I recently was speed walking around the city skimming plaques on houses, sidewalks and statues, astounded by the depth of documented mainly political history on every corner. I also couldn’t get over how people (presumably politicians or the politically motivated ) wore suits in a city of such heat and humidity, but that is another conversation. As a visitor from the small mountain town where I live, being in DC felt like the epicenter of politics, the White House, the pentagon, THIS was where the things happened. What the things are exactly, I couldn’t tell you, there was just a conscious sense of separation between where I live, the decisions I make and this burgeoning metropolis where people aim to set the policy and laws that impact the world.
Tag: government
What can I do to strengthen democracy?
Democracy is a system of self-governance in which citizens elect representatives to pursue their interest, and a system whose functionality relies upon the concepts of truth, justice, the rule of law, and an educated populace. In the United States we rely on representative democracy as our system of government. We rely on this system to provide for […]
The Social Experience: Real People’s Experiences of Social Media
‘Social media’ is often spoken about abstractly, removed from people’s actual experiences of using these platforms and participating (or not) in these online spaces. But in actuality — in the day-to-day and moment-to-moment ways in which people engage with them — social media spaces can bring us a range of emotions: joy and heartache, inspiration and distraction, connectivity and isolation. Each of us having our own personally curated experience online, separate from that of others, yet intrinsically entwined at the same time, presents a paradox that can muddle reality, breakdown communication, and distort our perception of self and others.
Education, Democracy, and the Media in the United States.
The neglect of the relationship between education and democracy is in my view our greatest contemporary failure, and it has led us precisely and inevitably to this moment of profound civic crisis.