Steven, You have given too much time and too much brain power to responding to my comment. Your response was intellectual – mine more gut level, “this is what I see/feel.” Having said that, though, you do come up with some interesting points. And, darn it, you even make me try to think a little (not too much – unused muscles cramp and strain when you exert them).

For example,regarding my broad brush reference to Institutions, you made a good catch. I was not thinking of the Social Institutions, like marriage, but should have considered them as well. I guess the “social institution” that I see breaking down most, and about which I need to think a bit more is “loss of respect.” Maybe this is just a catchall for much of the breakdown of “old fashioned” social institutions.

First, let me reiterate my answer to my question: ”For the most part I would say yes. Of course, like any other problem solving exercise, it’s important to start isolating those elements most in need of change and those that really won’t make a difference for each community.” Scaling and ordering the need for change is an essential element; e.g., do we tackle jaywalking or vandalizing private property first? I’ll actually address this in a moment, but for now my point is that I believe a large majority would argue for somehow protecting their own private property for reasons of self-interest.

Second, I agree with much of what you’ve written, especially in terms of the “barriers” to democratic action. In fact, I also believe that many of these barriers to democratic action have less to do with the “conservative nature” of our democracy and more to do with a deliberate attempt to make our democracy more opaque – by the political class in order to protect their gains in power. I do agree with you that our democracy is “conservative in nature,” and I believe that our founders did it by design in order to mitigate the harm often caused by rash changes in policy and law.

That being said, I would refer to your arguments in terms of the current health-care reform attempts – namely that they seem to be a blatant power grab on the part of our government, and as bad or worse, the reform attempts are apparently done with a deliberate opaqueness of the process and a deliberate complexity and convolution built into the resulting legislation. To me, this is evidence of our government attempting to limit our liberty in order to constrain our democratic impulses. And because this is true, there are other methods codified in our founding documents to speed up certain kinds of change – especially when it comes to action taken by our representatives.

Naomi Wolf, though I tend not to agree with her political leanings, is still a remarkable apologist for the democratic processes of the founders. I agree in principle with your statements in your “barrier” number one. When you say, “As people become more and more disenchanted with our institutions, they are less likely to work through those institutions to create change,” I can’t help but agree. On the other hand, when you say, “Before you use a tool, you normally must have some confidence that it is the right tool and can do the job,” I can’t help but argue that if the job is not getting done, then perhaps you don’t have the right tool. In other words, in a democracy, there are other tools in the shed.

As a small example of this, I reiterated what Mac Donald mentioned in her article, namely that crime is not beyond our control – regardless of current disillusionment with police departments. I believe we’re probably of an age (perhaps you’re a little older *grin*), so we probably both remember the escalating crime rates that were occurring through the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. I know I do because I was a part of the problem. What Mac Donald (and I) perhaps did not make clear, is the precise nature of what reduced crime, the “Compstat” mentality means. Citizens were fed up with what was happening in New York, and several large groups sought redress outside the system by demonstrating (like the current tea partiers). While it does have its limits, it is a tremendous start on the problem, and is succinctly described by Ben Adler in Crime’s Bottom Line:

In the ’90s a new paradigm emerged, suited to the era’s post-nanny state zeitgeist: Led by the neoconservative Manhattan Institute and its disciple New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the “broken windows” approach focused on reducing crime on the front end by instilling a sense of law and order and preventing opportunities to commit crime. Proactive police tactics, such as arresting perpetrators of quality-of-life crimes like subway turnstile jumping, and targeting resources at strategic hot spots, yielded clear results.

In addition to these tactics, the broken windows concepts that yielded community oriented policing sought to restore a certain “moral courage” in its residents to make them willing to confront and “shame” certain kinds of behavior.

Your last barrier, the idea of “inertia,” I believe is, in part, the most problematic and difficult. I agree that we tend to become “comfortable” with the status quo. I understand the notion of the path of least resistance completely, and it was expressed well by your friend Nelson over at Asymmetric : ”We live in a great and prosperous country. People want to be left alone to watch ‘24.’ Let them. Be like the guy who monitors the water meter. The less we notice you, the happier we are.” I believe most of us are precisely like that – we’d prefer to not have to notice government in action. But because it may be in our nature to take the path of least resistance, I don’t believe that “argues strongly against taking the arduous legal route.” I think it argues strongly that we tend to be lazy about our citizenship – all the way up until our responsibilities as citizens confront us in a way we simply cannot ignore – and then we have only ourselves to blame.

Finally, even now, while I’m looking for ways to take action, I tend to look for the easiest route to get the desired effect *sheepish grin.* “What is the minimum I can do to effect change?” Sheesh! But here is where I think I disagree most strongly with part of your assessment; if I lose trust in our law enforcement institutions, then my response isn’t to break laws, it tends toward seeking alternative ways to achieve the function that the institution is failing to provide. That’s me. On the other hand, if your intent was more toward social institutions like family, marriage, etc. (rather than the democratic institutions I understood you to mean), then I’d change my mind Emile Durkheim’s notions of “anomie” argue precisely that idea – as social institutions break down, suicides increase. More modern scholars have developed his notions of anomie and demonstrated that a breakdown in social institutions also correlates with increases in crime.

In any event, I hope I haven’t come off as contentious or offensive in my arguments. Moreover, my sincerest apologies for letting this run so long! Many thanks for your ideas and arguments – I really do believe the back and forth is valuable. It helps with the way I interact with some of the kids at the club and around the neighborhood. It also influences how I try to implement the OAM (Oregon Accountability Model) at work. Too often, people in any job suffer from tunnel vision for lack of exposure to other ideas.

Many Thanks,
Steven

The obvious answer is, “Yes.”

The barriers to actually making use of the democratic processes, however, are many. To name but a few:

1. Before you use a tool, you normally must have some confidence that it is the right tool and can do the job. As people become more and more disenchanted with our institutions, they are less likely to work through those institutions to create change;

2. Democracy and its institutions are very conservative by nature and as such are slow to change. If I don’t like my current Senator, it might be 6 years before I can affect a change through the ballot box. I will either be very patient or will look for other ways to get done what seems appropriate;

3. Inertia can take over. We tend to want to continue to do what we are doing because we have developed a level of comfort with the status quo. This argues strongly against taking the arduous legal route to make things happen. It is often easier to just take action (jaywalk instead of going to the corner and waiting for the light to change).

I guess I think that the more we lose trust in our institutions, the more easily we break the speed limits and jaywalk. In certain families, certain neighborhoods, certain groups, where there is disdain, not just disrespect for our institutions, breaking laws is neither subject to embarrassing peer pressure nor is it seen as antisocial behavior. People just break laws because that is what they do. Depending the family, neighborhood, or group, there are still laws that are not to be broken and which are subject to peer pressure (rape, murder, etc.). The list of laws that are “trivial” is far greater as the group is less enamored with its institutions.
.-= tom Vail´s last blog ..The Price is Right =-.