Reflections: Scaling Deep Democracy (through technology?)
When Brian first brought up the idea behind this conversation, I initially felt wary. Host a livestream where we talk about technology’s potential to scale democracy? In a world where we remember social media’s early promises to us and now see the realities of disinformation, divisiveness, and far-right recruitment on these same platforms, talking about technology and scale felt like revisiting past mistakes.
But it is precisely this tension that made this conversation so important. Small is beautiful — as adrienne maree brown says, we want deep change that is an inch wide and a mile deep. But we need to help a billion people go a mile deep to lay the groundwork for deep systems change. Cultivating belonging requires practicing at different scales — small group, city, nation-state, global — and connecting the small to the large without privileging one over the other.
So, to revisit the question: how do we scale deep democracy, and how might technology support this? Last month, I had the honor of facilitating a conversation between Panthea Lee, Ceasar McDowell, and Audrey Tang on this very topic.
It was a wonderful conversation, and I wanted to share some reflections and quotes below. Scroll to the bottom if you’d like to watch the whole conversation on YouTube!
The importance of acknowledging difference
Ceasar has a beautiful definition of democracy:
“Democracy exists when people who are interdependent can struggle with the traditions that bind them and the interests that separate them — so they can realize a future that’s an equitable improvement on the past.”
These things that separate “us” from “them are not small. As Panthea brings up, past historical harms can become part of our bindings, and a lot of the tussle of democracy involves bringing together people who do not like each other.
Yet if we think of technology as a form of infrastructure for social participation, it has not provided the structures to connect us to each other in a deep way that acknowledges difference. To use danah boyd’s language, the affordances of social media are built to optimize number of connections and engagements (clicks, follows, likes). What are the digital affordances that would help us create meaningful bridges across demographically complex societies
Handling complexity and conflict in digital spaces
So how can we better handle complexity and conflict in digital spaces, or use technology to help us do so in real life?
Audrey’s answer to this question showed how part of the solution may simply be behavior change, despite the way the platforms are designed. For example, although the anonymity of social platforms makes it easier to be unkind, Audrey engages in “troll hugging”, a form of applied nonviolent communication where she only responds to statements from trolls that could be construed as constructive. She handles these potentially disruptive users with kindness, which has the effect of calming them as trolls are typically seeking attention.
Panthea discussed how technology can enable transparency that makes disagreement more easy to accept. She talked about how when getting input from a lot of conflicting constituents, sometimes what happens is you get the lowest common denominator — a diluted solution that doesn’t make anyone happy. Instead, she advocated for making the decision making process transparent and having dialogue around conflicting ideas — something that tech platforms can potentially help with. This way, not everyone may agree on the final outcome, but at least you can see where it came from.
Finally, Ceasar talked about new projects such as Local Voices Network, an experiment using digital tools to surface conversational themes and insights from small group facilitated conversations. This type of work is so interesting to me — I love how their approach preserves the intimacy and power of small groups, then uses technology to more easily find, organize, and amplify pieces of the conversation for further use in public discourse.
Possibilities at every scale
There are so many other parts of the conversation that I loved — too much to discuss in one short blog post! I’ll end by sharing a few quotes that I’m still reflecting on, even a month later.
“Democracy is a form of social technology that connects people.”
Here’s one of the ways that Audrey describes democracy. She talks about the need to get the “bitrate” of democracy right — high bandwidth listening, short response time, and quick acting.
Below is another great quote, shared by Ceasar and passed on to him by one of his anthropologist friends:
“In our culture, we would never give someone so powerful a tool without them understanding how it works. Not just the mechanics, but what is your way of seeing the world that would allow you to create such a thing.”
What is our way of seeing the world that moves us to create social technologies today? Does it allow us to connect with each other in a deep way? Does it honor difference, acknowledge historical trauma, and allow us to work towards shared goals despite conflict? Does it reflect care for people at the margins?
In her closing statements, Panthea (who has extensive experience working on reform efforts within big institutions) raised the need for new spaces to have these conversations. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement!
So if you also feel called to converse deeply and imaginatively about how to scale deep democracy, feel free to reach out — let’s talk.
