From “The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy” by Christopher Beem You may have heard of several studies that document the steeply increasing number of parents who would be unhappy if their child married a partisan from the other side. But did you know that among both …
From “The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy” by Christopher Beem As we all know too well, many Americans consider themselves and their tribe to be under threat right now in precisely this way.
From “The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy” by Christopher Beem So how does bias operate with respect to groups? Whenever our tribe is involved in a dispute, our notion of what’s fair is unconsciously modified. Just as in those close calls in sports, in-group bias causes …
From “The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy” by Christopher Beem Since it is so relevant to what follows, let me take a minute to talk about what biases are and why we have them. A bias is an endemic inclination, one to which all of us …
From “The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy” by Christopher Beem All these innate features of human behavior combine to create a very formidable predisposition. All of us seek out those with whom we are comfortable, those who are like us and with whom we share some …
If honesty, humility, and consistency are virtues that improve our democratic thinking, helping us make the right decisions, we can think of moral virtues as helping us improve our actions. Call them “democratic acting” virtues. These action virtues come after the thinking virtues just as action should follow thoughtful consideration. Democratic acting virtues make us …
So what virtues are most relevant for a democratic society? What virtues help us live together and even thrive in a democracy? To get at that question, we have to ask a prior one: What are the answers that democratic society gives to those most fundamental questions? Democracy is a messy and contentious concept (just …
Some on the far left argue that democracy as we experience it is not the opposite of authoritarianism; rather, it is just a more discreet form of it. Equality is not an ideal we strive for but a lie that serves to sustain power even as it masks it. And freedom? That is nothing more …
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