David Bornstein, who contributes to the NYTimes.com "Fixes" column, interviewed Parker J. Palmer, author of Healing the Heart of Democracy.
......David Bornstein: What’s the main implication of this idea?
Parker J. Palmer.: We need to stop talking about “them” all the time — those people iD.C or our state capitols at whom we like to throw brickbats. Instead, we need to start talking with each other.
When I ask people to talk about politics on the state or national level, they say everything’s going to hell in a handbasket. But when I ask, “What’s going on in the part of the world within your reach?” the response is more promising.
The venues in which we live our lives — families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations and voluntary associations — create the vital infrastructure of democracy. In these settings we can develop democratic “habits of the heart” that can help us reclaim our sense of “We the People.”
But we’re as bad about caring for our democratic infrastructure as we are about maintaining our physical infrastructure. We spend way too much energy obsessing about thosepeople in D.C. and the statehouse — energy we need to use locally to rebuild “We the People” and gain leverage on the centers of political power.
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