The Gardens Of Democracy: A New American Story Of Citizenship, The Economy, And The Role Of Government - Plot & Excerpts
One is what might be called “hivemind,” the tendency for individuals to lose their voice and identity in the midst of the collective. The other is simple bullying, the fear the Framers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution, that majorities might create great waves of opinion that swamp minorities. As to the first fear, we are no champions of group-driven dehumanization. But citizenship of the kind we describe is the opposite of dehumanizing conformity. When any one person can be an agent of contagion, and can set off cascades of new thought or action, that is a truly empowering situation. Yes, that one person needs to have some savvy about how complex systems tip, and not everyone has that. But the fact is that in our story of citizenship, the individual has even more power than she does in the more atomized, solipsistic account of citizenship—and far more than in some collectivist dystopia. The corollary to always being influenced by others (which we are) is always being able to influence others—a power we dramatically underutilize.
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