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Showing posts from October, 2017

What would democracy look like without ideology?

The two men look at each other, and the conversation ends. The tension is palpable, with a haze of uncertainty hovering where there was once jubilant discourse. They had been drinking together for just over an hour, reminiscing about old times, family, and the highs and lows of parenting toddlers. Upon the realization that one of them was a conservative, and the other a liberal, a veil of awkward self-doubt had imposed itself in the midst of the intimate discussion. With their political preferences revealed, how could a conversation possibly ensue? What is it about ideology (or political preferences, ideals, or whatever) that infuses our political discourse and severs the deeper connections we might have with one another? How does the political system in which we're situated require our preferences and ideals to be aggregated into leanings across some imagined spectrum? What would it make possible if we practiced democracy and politics without ideology? Would this hamper or f