Who is "we?"

I'll go first, from the general to the specific.

"We" is first all of the people.

"We" is then all of the people who must work for a living.

"We" is then the intellectuals within the working class - thinkers, analyzers, writers, speakers.

Next, "we" is those intellectuals within the working class who claim to be on the Left, or at least not on the Right.

Next, "we" is those intellectuals within the working class who claim to be on the Left and who see politics as a matter of class struggle.

Next, "we" is the intellectuals within the working class who claim to be on the Left and who see politics as a matter of class struggle, and who grasp the logic of the hierarchy I have described here, and the duty, responsibility, urgency, and necessity of acting on that understanding.

That leaves us with about 3 people in the country, and I am not sure I can include myself since I am still learning. Fortunately it doesn't take many, since a mass movement could never be and need not be, comprised of "people like us." We already have the legs, the arms, the heart, the guts - but the Left is headless. The brains have all been co-opted or bought off.

Who is "we?"

I We already have the legs, the arms, the heart, the guts - but the Left is headless. The brains have all been co-opted or bought off.

"We the people!" This familiar sounding cry of democratic self-rule is anything but straightforward in the face of late-twentieth century social pluralism and identity politics. Who constitutes the "people?" Who are "we?"

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As Hannah Arendt describes, "[p]lurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live."[4] It is this sameness across radical difference, or what Seyla Benhabib refers to as "unity in difference,"[5] that I would like to explore as an outgrowth of deliberative democratic politics.

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The idea of a common or generalizable interest is both a fundamental and contentious concept for democratic theory. Civic republicanism á la Rousseau tends to identify a common interest in terms of a "general will" that emerges out of harmonious social situations where conflicts of interest do not exist. Political liberalism, on the other hand, takes conflict for granted and adopts a more minimalist approach. Hope of identifying a singular general interest is forsaken for a principle of neutrality described as "not taking interest in each other's interest."

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four elements of public deliberation - deliberation that is free, reasoned, equal, and aimed toward consensus - provide the necessary conditions for undertaking democratic politics. Not only is there deliberation about the common good, but reasoned argumentation takes place in such a manner that as participants persuade one another, their conceptions of the common good are actually formed and shaped. Thus, a general will is created through persuasive reasoning, rather than by coercion, reliance on a "Divine Legislator," or aggregation of interests. Within this ideal process of "will formation," participants are manifestly equal because only the force of the better argument prevails. Discourse theory posits that these conditions of practical reason enable a specific democratic polity to identify the basis of their "unity in difference."

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a discourse theory of democracy supports institutional designs that decenter politics and rely on procedural conditions for legitimacy.

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the deliberative process itself is viewed as a process of "will formation" that shapes individual preferences through free and reasoned discourse. Interests are not pre-political, nor are they fixed within a specific ethicopolitical framework. Rather, interests are formed during deliberations under conditions that allow autonomous individuals to make free choices. Such a constructivist model of interest formation avoids a static notion of group interests in favor of a fluid conception of common interests articulated through procedures that encourage intersubjectivity amongst multiple perspectives.

In addition, deliberative theorists provide two further reassurances that differences need not be permanently overcome in order to reach democratic agreements. Frank Michelman and Hannah Pitkin argue that dissolution of disagreement is not necessary. Rather, participants come to "hold the same commitment in a new way."[16] Other theorists stress that consensus or majoritarianism need not silence dissenting voices. Specific topics, and norms themselves, are to be revisited whenever any affected individuals or minority groups can make a case that they have been unfairly impacted by outcomes of the deliberative process. This reading stresses the procedural aspects of the discourse model and its presumptions of fallibility and indeterminacy.[17]

With these clarifications we find that the primary focus of deliberative procedures need not be the outcome of consensus. Rather, deliberation itself, or the process of reaching shared agreements, is emphasized. Deliberation legitimates agreements by creating common interests from amidst plurality. And deliberative theory recognizes that plurality is not overcome as a result of these procedures by positing that all collective agreements are provisional. This puts the weight of concern surrounding plurality not on the end result of consensus, but on the institutionalization of substantive equality within deliberative procedures.
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specific procedures must be institutionalized to decrease the impact of plurality, whatever its source or manifestation, on the equality of discursive agreements.
...end excerpt...

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook ... smith.html (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/97_docs/smith.html)

I found this interesting and relevant. Hope y'all will too.

that flounders in the muddy mess of the real world. If you look to the common folk in other countries--Mexico, the grandmothers of the plaza de Mayo, the poor in Venezuela, the Cubans who persevere, priests and nuns who promoted liberation theology- there is dignity, morality and practical intelligence everywhere.

that flounders in the muddy mess of the real world. If you look to the common folk in other countries--Mexico, the grandmothers of the plaza de Mayo, the poor in Venezuela, the Cubans who persevere, priests and nuns who promoted liberation theology- there is dignity, morality and practical intelligence everywhere.

Did you read the Le Mond article about local democracy in Venezuela Wolf referenced in a recent post on his blog? You ought to if you've not.

That is precised the kind of deliberative process I want to see here at pop indy and in countless local places in the real world, some of whome perhaps we will work with or even help to start.