Alternative Editorial: Why Diversity Is Not Enough
As we write Joe Biden has just stepped down from his candidacy for a second term as President of the USA. The moment of change we have been writing about for the past two weeks continues apace.
What kind of change is on offer in the US? Looming large in the public imagination is the spectacle of a second Trump Presidency. At best this would look like a triumph of populism, meaning the successful manipulation of reactionary forces. The backlash which began after two terms of Obama’s progressive advance. Where a lack of attention to the grassroots made it easy for opportunists to trigger fear of change and loss of identity. A win would mean four years of painful wrangling in Congress and Senate.
At worst the public imagination turns to the extremes of conservative regression: loss of gun control, abortion rights, freedom of movement for immigrants, America’s responsibility to defend smaller countries. Whether we are conjuring up ‘preppers’ holed up in their bunkers armed to the teeth, or the nightmares of A Handmaid’s Tale, the fear is palpable.
The clearly good aspects of Joe Biden’s first term were always somewhat in the context of a growing conservative resistance, threatening to rear up. Even those who wanted rid of Trump continued to give him constant oxygen: when were we not hearing about Trump’s multiple court cases? At the very point where it looked as if Trump could be incarcerated, a series of surprising interjections – Biden’s poor performance at the debate, an assassination attempt on Trump – have lifted him out of the ditch and back onto a winning podium.
But is it true that a majority of Americans want the MAGA-life that progressives are now terrified of ushering in, if they don’t get the perfect replacement candidate? The overturning of Wade V Roe in Mississippi, has created a very febrile situation but the facts often belie the laws. There have been more abortions in the USA over this period, rather than less. In fact, wherever it has been on the electoral agenda, the pro-choice candidate has won.
In the recent European and British elections, careful attention to constituencies where progressive seats could be won caused surprising wins. Careful attention here means engaging properly with people on their doorsteps, taking the time to listen to their worries and giving them the dignity of being heard.
Newspapers can carry the offers of tax breaks and money for institutions such as the NHS or railways. But only face to face encounters create relationships and generate trust. The record shows that where the politicians and their teams showed up is where they won the seats. This was also the way, temporarily, that Obama changed the course of history.
What does that mean for our democracy? Many will say that’s what politics has always been about: door knocking, tireless leafleting and campaigning. But that is not what we are pointing at here: what was once a task of persuasion, is now one of mutual connection. We’ve been in a digital and networked revolution of citizen agency for over thirty years. Anyone with a smart phone or broadband (95% in the USA) will have got used to being flattered and seduced by virtual attention. Politicians can’t bank on their unquestioning loyalty in the same numbers and voter turn-out is falling everywhere. The internet gave everyone a platform – with a spotlight - in the public space. It turns out we all have a unique opinion.
That does not have to be bad news – some say it is very encouraging. Why should citizens be happy with one vote every four to five years, for parties and policies that relate one-dimensionally to their real lives? What the internet has taught us is that we are not homo economicus any more, we are homo pluris – as communities and individuals we contain multitudes.
Plurality is an interesting distinction from diversity. Whereas diversity might suggest that our communities contain many different acknowledged identities – cultural, gender, age, etc – plurality means the number of differences are infinite. For example, two people born in the same neighbourhood, even family, can have vastly different experiences of life leading to very different decision-making processes, forms of agency and emotional drives.
We saw this during Brexit, where families often fell out and, to this day, remain at loggerheads. Maybe because of different holdings of financial or social capital, maybe childhood trauma – there are no end of reasons each of us live such unique lives in our minds and bodies. We are almost unfathomably complex, even for our own understanding – yet we have coherent personal responses to social issues. The internet reveals this plurality in ways our pre-internet days largely hid.
More than that, plurality describes the interconnectedness of those differences that diversity reveals: see here from The Pluralism Project from Harvard University:
All of America’s diversity, old and new, does not add up to pluralism. “Pluralism” and “diversity” are sometimes used as if they were synonymous, but diversity—splendid, colourful, and perhaps threatening—is not pluralism. Pluralism is the engagement that creates a common society from all that diversity.
For example, on the same street in Silver Spring, Maryland are a Vietnamese Catholic church, a Cambodian Buddhist temple, a Ukrainian Orthodox church, a Muslim Community Center, a Hispanic First Church of God, and a Hindu temple. This is certainly diversity, but without any engagement or relationship among the different groups it may not be an instance of pluralism.
… First, pluralism is not the sheer fact of diversity alone, but is active engagement with that diversity. One can be an observer of diversity. One can “celebrate diversity,” as the cliché goes. One can be critical of it or threatened by it. But real pluralism requires participation and engagement.
Diversity can and often has meant isolation—the creation of virtual ghettos of religions and sub-cultures with little traffic between them. The dynamic of pluralism, however, is one of meeting, exchange, and two-way traffic. The analogy of the orchestra sounding together may be a good one, but the symphony remains unfinished. The music of America’s cultures, perhaps more like jazz, depends upon having an ear always attuned to the genius of the other players.
Second, pluralism is more than the mere tolerance of differences; it requires knowledge of them. Tolerance, while certainly important, may be a deceptive virtue by itself, perhaps even standing in the way of engagement. Tolerance does not require people to know anything about one another, and so can let us harbour all the stereotypes and half-truths we want to believe about our neighbours.
Tolerance is certainly important, but it does little to remove our ignorance of one another. It is too thin a foundation for a society as religiously diverse and complex as America’s.
Audrey Tang’s image of plurality as governance in Japan talk
Going back now to last week’s exploration of Audrey Tang’s book Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy, we can imagine how different earlier concepts of direct democracy are from what pol.is, the deliberative software platform, can offer. Whereas a poll or a referendum can reveal the demographics of voting, they can’t invite cross pollination or depolarisation (as pol.is does). In fact, poll questions are often framed to confirm already established diversity.
Yes, with pol.is, people can still simply approve or disapprove of propositions made - as responding to twenty facts or statements about them. However, participants also always have an option to add another statement onto the same proposition, which often changes the discussion substantially. In the end, the people participating shape the debate.
The behaviour this technology prompts is that you respond rather than react: there are no comment buttons to simply ‘like’ or troll. The opportunity is to demonstrate rather than protest: share your contribution, whatever it is. We might call this pro-social activity, always seeking to build on what went before. There is no call to consensus and conflict is welcomed – with no risk of it leading to violence. Eventually the technology, using AI to cluster together common expressions, will show us the many ways we agree without expecting to do so.
For some, this pro-active mind-set won’t come easy. The current party-political system has generated a learned dependency on institutions, authorities, measurements – even language – that ‘knows better than us’. We rarely feel our power except in objecting, or othering those we can’t see our commonality with.
Which is why improvisation (also explored the past two weeks) is such a good training for a more engaged, active democracy. Through this very enjoyable yet serious play we begin to rediscover our natural capacity for surprising, creative responses to challenges. Together they have a good chance of setting the scene for a more pro-social public space that can transform democracy.
In a recent podcast (Accidental Gods Election Special #4) with Manda Scottt, Audrey Tang’s co-author Glen Weyl (from the Plurality Institute) said this when asked about the goal of his work:
I would just say one word, which is peace. Peace is something that every major religion, every major moral tradition prizes above so many other things. And if you go back to the roots of what many people would say is the reason for democracy, they would say peaceful transfer of power. When opinions change, we give it over to a majority so they don’t have to violently seize control. I think that the majoritarian conclusions from the idea of peace have a lot of limitations. But I think the basic idea that peace is what we are after has a lot going for it.