Face-to-Face Democracy, War Rooms, and Children's Votes
Face-to-Face Democracy
"The greatest problem for the human race, to the solution of which Nature drives man, is the achievement of a universal civic society which administers law among men." (Kant, Cosmopolitan History)
Yesterday we talked about adding two new levels of governance, the household and the neighbourhood, to our present political order. This would be an essential step to what Kant calls a universal civic society (UCS). The locality is the true grassroots, the one part of society that is truly universal. It is the only level where there is direct, intimate contact among citizens; the prime minister of Canada, for instance, can meet only a tiny percentage of Canadians, whereas everybody in a household knows everybody else. Everyone in the world (barring the homeless) lives, or should live, in a household and we all have (or should have) contacts in our neighbourhood, which includes everything within walking distance.
I speculated on the possibility of both electing and rotating a "first family" to the neighbourhood government. This first family would have both ceremonial and administrative duties in a neighbourhood government. These two new levels of government would be enriched and bolstered by stronger local media run by locals and designed to encourage the contributions by amateur as well as professional talent. Such cultural activity would enable a UCS by re-circulating locally grown talent and wealth. Best of all, from a political point of view, it would improve and increase personal contacts among neighbours. This would enable, perhaps for the first time, a government that is truly creative.
Without a strong local culture, our present democracy is a sham. It is impossible for a person of integrity to vote for someone they have not met. Instead, we vote for individuals based on promises of how they will handle specific policy, which at best sets handcuffs on their wrists. A strong family household and a vital neighbourhood government would engender a purer form of democracy that could be called "face-to-face democracy." In a face-to-face election the only vote would be for a person or institution that we know well and have interacted with personally. Every vote would be based on direct, recent personal knowledge, not whim, image or mood. This is according to a principle that Immanuel Kant set out in his "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,"
"Nature has willed that man should, by himself, produce everything that goes beyond the mechanical ordering of his animal existence, and that he should partake of no other happiness or perfection than that which he himself, independently of instinct, has created by his own reason." (Kant, Cosmopolitan History, 251-252)
An individual's vote, then, is a creation of the heart, mind and will, every bit as much as our conversations, our friendships, careers, sports and artistic expressions are. In a face-to-face democracy a vote would never be laid down lightly or promiscuously. In matters requiring expert knowledge, a citizen would have to earn his or her vote by taking courses and gaining work experience. Since there is a limit to the amount of time we are given in life, our votes should be limited too, just as we limit the number of friends we make, the careers we undertake and the sports and recreations we involve ourselves in.
War Rooms
One of my main interests is in how face-to-face democracy might affect architecture and town planning, and vice versa. Ideally, every household and neighbourhood would have at the center of its administrative building -- or in a home its living room or media room -- a large display, combining physical models and maps with virtual enhancements, showing the exact current condition of the locale under that institution's purview.
Because this "war room" is open and universal, it could easily be inspected and understood by any visitor from anywhere in the world. Its hardware and software would be connected to and inspected by a world UCS network, making it impossible for corrupt politicians to manipulate or gloss over mistakes. Statistical displays are updated in real time and the design allows viewers to interact, for example by making side-by-side comparisons with similar families and neighbourhoods in other places.
It should be possible for a young child to come in and point out unexpected features of the household or neighbourhood that its most experienced administrator may never have noticed. Indeed in a household we should make up games that would introduce and involve children and young people in the war room display. By thus integrating politics into education at every level, each new generation would be better prepared to participate as responsible, effective, involved citizens.
Children's Votes
As my daughter often points out to me with her characteristic vigor, it is unfair that children cannot vote. I explain to her that this would subject them to manipulation and undue influence by unscrupulous adults. She is not convinced by this, and, upon reflection, neither am I. If children cannot vote in "real" politics, they should still be voting in lesser matters that affect them. As it is, after hundreds of years of nominal democracy, the educational system is no more democratic than the workplace.
More than anything, I deplore our educational system's overdependence on tests and examinations. In fact, it occurs to me that it might be a good idea for teachers sometimes to substitute instead participation in an election. A course in health, say, would not end in a gruelling test that teaches little, is soon forgotten and takes up class time; rather the class would vote in a plebiscite or poll that affects the health of a certain household or neighbourhood.
Because it is a specialized issue that significant adults would not be directly involved in, it is unlikely that they could or would wish to manipulate the votes of children. Because recent knowledge is the most important factor, there is no reason that children would not be as qualified as any adult to vote on such a specialized issue.
It may be true that children would make more mistakes as first-time voters, but the same is true for a novice in any trade. We accept a higher rate of errors for new doctors or apprentice carpenters as the price of having a new generation, and the same tolerance should apply for beginning citizens. I submit, therefore, that under the controled conditions of a school, children should be given a full adult vote. If their vote is as "real" as any adults, most pupils would take their studies much more seriously than they do examinations (which, in the case of my son and his nine-year-old buddies, is not very seriously at all) and study the issue much more diligently.
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