K. Cronick
Published by: Cronick, K. 2025. An essay on participation and political consciousness. LATAM Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades. 6, 2 (mar. 2025), 1088 – 1102. DOI:https://doi.org/10.56712/latam.v6i2.3685.
ABSTRACT
In this monograph I consider
the role of culture in fomenting participation. While it is possible to “create
culture” in a community intervention, it is important to understand naturally
occurring beliefs and customs in order to help people redress injustices or
correct damaging practices. It is also important to understand the term
“consciousness” in the sense of the awareness that people have of their place
in the world, their aspirations for change, and their possibilities of
achieving it. This article examines culture and consciousness in terms of its
possible contradictory values.
Key words: democracy, dictatorship, culture, consciousness,
social change
RESUMEN
En
este ensayo considero el papel de la cultura en el fomento de la participación.
Si bien es posible "crear cultura" en una intervención comunitaria,
es importante comprender las creencias y costumbres que ocurren naturalmente
para ayudar a las personas a reparar las injusticias o corregir las prácticas
dañinas. También es importante entender el término "conciencia" en el
sentido de la conciencia que las personas tienen de su lugar en el mundo, sus
aspiraciones de cambio y sus posibilidades de lograrlo. Este artículo examina
la cultura y la conciencia en términos de sus posibles valores contradictorios.
Palabras
claves: democracia, dictadura, cultura, conciencia, cambio
social
INTRODUCTION
Community and
social psychology are essentially political disciplines, in the sense that they
investigate -and promote- ideational and structural changes in community groups
that favor local wellbeing and participation. Often studies in these disciplines
deal with the results of social experiments, opinion studies or other projects
that professionals in the area have carried out. One of the major tools used in
community interventions is to increase neighborhood participation.
It is
important to reflect on the theoretical aspects of neighborhood and citizen
participation. It can happen as a result of professional intervention, but it
can also be the outcome of “naturally” occurring processes. Even when it
originates in the relatively spontaneous movements of concerned citizens, it is
important for professionals who active in community work to understand the
dynamics of these events.
In this essay
I will consider the role of culture in fomenting participation. While it is
possible to “create culture” in a community intervention, it is important to
understand naturally occurring beliefs and customs in order to help people
redress injustices or correct damaging practices. It is also important to
understand the term “consciousness” in the sense of the awareness that people
have of their place in the world, their aspirations for change, and their
possibilities of achieving it.
I will review
certain conceptions that describe how culture works in this way, and its
relationship to consciousness and participation, together with the
manifestation of contradictory values such as domination and competition. Participation
can be defined as taking part in, or being involved in something. It can be a
component in organized human activities that rely on the voluntary
contributions of many people such as in war, voting systems, pension plans, and
collaborations in collective endeavors such as charity activities. In smaller
groups participation happens, for example, in community meetings, friendly
encounters, musical and theatrical productions. and family celebrations. The
word can also refer to smaller collaborations between two or more individuals.
In the
following pages I will review: a) participation as described by George Simmel
(2016) in which people’s multiple allegiances -even in conditions of political
domination- can be a resource for liberation efforts, b) the nature of
normative values from Kant to Habermas, including the possibility of a hierarchy
of values, or cultural relativity, c) culture and the lifeworld as a social
environment, and d) the relationship of all these concepts to the possibility
of a participative government.
DESARROLLO
Participation, competition and
dominance
To understand
participation, it is important first to review the influences that hinder its
development. We have just developed a broad definition of the term that
includes both large group endeavors and small face-to-face experiences. It is
possible that in a given system or culture that large-scale participative
actions are repressed, while small-scale interactions are encouraged. Also, in modern
political environments that prohibit dissident participation, public acts of
political support are encouraged and even fabricated.
The
sociologist George Simmel (2016) has written about people´s political subordination
to a leader or a group of powerful individuals, and about their possible
reactions to domination. In a long, interpretative introduction of his book
Sociology, Zabludovsky and Sabido (2016) point out
that in Simmel’s analysis, subordination is a reciprocal action in which the
dominated class forms an active part. They say that domination for Simmel is
not limited to a simple exercise of coercive power and passive obedience, since
the subjected community retains a sphere of personal freedom and spontaneity.
The subjected
individual sometimes seeks a higher authority to protect them. But on the other
hand, people also resist this power. Thus, for Simmel, "obedience and
opposition constitute two aspects of the same conduct» (Simmel, p. 214). Simmel
considered that this duality in power relationships extends from large-scale
political references, to work environments, to marital relations, and even to
the relationships between children and their parents.
Simmel
referred to a sociological "split personality". People have multiple
allegiances, and no one “is entirely [just] a citizen, nor a member of a
Church, nor of an economic unit There are always aspects of the individual that
remain outside these spheres” (Zabludovsky & Sabido,
p. 42-43). These multiple allegiances are complex, and Simmel said that
divided loyalties can even help tyrants to control the masses. On the other
hand, it can also happen that, given these divided loyalties and values, the
seeds for overturning tyrants are found in this same disparateness.
He referred
to a "differentiated spiritual structure". This structure is
important for understanding the contradiction between submission and liberation,
because there are some elements that are susceptible to domination and others
that are not.
Simmel even
referred to the bureaucrat’s (or the employee’s) submission to his or her
agency or company. When the individual subject “disappears” into a collectivity
that lacks subjective states of mind, they tend to facilitate power abuses,
because it is difficult for compassion and kindness to be manifested in
situations of dominance (Zabludovsky & Sabido,
p. 44). But people have principles or a
sense of responsibility as well. And
even when "majorities" are formed, there can be active
"minorities." That is, when majorities are formed by voting
processes or other mechanisms, minorities can survive. We remember that Simmel
was writing shortly before the success of the German fascist movement.
People can also
be subordinated to an impersonal and objective principle. This reminds us of
Émile Durkheim or Eric Fromm’s (1959) use of the word “obedience”. These
principles can emerge from an individual´s internal dialogue, and one can
“obey” a principle, or a religious precept. In Simmel’s work this refers to
principles like the rule of law. It can refer to an imperative and moral
conscience, almost in the sense developed by Emmanuel Kant (2012). Simmel says
that “once normative forms have taken hold […] they are liberated from their
primitive sociological supports” (p. 196). People then adopt them, and they begin
to represent “needs that we call ‘ideal needs’” (p. 196). These needs can be emancipatory.
Simmel also
refers to the mutual relations between distinct dominated groups or individuals,
as in collective agreements. We can think of the relationships between
employees in a company, union members or even countries (as in the formation of
the European Union after their experience with German domination in the 1930’s
and 1940’s).
These relationships
can be liberating when the organizations express emancipating principles, but
can also increase the subordination of their members when their leaders have
political agendas with regard to their own potential aspirations.
Simmel points
out that one of the most powerful strategies for retaining power is for the
tyrant to share enemies with the dominated class. However, it is always
important for the leader to share certain “positive” motives with his followers
as well.
Culture and the
"life-world"
"Culture"
is the favorite topic of anthropologists and sociologists. As a general rule,
anthropology studies small communities, often tribal and isolated groups.
Sociology, on the other hand, tends to analyze large institutions with the aim
of making social trends and structures visible. In the reflections that follow,
I will concentrate on the idea of culture as a social-political environment.
Martínez, Bermudez,
Cediel, & Beltran (2022), in an article on the role of culture in the
economic and political development of nations, say that it has a fundamental
role in the creation of well-being and the full participation of citizens in
the processes of their state. They point out how the United Nations, together
with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), are promoting culture as one of the pivots of development, within the
framework of fundamental freedoms. They say that culture strengthens political
participation, invigorates social solidarity and cooperation, refines value formation,
and strengthens people´s understanding of their historical heritage. The
authors offer various definitions of culture, such as a complex whole that
expresses the life of a given human group, and also as a “textile of meanings”.
In their third definition, it is a means of social transformation that includes
Nation-States, local communities and different social actors in decision-making.
The authors
say that "culture is expressed as artistic creation and reference,
identity, education, patterns of conduct, life models, social representation,
symbols, values and practice, as well as an element of power". The role of
the individual is to “recreate” the meaning of the world and of his or her own
existence, always within the framework of their cultural history.
This approach
to culture incorporates the ideas of intentional and thoughtful change in favor
of humanistic values. It does not abandon the idea of tradition, but puts it at
the service of the well-being of all members of society. Even in countries
where leaders have used cultural aspects to strengthen their own power, cultural
diversity allows one to question some practices. In South Africa, for example,
apartheid was challenged by members of both the white and black populations,
and eventually Nelson Mandela became the nation's first black president. Both he and the previous (white) president,
Frederik de Klerk, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their efforts which
were backed by an immense collective effort.
Common Sense
Common sense
is usually defined in contrast to scientific knowledge (Moscovici, 1961/1976;
Lévi Strauss, 1959/1987). For their part, Moscovici & Hewstone (1984)
distinguished between automatic and critical thinking. Montero (1994) has compared the two types of
knowledge, finding that between them "there is a continuous
interrelationship" (p. 14). She says that "they are two contexts of
knowledge production" (p. 14) and represent attempts to make sense of the
world through language.
Perelman &
Olbrechts-Tyteca (1989. p. 168) define common sense as "a series of
beliefs accepted within a given society, whose members assume that any
reasonable being shares them." This definition points to the validity of
these beliefs, in the sense that acceptance by "everyone" allows the
content of given cultural agreements to be declared correct, appropriate or
acceptable. There is in this formulation the faith in the correspondence
between objects and thought: the red of the rose is in the rose and that
"everyone reasonable" who has the use of his eyes would agree.
Similarly, people "know" what they should do or not do, what produces
pleasure and what causes sadness. It is common sense that places community members
as points of reference in a system that assigns social meaning to individual
perceptions and actions, and provides the criteria for judging them.
On the other
hand, the existence of these criteria does not imply the absence of discrepancies. Billig et al (1988) state that common sense
consists of statements that occur in opposites, that is, a menu of possible
positions and options that exist within popular knowledge in an abstract way,
which can be applied in concrete conditions according to people’s intentions. They
are sometimes conflicting. People deliberate with others and even with
themselves about ethical, legal and, in general, dilemmatic issues, and they do
so within the structural axes of their culture. This appreciation echoes
Simmel´s idea of cultural diversity.
The plausibility of values and
cognitions
The
definitions given by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1989) and Billig et al,
(1988) also complement each other; Billig et al (1988) propose the existence of
reasonable alternatives, to which people can resort when they need them; at the
same time, Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1989) refer to the set of what is
acceptable, including the mechanisms for the establishment of agreements and
the mediation of disputes. For Billig et al these alternatives are especially
embodied in adages which appear in pairs: the saying, "The early bird gets
the worm”. It is used as a vehicle to justify the intentions of those who use
it, or a recipe for good advice. It can be said that it represents both a
"reality" and a value. On the other hand, the saying, "Take it
easy, take it as it comes " is a proposition whose meaning is opposed to
the first saying. We can say that both are components of common sense; both can
be true when the contexts are appropriate.
Arguments in favor of the
hierarchization of values and cognitions
Many
cognitions can be subjected to criteria to judge their plausibility ("that
cat is black, not white"), but when cognitions contain value judgments, they
are open to discussion. There are historically elaborated criteria for judging
them. These are agreements or social constructions that structure value
judgments; One of these criteria has to do with the benevolence of certain
social practices. Examples include: a) tolerance is better than racial and
ethnic prejudice; b) respect for human rights, within a legal framework, is
better than the use of torture and other humiliating means of punishment; and
c) it is better to protect children than to leave them helpless.
Both values
and cognitions can be subjected to acceptability criteria in these terms. Savater (1986), applying criteria of
rationality to ethics, uses the word "meaning" as a criterion that
transcends cognitions and values; meaning would be a higher category that
contextualizes the actions and subjectivity of human groups. Meaning would be a
collective fund of knowledge about what is good, effective and in general, in
use or accepted in their cultures. Ethics would be: "... a rational
attempt to give a totalizing sense to human actions... [Ethics] does not
consist in asking whether this or that particular behavior is 'good' or 'bad',
nor what I should do at any given moment, but rather: what is the meaning of my
deliberation and my choice?" (Savater, 1986, p. 11).
Defined in
this way, ethics consists of more or less coherent systems of thought, that is:
"... a normative claim of knowledge... rationally articulated... [which]
tries to make rationally intelligible what the human subject as such, in the
end, wants." (Savater, 1986, p. 11)
Its elements
can be classified as valid, or invalid, within the context of which they are
part. The last element, volition (what the subject wants), cannot be subjected
to these judgments, but the intentions and acts with which they are associated
can be judged in terms of the normative body of cultural knowledge.
Habermas (1987/1992,
p. 72), on the other hand, distinguishes between several types of validity
criteria: a) the validity of the objective world, to which criteria of truth
and falsehood can be applied, or propositional truth, b) normative rectitude,
which, although defined by "current" cultural criteria, can be rationally
criticized, and c) expressive veracity which can be summarized as subjective
sincerity.
Habermas says
that rationality has less to do with knowledge than with the way in which
subjects capable of language and action make use of it (Habermas, 1992, p. 24).
For Habermas, rationality must embody "a fallible knowledge" (p. 26)
and must also be "a disposition of subjects capable of language and
action" (p. 42).
In this
sense, we can say that there is a basis for: a) applying criteria of
plausibility to values and subjectivity, as well as to cognitions, and b)
hierarchizing the "life-worlds" or cultures in terms of said
validity. This is true even though there may be in a given culture opposing
value systems that, at the same time, may defend both tolerance and xenophobic
and repressive standards.
We can
postulate that the creation of plausibility criteria for judging cognitions and
values can be achieved through argumentation; that is, the criteria of
acceptability are historically elaborated through persuasion. The distinction
made by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1989) between the acts of persuading
and convincing will be useful to illustrate the difference and similarity
between: a) local and temporal values and cognitions, i.e., those that are
actively debated and that have supporters and opponents, and b) values and
cognitions that could be postulated at some point as absolute in the Kantian
sense, that is, those that are universally and a priori valid for all people.
These authors say that persuasive arguments "are only intended to serve a
particular audience" (p. 67) insofar as the verb "persuade"
refers to a particular situation in which it is possible to give reasons for a
person or a group to adopt a belief, a value or an attitude in the way that its
interlocutor wishes. On the other hand,
convincing arguments can obtain "the adhesion of every entity of
reason" (Perelman, & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1989, p. 67).
We can doubt
the "real" existence of universal values and convincing arguments.
But for each particular audience there are bases for "problematizing"
(in Freire's sense)
about each category of values and cognitions. This supposes an underlying
communality to the human condition. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1989, p.
69) say that "from the moment it is accepted that there are means of proof
other than the necessary proof, the argumentation that is addressed to
particular audiences has a scope that goes beyond the merely subjective
belief". Argumentation that is directed at the production of
"non-appreciative reasons" (i.e., reasons that are not bound by
pressure, the use of power, and coercion) is the vehicle for particular
audiences to reach agreements with each other about the hierarchies they will
establish between their values and the plausibility of their cognitions. In the communicative sense, the difference
between values and cognitions disappears, leaving in its place argumentative
elements that are supported by reasons. I can convince an audience that I am
right about "facts" such as air pollution or the guilt of a prisoner;
similarly, I can convince them that something that historical prejudice has
condemned as ugly is really beautiful (as they did to try to end racism in the
60s: "Black is beautiful").
The relationship between truth
and plausibility
The true and
the plausible are established in terms of some body of reference.
"Truth" exists in more or less closed systems such as axiomatic
mathematics or a body of legal proscriptions where a person can be declared
guilty or innocent. However, mathematical and legal "truth" can be
distinguished from each other. Although in mathematics the truth can be proven
in the inductive sense if there is no counterexample, and deductively if there
is proof, in the law there are degrees of guilt, and binding decisions can be
modified. Legislation can even change the criteria for establishing the
"truth", according to the values of the people who make up the
society where the laws are in force. In a similar sense, plausibility is
historically constructed in common sense, not as in progress or evolutionary
structures, but cumulatively in the sense of what is acceptable or the best
option. When a conflict occurs between two plausible solutions, the resolution
of differences occurs through debate.
However, in
general there are many "almost" established solutions. For example,
one of the highest possible values since World War II is the condemnation of human
rights violations. Also, democracy has been an "invention" of common
sense (which has since been formally elaborated) that regulates individual
confrontations. In this way, we can say that democracy "is" better
than tyranny, but at the same time there remains the possibility that other
forms of consultation and control are also possible.
Relativity
The results
of community problematization and awareness are relative. Rappaport (1977), for
example, in his classic book, Community Psychology, has chapters devoted to the
analysis of some traditional concepts of clinical psychology, including
intelligence, mental health, statistical normality, and social deviance. In
relation to these concepts, the author considers certain political and
ethnocentric implications related to the imposition of values by dominant
sectors of North American society. He proposes that one way to deal with these
implications is through a relativistic position, where social change would be
the product of the problematization of the felt needs of a specific social
group, which are contextualized historically. This means that the social
reality of one group is not transferable to other groups and cannot be imposed
by an external agent of change. Problematization, in this sense, occurs at the
level of individual communities when they "become aware" of both
their needs and the ways to satisfy them.
Rappaport questions the right of psychologists to establish their own
criteria about what is healthy, normal, correct and good, outside the context
of particular groups, precisely because of the political influence suffered by
these professionals.
I propose
that the relativity of cognitions and values is a weak solution to the problem
of the multiplicity of values and cognitions. I propose the possibility of
replacing it with the notion of pragmatic and limited tolerance. This
would include a community’s (or an individual’s) acknowledgment of normative
differences within given limits. Thus, people can accept the existence of
different religions, but reject the idea of capital punishment or gender
discrimination.
The
Life-world and social change:
The idea of the "life-world" is closely related to that of culture.
It is important to review the two notions because they incorporate the
possibility of critical consciousness in groups and individuals. The life-world
is an original concept of Husserl that was later developed by Alfred Schutz and
others in which the phenomenon of common sense inserted in a given culture is
examined. Ricardo Salas (2006) summarizes Schutz, saying that people presuppose
that their fellow beings have conscious life and that intercommunication is
possible. (Salas, p. 172). And then Salas describes the life-world as an
accumulation of knowledge transmitted between people of a given social group.
In this way, one’s knowledge about the natural world can be contrasted with the
knowledge of the "significant world", that implies an implicit
reference to the "Other". (Salas, p. 174).
In Cronick
(2024b) the author describes the foundations of the concept of lifeworld. In
what follows I use some of these reflections. The lifeworld is not private. We
share it with our fellow human beings. It is an intersubjective world through
which we can understand a reality that is intuitively shared and considered
valid by all as an interpretative framework. Through it we understand social
stratifications and modes of interaction. Through it we can build relationships
with our fellow human beings and expect the same from them. It is an immaterial
entity, shared within a given culture.
Consciousness
We may need to
consider that consciousness is a cultural phenomenon, not in the sense of a
mental capacity, but rather in terms of self-perception. The way people
perceive themselves makes a difference in what possibilities they see for
themselves and others. This self-perception has cultural roots and has
influenced humanity’s ways of relating to the world and to others, and has had
a profound political impact.
Juan Manuel
Navarro in his introduction to Descartes’ Rules for the Direction of the Mind
(1996) quotes Hegel who said that self-consciousness, as described by
Descartes, is an essential moment of truth for modern thinking. It was the
beginning of the “principle of immanence", in which philosophy’s attention
switched from “the object to the subject, from the world to the self, from the
exterior to the interior” (p. 8). Meditation about objects becomes a meditation
about the essence of “what is”, in this case, an appreciation that arises from
the thoughts of a being who is thinking.
In his fifth
rule, Descartes (1996) talked about the need to substitute ontological
reflections (in the scholastic sense) for epistemological ones, which, although
objective (scientifically speaking) implies subjective criteria (Navarro 1996,
p. 21), or, at least a conscious decision to decide to think in one particular
way and reject others. Method underlies Descartes’ philosophy. Given that the
method is chosen by the thinker, it determines de direction of his
thoughts. In Descartes, the method is a
requirement for the critical spirit who is confronting his or her own cultural
and historical legacy. The method is not something merely procedural, but rather
is an intimate motivation and an anthropological demand. What is questioned is
the self itself, and therefore the method gives rise to the birth of
"secularized man" (p. 26). This has important implications for
modern-day political and ethical reflections, because they should be
accompanied by more than feel-good emotions. They also require a conscious, methodological
backup.
In John Locke
we find reflections, not only about how conscious thought leads to a true
appreciation of reality as conceived by a conscious mind, but also the
mechanics of thought and self-awareness. Gideon Yaffe (2011) has analyzed
Locke’s approach to consciousness. Consciousness and awareness can be
distinguished from sensory perception. Perception is an appreciation of what
goes on in the world according to one´s visual and auditory appreciation.
Consciousness, however, is directed inward. As Locke puts it, “[c]onsciousness
is the perception of what passes in a Man’s own mind […]” (Yaffe, p. 2). Locke described how one is
aware of both individual events or thoughts in time, and a continuous stream of
awareness. The thinking person is then capable of abstraction in which general
ideas are created from particular ones that stem from experience. The next
analytical step happens when the person combines ideas to create complexes that
may or may not be found in experience. And finally thought permits comparing,
in which one creates ideas of relations from these ideas.
The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2024) refers to how Kant enlarged on these
reflections. The authors tell us that Kant’s idea of phenomenal consciousness
is not a mere succession of associated ideas, but rather a reflection on the
experience of a conscious self, situated in an objective world, and structured
with respect to space, time and causality. This observation is crucial for the
growing awareness among Illustration philosophers about the role of
responsiveness in the development of man’s role in determining political
awareness.
Truth and ethics
It is
interesting how, in popular language, ethics is linked to the idea of
"what is true". Daniel Figuera (2025) refers to the idea of truth in
Alain Badiou. For Badiou, truth is not a static fact or a universal revelation.
It is a cultural recognition of a new way of defining what is true. A new
process or "event" introduces a new logic within a given system.
There are plural "truths" that necessarily have to be partial and
linked to specific contexts. He gives as examples the current ideas on climate
change or economic inequalities. It would then be something built through
participation.
However, one
of the characteristics of truth, for a very long time, has been that it has to
be a pronouncement that is based on rules that determine its acceptability. One
of these basic rules, as I have been saying, is that any statement must be
accompanied by the method used to establish it.
To establish
the truth in scenarios such as historical accounts or legal testimonies there
are also rules. There must be previous writings or stories that arouse a
certain confidence in order to be labeled as truths. In this sense, an account,
such as Homer’s account of the Trojan war, drawn up before the historical
period of written records, is not the same as the stories recorded by
identifiable authors. And even in the latter case, the stories must be subject
to analysis and verification. We can ask, for example, about the total veracity
of Plutarch's stories in Parallel Lives. In the same way we can critically
analyze modern narratives. Thus, people can learn to require “evidence” for
claims about the supposed risks posed by vaccinations, or xenophobic
accusations.
Freedom or lordship
For as long
as there has been historical evidence, kings have exercised exclusive power in
their kingdoms, and have attempted to conquer nearby realms, enlarging their
own territories or creating colonies under their control. There is evidence
that human beings were not always like this. In fact, in their book "The
Dawn of Everything", Graeber and Wenfrow (2021) state that in the first
millennia of human history, human groups exhibited cooperative and deliberative
behaviors. This collective decision-making was not limited to tribal life; according
to these two authors, some very large settlements were governed by these
principles.
It was only
in the last four or five millennia that kings, conquerors and dictators, with
their war strategies, have dominated the human experience. This period covers almost
all documented history. For as long as we have historical references, there
have been colonialists and monarchs who have imposed their authority by force.
Once in
power, the acquisition of new territories was not only attractive among the
kings, but also a requirement for their survival. When Agamemnon went to
conquer Troy, and when Alexander the Great ended Athenian democracy, they
obeyed the same cultural mandates that the European conquerors followed in
Africa and the Americas. It was a similar mandate when the Germans began to
increase their "lebensraum" and Russia and the United States invaded
Afghanistan in turn. Still today, tyrants try to claim whole territories and
their inhabitants as their own.
These
military endeavors required the participation of people from the less
advantaged classes. Soldiers could often merit certain privileges, and even
benefit from the plunder of war. Later, as in the case of Napoleon’s armies,
the generals might recur to the nationalistic loyalties to motivate their
soldiers.
The “Bands of
Brothers” in military life
In terms of
military bonds, “Warrior ideologies”
appear in literature, from the ancient Greek phalanx’ shoulder-to-shoulder
hoplites, to Shakespeare’s “band of brothers” to
Cotton’s (2017) description of the relationship between United States’ soldiers
in Afghanistan. Cotton talks about a masculine “warrior ideology” in
which “in combat, your motives don’t matter really. […] As bad as it sounds,
you don’t fight for what you believe in. You fight for the person next to you”
(Eiden, n.d., cited by Cotton, p 23).
Thus, war
contains its own kind of participation. It is important to understand these
bonds in order to formulate alternative ways of relating. It is also important
to understand the appeal that war can have for certain cultures and their members.
Tribal cooperation
In
traditional, tribal communities, personal relationships are based on kinship and
age-hierarchies. Decisions are often reached collectively with especial respect
given to “chiefs” and elders. Tasks like hunting, food gathering and
house-building are often undertaken by specific groups such as women, men or
almost-grown children, and these are traditional activities. There are also
intertribal collaborations that Justo (2024) describes as: “… alliances, forged
bonds of friendship, and engaged in collaborative efforts that have shaped the
very fabric of human civilization. From the ancient confederacies of Native
American tribes in North America to the cooperative ventures among African
kingdoms […]”.
Participative
government
Monarchy,
oligarchy, and dictatorships have been the predominant kinds of governmental
systems in historical times. In general, they concentrate the power of decision
and action among few individuals, and usually have strong military components.
We will not concentrate our attention on these systems, because in this article
we are interested in two ideas with respect to government: a) where does the
initiative for increased citizen participation come from? And b) how does
massive political participation work?
The promoters
of change tend to surge from the ideas of artists, playwrights, writers,
philosophers and intellectuals in general, who at certain critical moments in
history have made proposals for social transformation. Likewise, philosophers
and poets paved the way for European and American democracy in the eighteenth
century. The origin of these movements had a long preparation, that began with
the Renaissance (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), and continued with the
Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In these times
authors, artists, scientists, and philosophers (who were not in power) such as
William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon,
René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel, Thomas Hobbes, Denis Diderot and Adam Smith debated each other
in the publications, theaters and meeting houses of their times. Each
proclaimed his particular perspective. These people did not need to agree, the
important thing was their shared discussion.
We can cite poetic
and theatrical sources from very long ago, for example the statesman/poet Solon
in ancient Greece. The tradition continues, for example, Victor Hugo, Mark
Twain, Henrik Ibsen, Bertolt Brecht, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, Harper Lee, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, and Langston
Hughes among many, many others.
Within the
power structures of centralized systems, it would be very rare for dictators to
propose a participative system, except as a subterfuge for concentrating even
more power in fewer hands. They might propose elections, but usually they would
have control over the results. Normally, the changes initiated from a profound
cultural level have to do with the need increase the well-being of the great
majorities. Intellectual dissidents (such as the active minorities -Moscovici
1996), groups such as non-governmental organizations, ad hoc committees and
other similar organizations, pick up the call for change.
In other
words, free debate, far from causing havoc and chaos, produces critical
thinking that empowers people of all ranks. It would be better if the whole
population were literate, but at many critical moments in history, few could
read. It was enough for the information to come through word of mouth from of those
who could understand the written word.
We rely on
national and international organizations, congresses and parliaments, political
parties, businesses, and other organizations to solve our social problems.
However, it is becoming more and more evident that the only organizations that
are going to "save" us are those that promote widespread reflections about
who we are and what we wish to become. One example would be renovated and
critical education systems and another would be some non-governmental organizations
such as "Care for Peace", "Save the Children",
"Doctors without Borders" and others that offer relief and reflection
in emergency situations. We have to evaluate our true needs, and reconsider
what our most transcendental values are. And we have to do it as interconnected
collectivities. It has to be an explicit and intentional process, if we want to
stop being xenophobic, violent, vindictive and fearful.
Normally participative
governmental systems have founding constitutions that make the basic laws of
the land explicit. They have distinct governing instances, each with unique
powers, the members of which are chosen by some sort of popular mandate, habitually
through elections. There are pre-arranged means for communicating with these
officials, and there are legal courts through which their decisions can be
challenged. Legal democracies are complex structures, held together through both
tradition and current law. The armed forces are restricted in their internal repressive
capacities, and are usually deployed only in foreign engagements. Local order
is maintained by police forces, regularly controlled at a local level by
elected officials. Legal change is possible in constitutional democracies through
complex systems of debate and suffrage. When laws are successfully challenged,
they are no longer valid, such as the infamous Jim-Crow laws in the southern
states of the United States.
This legal
complexity is considered to be a protective system for guaranteeing popular
sovereignty and preventing take-overs by dictators, kings or small governing commissions.
But it only works if the population understands the need for these checks and
balances. When the population no longer understands the logic of balanced authority,
then the system becomes fragile and can be broken.
ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE
In general, I
believe that these propositions obey, not only a desire to seek acceptable ways
of living together. They reflect a trend of thought that, although not new, suddenly
has greater relevance among current thinkers. It is clear that the existing patterns
of coexistence can be rethought.
We must
accept this challenge. History and philosophy must be revisited, and the
choices they offer must be re-examined. Our societies are often determined by
naked power relations, but it doesn't have to be that way. Power is not
deterministic, and communities have a wealth of experience to share in this
regard. We must return to social
relations based on empathy (Cronick, 2024a), distributive justice and debate
that is founded upon culturally aware consciousness.
Where will the changes come
from?
There are a
number of naturally occurring sources for social change, some of which we have alluded
to in these reflections. There are many resources to support the idea of
popular sovereignty provided by concepts that come from history, philosophy, social
psychology and other sources.
I have
reviewed several ways of considering participation and social awareness
including Simmel’s (2016) idea that usually people do not form exclusive allegiances
with despotic power. They may vote for a potential tyrant, but they reserve the
possibility of dissent. This possibility may be liberating, and democratic
interests can make use of it. I have considered how normative values have
cultural and historical sources, and how they are open to discussion, although
some may be absolute in the Kantian sense of the “Categorical Imperative”. All
this is incorporated into the ongoing debate that exists in our cultures. And
finally, it all influences what kinds of government people will tolerate, given
the liberty to choose. These debates are ongoing. It is important for all
citizens to understand their roles in government and power structures, and for
emerging leaders to listen to them.
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