Introduction to the Promise of Popular Democracy

If we don't understand what popular democracy is or what the human values are that inform it, how can we achieve its promise?

Those are the questions behind the Rockridge Institute's series, The Promise of Popular Democracy.

Too many Americans think of politics as an ugly and often irrelevant contest among brutal, selfish interests who speak of the common good while running off with most of the goods.

They no longer view the right to vote as born of human empathy, as an act of citizen understanding and solidarity with friends, family, neighbors and countrymen. Domination by economic and political elites is accepted as the unavoidable way of the world. Americans seek to enhance the common interest by expressing their values in the political sphere, but "experts" tell them America is all about self-interest, and political campaign professionals treat them like consumers at a political outlet mall.

These misunderstandings arise from two fundamental errors that have poisoned the promise of popular democracy.

The errors are related, and they have only recently become apparent. The first, that democracy was the child of austere, unemotional Reason, has been uncovered by contemporary cognitive science. Antonio Damasio, Vittorio Gallese, George Lakoff and many others have revealed the intimate connection between reason and emotion, the neurobiological mechanisms of empathy, and a new picture of how we think and act. We human beings are not what the historically recognized founders of democracy thought we were.

The second error regards those historically recognized founders. It turns out that democratic practices arose long before the classical Greeks. Instead, democratic practices evolved somewhere between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago among egalitarian hunter-gathers whose empathy for one another made them band together against bullying authority.

Today, when Americans debate such issues as the integrity of voting systems, the corporate consolidation of news media, campaign finance reform and other matters related to the practices of popular democracy, the debates are warped and twisted are by these fundamental mistakes. It is no wonder that advocates of reform are often frustrated at the lack of public understanding and engagement.

The Rockridge Institute believes that a new understanding of human being requires a new understanding of democracy. The errors are related, so it's not surprising that the solutions are related as well.

It's our hope that by telling the true story of democracy's origins and by enhancing our understanding of human being, we'll help chart a much easier path toward achieving the promise of popular democracy.