Ed Morrison · In the wake of Tucson

January 12th, 2011

Understandably, talk about civility fills the airwaves in the wake of the Tucson tragedy. The calls for developing a deeper democracy are shallow, though. Toning down the rhetoric is only a palliative. We need to do far more than that.

To understand why, let me take you back to May, 1787. According to John Madison’s notes, the Constitutional convention began with the appointment of a Rules Committee and the passage of some simple rules to set boundaries on the upcoming debate. The rules enforced the importance of paying respect to the speaker. While a member was speaking, “None shall pass between them, or hold discourse with another, or read a book, pamphlet or paper, printed or manuscript…”

As Carol Berkin points out in her wonderful book, A Brilliant Solution, the members enacted these rules to do more than preserve gentlemanly civility. The Founders understood that these rules were needed to create a safe, open atmosphere for the discussion of complex issues. In other words, civility enabled the Founders to engage in complex thinking, to innovate.

Now fast-forward to today. As we look at the landscape of our politics at the local, state or national level, it’s hard to find the civic spaces in which we do complex thinking together.
Let’s start in Washington. To my mind, Congress has largely lost its capacity to govern from the middle. This erosion evolved over time. The degradation of Congress’s ability to handle complex legislation stretches back into the 1970s.

In 1975, the editors of the Harvard Journal on Legislation asked me to write an article on the legislative process within the Ways and Means committee. The article, “Energy Tax Legislation: The Failure of the 93rd Congress”, detailed how the committee’s traditional approach to consensus broke down, as politics within the committee became more partisan and polarized.

In the 1980s, bareknuckle campaigning, led by political operatives like Lee Atwater, continued to undercut Congressional effectiveness, as both parties staged votes designed more to promote “wedge issues” than to address complex policy issues. From my vantage point on the Senate Democratic Policy Committee in the early 1980’s I could safely conclude that Congress had lost much of its capacity to enact the complex policies — in energy, healthcare, competitiveness — that the country needs.

Over the years, we’ve heard a lot about corporate focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term investment. Yet, the same shortsighted impairment cripples our national politics with, I think, even more devastating consequences. When both parties focus only on the next election cycle, governing from the middle becomes increasingly difficult. Instead, we get hyper charged rhetoric, symbolic voting, and cramdown politics. None of these practices helps our democracy.

Our democracy works best from the middle, where politics is pragmatic, not ideological.
Restoring the sense of pragmatism will not come by pointing fingers at the bloviators, left or right. Our democracy provides ample room for ideologues, as it should. Asking them to tone down the rhetoric is yelling at the wind.

No, the challenge we face is different. We need to rebuild our civic spaces, the places where we can do complex thinking together. These civic spaces exist outside the four walls of any one organization. Within these spaces, we discuss the welfare of what George Washington called “our common Country”.

Think of it this way. We know that about 30% of the young people entering high school will not graduate. In our global economy, these dropouts are facing a lifetime economic disability. Their chances of earning over $10 an hour are slim and decreasing. Yet, where in our communities do we come together to address pragmatic solutions to these issues? Not once, as in an education summit, but continuously, as civic entrepreneurs experiment and learn what works.

These challenges are complex. They require collaboration––which means they require deep, focused conversation––not superheated rhetoric. We need more experiments, not ideological pronouncements.

Pragmatists are fundamentally inductive thinkers. They experiment to figure out what works. Ideologues look at the world from the opposite end of the scope. A clear, logical model in their head drives their actions. They reason deductively. Sadly, while logically pure, ideologues rarely provide much guidance that works in the complex systems that support us. (Economists are discovering this fact right now; the concept of “free markets” is a convenient ideological myth, not a pragmatic reality. As Eric Beinhoicker has pointed out, markets are complex adaptive systems, not Platonic universals.)

For the last 20 years, or so, our politics have been dominated by the ideologues. Yet, our democracy moves forward in small, steady steps guided by pragmatists. Now, we can move away from the ideological divide, if we focus on building out the civic spaces within our communities and regions and practice complex thinking together. (This idea is closely aligned with people like James FIshkin who advocate for a more “deliberative democracy”.)

In my travels around the country I’ve learned that colleges and universities have an important part to play in rebuilding our civic spaces. Colleges and universities provide a refuge where citizens can come together to explore complex challenges. University and community college presidents have convening power, and, in smart regions, we see them using this power to advance the collaborations we need. Thanks to the extraordinary wealth our economy has generated, virtually every community of any size has easy access to a college, university, or extension office.

On a smaller scale, public libraries also can play this role of providing civic spaces for deeper conversations. As Madison’s notes make clear, a safe, civic space is not simply a place. A civic space is also defined by simple rules of behavior, followed and enforced.

Where to start? Regular civic forums make sense. They are inexpensive and easy to organize. At Case Western Reserve University, I started Tuesdays@REI, a regular forum sponsored by the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI). Each Tuesday (at 4PM at an urban campus with no parking), 40 to 60 citizens would gather to explore compelling questions focused on our future together. “What could we do together to build a sustainable energy economy in Northeast Ohio?”; “What are the opportunities for Northeast Ohio in Creative Digital Media?”; or “How do we leverage our expertise in early childhood education into a new economic development strategy?”

We started each session with a simple rule: We will behave toward one another in ways that build trust and mutual respect. When someone violated our rule, they received a warning. Then, much like a librarian expelling a rambunctious teenager, we invited the offender to leave, if he failed to respond to the warning.

Enforcing rules of civility takes discipline. The rules are not complex, but confrontation can be daunting. Yet, think about what is at stake. In our democracy, tearing ideas down is easy; yelling is easy; getting angry is easy. The hard work comes in guiding complex projects forward, in focusing on underlying interests, in keeping conversations on track, in promoting continuous learning.

I designed Strategic Doing with these ideas in mind. We need a simple discipline to manage the complexity we face. We have complex systems of public, private and non-profit organizations; we have complex challenges to address. And we are confronting increasing complexity in our rapidly shifting economy.

We cannot address this complexity with still more complexity. We can, however, return to simple rules that establish and maintain our civic spaces. We can use simple questions to guide strategic conversations about where we should invest our increasingly limited attention and resources. With these deeply democratic practices, we can foster places of thriving, pragmatic ingenuity.

To me, the tragedy in Tucson symbolized the continuing collapse of the pragmatic middle ground of our politics. For those pragmatists among us, the challenge is clear. It’s time to rebuild.

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