Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Are Modern Politicians "21st Century" Literate?

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the caucuses last night however, I did want to share some thought I had about how the presidential debate is functioning at large. I believe that a critical aspect of being able to fully develop in the 21st century is the capacity to communicate rationally with one another. Rational communication (or communicative action) involves presenting your opinion, listening to the opinions of others with an open mind, and then discussing one with another which is best, or if there is an even better solution that hadn't been proposed yet. Several social theorists agree that as we engage in this type of communication, the world will slowly evolve into a more rational and ideal place for us to live. One specific social theorist that comes to mind is Jurgen Habermas who studied how the human language, if approached correctly,  has the capacity to bring about rationality in society.

As I'm studying these concepts in some of my classes this semester, I often find myself even more dissatisfied with our modern poilitcal institution. This is an institution where party A and party B stand at separate podiums and argue over one another about how their opinion is THE right one. There is no discussion and there certainly is no open-mindedness. How can an environment rooted in advocating our opinions and our opinions alone ever progress? 


I believe that in order for us to ever truly understand what is best for our country at this time, we need to participate in a national round table discussion. Where differing parties come in on equal grounds in hopes of working together to reach the best conclusion.

1 comment:

  1. I agree that rational communication is the way to find a balanced conclusion, I also am struggling to see a way to get people to actually do this. Ideas?

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