To create meaningful dialogue, good citizens display empathy more than emphasis. To understand and respect where the other person is coming from is one of the hallmarks of civil society – a trait made all to rare these days by a partisanship that’s gone mad. We all have our points of view – interests – […]

True dialogue can begin with positions, but it should end in understanding. “Before the tongue can speak, it must lose the power to wound,” said an old philosopher, and we need that insight now more than ever. Free riders come to community engagement exercises with only one purpose: to impose their views on others. They […]

The genius of democracy is not how right, or even how smart we are. It is how open we are to find compromise that will permit us to move ahead as a citizenry. Our present democratic state is mired in rigidity, in policies that won’t budge, and in characters than think having a strong opinion […]

Just two weeks left in these podcasts, but this is an important one. What happens if we get a chance to build an effective democracy as citizens and no one shows up? Sad to say, this is repeatedly occurring in various citizen engagement activities around the world. The regulars show up, and through their dedication […]

Political dysfunction has resulted in numerous efforts at citizen engagement across the board. Yet a sincere questions remains: are citizens mature enough to handle that responsibility? The answer to that seems fairly clear when about half the citizenry doesn’t even vote. We are in an evolutionary phase in the democratic experience – a time when […]

It’s amazing that politics has so few referees. In times past it worked because there was a certain sense of nobility, respect, and cooperation among politicians and citizens. No more. As citizens bemoan the divisive partisanship of the political order, they themselves have become harder to bring together for the sake of our country. Like […]

How we respond to developments is often predicated by how we were heard. Children learn early and instinctively that if they express an emotion that gets a quick and positive response for their caregivers then they are appreciated. Tone deaf parents often leave a legacy of children feeling frustrated and victimized. Citizens experience similar emotions. […]

A collective purpose or elite agendas. London, Ontario’s large citizen engagement initiative, ReThink London, will end up with one or the other of these outcomes. It is a city looking for a new kind of future, but it could end up with the regular special interest groups vying for the dominance of their agenda, or […]

How is it that Canada – so well-respected for its peaceable efforts around the world – is now failing to bring peace to its own political order? And why is it that citizens, recognizing the tone-deaf actions of the political elites, choose to opt out instead of getting engaged and bringing on a quiet revolution […]

Great citizens don’t latch out and grab onto rigid ideologies that bring on political warfare. Great politicians don’t either. No one party has all the truth. Neither does any citizen, or group of citizens. Yet as we become more impatient with the political structures of our land, we can often reflect the rigidity of hyper-partisan […]