public freedom consisted in having a share in public business, and activities connected with this were not a burden, but gave those who discharged them in public a feeling of happiness they could acquire nowhere else”
And this, from the article: “public freedom… depends on everyone feeling seen, heard, and respected by their fellow citizens – a ‘participator in the government of affairs’, to [quote] Thomas Jefferson.”
Thanks to DemNext and others, people are starting to understand how to do this. The Deschutes Civic Assembly is a great example.
Hello Claudia, as you know I agree wholeheartedly with your ideas about improving democracy by making it more truly representative. But feel that this technical aspect of democratic legitimacy misses an important point - that government has then got to do something about the findings. And as we have seen in the UK from our National Food Strategy and Citizens Assembly on Climate Change and many others, even when governments commit to listen, and even act on the findings, they just don't. Or cherry-pick according to economic priorities and don't bother to explain why.
Whilst new democratic processes are essential, we feel that the problem is about designing and delivering on the real purpose of the state. I often quote the Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report of 2020 (link below) which says: "if satisfaction with democracy is now falling across many of the world’s largest mature and emerging democracies – including the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and South Africa – it is not because citizens’ expectations are excessive or unrealistic, but because democratic institutions are falling short of the outcomes that matter most for their legitimacy, including probity in office, upholding the rule of law, responsiveness to public concerns, ensuring economic and financial security, and raising living standards for the larger majority of society."
People in the US and UK kicked the ass of incumbents trying hard to do this, in favour of those who seem to have no interest in probity in office and the rule of law because the state is not doing its job for them and promises were not kept, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad reasons.
Really listening to what people want is, as you say, essential. But then delivery on promises has to happen. Platitudes about how strong the economy is, or how migrants are actually helping people are of no interest to the 'left behind' places who have no change of a decent life and 'deaths of despair' are happening when predatory companies are decimating public health and gig economy jobs are the only thing available, if at all.
But not saying it is easy at all. In our work on The Addiction Economy, we are looking at three different approaches, The Nanny State which is laissez faire, The Negligent State which is the reality of the Nanny State, which despite what people think, we have now and The Nurturing State which understands that human flourishing is at the heart of what the state is all about, whether that is about shepherding innovation, public health, education or regulation. Even scratching the surface shows the balancing act of economic growth and human flourishing is brain bogglingly hard, but I think worth persuading.
We have got interest from a large book publisher in a book on this and your work will definitely be part of the solution! We will be on to you and hoping for your views again when we get to writing that bit!
Thanks Hilary. I very much agree with you, and it’s why all my work is devoted to not just ensuring assemblies happen, but that they’re institutionalised and we’re shifting realm power, and that there is a relationship with the public administration to ensure the implementation happens as well. I am fully with you about the limits of the one-off approach!
I got so excited reading this, Claudia, that I set aside another blog post I was working on to feature it in my next post.
But I thought to check on the deeply meaningful key phrase “public happiness”, only to discover it doesn’t occur in the US Constitution at all https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript. (In my search I got as far as "happ", which occurs in 3 instances, all in the word "happen".) And the word "public" only occurs in the phrases "public Ministers", "public Acts", "public Trust", "public Safety", and "public Money", as well as in the word "Republican”.
So it seems the idea of "public happiness" as articulated in the article is not only deeply meaningful but also quite novel. I love it, but I fear this flaw in its presentation might undermine its validity in the eyes of too many mainstream folks, especially academics.
On the other hand, "happiness" occurs in the American Declaration of Independence in the well-known phrase "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It again occurs in the Declaration’s most revolutionary phrase "to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
I recalled hearing the phrase “life, liberty, and property” and wondered how that related to "life, liberty, and happiness”. It turns out the former comes from philosopher John Locke who was propounding influential on US Founders. But Jefferson - for unknown reasons - switched “property” to “happiness”. Here’s a fascinating article about that - https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/why-did-jefferson-change-property-to-the-pursuit-o - which notes that Bill O’Reilly made a similar mistake about happiness being in the Constitution. After intriguing adventures through numerous philosophers who uplifted deep forms of happiness as fundamental to human life and motivation, the article’s final paragraph comes very close to your concept of “public happiness”.
Inspired by that and curious for more, I searched for Hamilton and Social Happiness and ran across a compendium of references variously related to the idea. https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=social+happiness&so=rel A similar search for Public Happiness brought even more to light. So there’s lots out there on the topic, variously phrased. But I have no idea how much of it relates to your particular meaning, which is so compelling to us DD folks today.
I hope you or your associates can create a post that comparably introduces the topic without grounding it the false idea that it is in the Constitution. It seems there’s lots of material you COULD ground it in (although that might require a bit more research) - but I think such an article can present the idea even without much historic contextualization. In any case, it might become a classic in our field. I, certainly, would treat it as such.
Hi Tom, thanks for your message! You’re right that this is a mistake on my end that I’ll correct, I meant to say that it’s the language that was in the declaration rather than the constitution.
I take away tremendous optimism from the continuous demonstration that the struggles we face today already been presented and worked through in the past. The 3-minute video is touching as well.
This seems somewhat alluded to in the writing, though what I am seeking more clarity on is identifying the leverage point(s) to move from "they are the problem" to taking personal responsibility and feeling called into being a part of the solution(s). If this consciousness shift seems easy in concept, the challenge in practice is overcoming the resistance to critical self-reflection and facing habitual behaviors that are contributing to the problems of division and polarization.
I'd appreciate it if you and others have thoughts here. On a personal level, we have Thanksgiving coming up in the US and I imagine many of us will be facing a lot of un-constructive politics being inserted into the conversation.
I strongly believe the strategies used by the Democratic Party are “old school,” too focused on raising money and unable to understand that candidates need to be educating the public as well as presenting themselves as problem solvers. I am 80 years old, still an idealist, but sick at heart over the waste of time, money and energy that yielded the worst result.
Excellent article. This quote from Arendt nails it:
“Americans knew that public freedom consisted in having a share in public business, and activities connected with this were not a burden, but gave those who discharged them in public a feeling of happiness they could acquire nowhere else”
And this, from the article: “public freedom… depends on everyone feeling seen, heard, and respected by their fellow citizens – a ‘participator in the government of affairs’, to [quote] Thomas Jefferson.”
Thanks to DemNext and others, people are starting to understand how to do this. The Deschutes Civic Assembly is a great example.
Hello Claudia, as you know I agree wholeheartedly with your ideas about improving democracy by making it more truly representative. But feel that this technical aspect of democratic legitimacy misses an important point - that government has then got to do something about the findings. And as we have seen in the UK from our National Food Strategy and Citizens Assembly on Climate Change and many others, even when governments commit to listen, and even act on the findings, they just don't. Or cherry-pick according to economic priorities and don't bother to explain why.
Whilst new democratic processes are essential, we feel that the problem is about designing and delivering on the real purpose of the state. I often quote the Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report of 2020 (link below) which says: "if satisfaction with democracy is now falling across many of the world’s largest mature and emerging democracies – including the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and South Africa – it is not because citizens’ expectations are excessive or unrealistic, but because democratic institutions are falling short of the outcomes that matter most for their legitimacy, including probity in office, upholding the rule of law, responsiveness to public concerns, ensuring economic and financial security, and raising living standards for the larger majority of society."
People in the US and UK kicked the ass of incumbents trying hard to do this, in favour of those who seem to have no interest in probity in office and the rule of law because the state is not doing its job for them and promises were not kept, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad reasons.
Really listening to what people want is, as you say, essential. But then delivery on promises has to happen. Platitudes about how strong the economy is, or how migrants are actually helping people are of no interest to the 'left behind' places who have no change of a decent life and 'deaths of despair' are happening when predatory companies are decimating public health and gig economy jobs are the only thing available, if at all.
But not saying it is easy at all. In our work on The Addiction Economy, we are looking at three different approaches, The Nanny State which is laissez faire, The Negligent State which is the reality of the Nanny State, which despite what people think, we have now and The Nurturing State which understands that human flourishing is at the heart of what the state is all about, whether that is about shepherding innovation, public health, education or regulation. Even scratching the surface shows the balancing act of economic growth and human flourishing is brain bogglingly hard, but I think worth persuading.
We have got interest from a large book publisher in a book on this and your work will definitely be part of the solution! We will be on to you and hoping for your views again when we get to writing that bit!
Thanks Hilary. I very much agree with you, and it’s why all my work is devoted to not just ensuring assemblies happen, but that they’re institutionalised and we’re shifting realm power, and that there is a relationship with the public administration to ensure the implementation happens as well. I am fully with you about the limits of the one-off approach!
I got so excited reading this, Claudia, that I set aside another blog post I was working on to feature it in my next post.
But I thought to check on the deeply meaningful key phrase “public happiness”, only to discover it doesn’t occur in the US Constitution at all https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript. (In my search I got as far as "happ", which occurs in 3 instances, all in the word "happen".) And the word "public" only occurs in the phrases "public Ministers", "public Acts", "public Trust", "public Safety", and "public Money", as well as in the word "Republican”.
So it seems the idea of "public happiness" as articulated in the article is not only deeply meaningful but also quite novel. I love it, but I fear this flaw in its presentation might undermine its validity in the eyes of too many mainstream folks, especially academics.
On the other hand, "happiness" occurs in the American Declaration of Independence in the well-known phrase "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It again occurs in the Declaration’s most revolutionary phrase "to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
I recalled hearing the phrase “life, liberty, and property” and wondered how that related to "life, liberty, and happiness”. It turns out the former comes from philosopher John Locke who was propounding influential on US Founders. But Jefferson - for unknown reasons - switched “property” to “happiness”. Here’s a fascinating article about that - https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/why-did-jefferson-change-property-to-the-pursuit-o - which notes that Bill O’Reilly made a similar mistake about happiness being in the Constitution. After intriguing adventures through numerous philosophers who uplifted deep forms of happiness as fundamental to human life and motivation, the article’s final paragraph comes very close to your concept of “public happiness”.
Inspired by that and curious for more, I searched for Hamilton and Social Happiness and ran across a compendium of references variously related to the idea. https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=social+happiness&so=rel A similar search for Public Happiness brought even more to light. So there’s lots out there on the topic, variously phrased. But I have no idea how much of it relates to your particular meaning, which is so compelling to us DD folks today.
I hope you or your associates can create a post that comparably introduces the topic without grounding it the false idea that it is in the Constitution. It seems there’s lots of material you COULD ground it in (although that might require a bit more research) - but I think such an article can present the idea even without much historic contextualization. In any case, it might become a classic in our field. I, certainly, would treat it as such.
Hi Tom, thanks for your message! You’re right that this is a mistake on my end that I’ll correct, I meant to say that it’s the language that was in the declaration rather than the constitution.
👏🙏
I take away tremendous optimism from the continuous demonstration that the struggles we face today already been presented and worked through in the past. The 3-minute video is touching as well.
This seems somewhat alluded to in the writing, though what I am seeking more clarity on is identifying the leverage point(s) to move from "they are the problem" to taking personal responsibility and feeling called into being a part of the solution(s). If this consciousness shift seems easy in concept, the challenge in practice is overcoming the resistance to critical self-reflection and facing habitual behaviors that are contributing to the problems of division and polarization.
I'd appreciate it if you and others have thoughts here. On a personal level, we have Thanksgiving coming up in the US and I imagine many of us will be facing a lot of un-constructive politics being inserted into the conversation.