The Move Podcast S2E2: Transparent Civic Tapestries with Eric Gordon
In Episode 2, The Move Podcast interviews Eric Gordon, professor and founding director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College. Co-hosts Ceasar and Ayushi explore the nature of this larger tapestry of civic organizations — including media and industry players — and institutional frameworks to maintain legitimacy and public trust.
Eric: [00:00:00] You know I have the opportunity to work with news organizations and also with governments, and I see the same problem, generating legitimacy and trust and having to redesign the structure of how they interact with publics.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:17] Hey Ayushi.
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:20] Hey Ceasar. How’s it going?
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:21] It’s going okay. This week we have a really interesting guest with us.
Ayushi Roy: [00:00:27] I’m excited to meet him. I’ve heard so much about him from you.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:00:30] Yeah. Eric is… He’s a friend, a colleague, and someone who’s very deep into this work about thinking about civic engagement, civic design. He’s actually director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College. And we offer several books around civic media and civic participation, and we’re delighted to have him with us today.
So Eric, it’s great to have you here. We’re in some interesting times in this country. One of the reasons we were excited about having you on the show is… You and I, for a few years have actually been… connected lots of different things. You put out a book a year ago that you invited me to be co-author (inaudible) on. You’ve been doing lots with the Engagement Lab at Emerson College, other work you’ve been doing. It’s really kind of grounding, this stuff about how we’re actually building a new civic infrastructure in this country, in the fabric. You’ve also been doing national studies, looking about what’s going on around the country. I’m curious, what’s your take on where are we in this civic space in our country? Are things moving in the right direction? Are we stalled?
Eric: [00:01:42] I think we’re not just stalled, we’re moving in the reverse direction at the moment. And I suppose the thing that bothers me most is the way in which our national discourse is playing out. That what’s happening is that we are unable as a nation to have conversations. We’re mostly just defending our positions. And that’s no way of having a conversation. The idea that people need to negotiate and give and take and learn from one another is something that needs a lot of help. And as I understand what a civic fabric should be, it’s really the conditions through which people can learn from each other so that they can collaboratively move forward. And I don’t feel like we’re going in that direction. So for me, the place where I feel like I can make the most change or have the most impact is really thinking about the infrastructure through which we talk. The infrastructure through which people are enabled to take actions or do things in the world.
What I’ve been spending my time thinking is about the media that enables those conversations to take place. And when I say media, I don’t only mean digital or broadcast, I’m actually referring even to the designed conditions in which people have conversations in physical space. All of those things seem to be in need of significant repair, and the national discourse is just amplifying the urgency of this repair work.
Ayushi Roy: [00:03:36] If I get this correct, it’s like we need to go from playing defense to learning from each other. But that isn’t so much of a mindset change as it is a systems change. Is that correct?
Eric: [00:03:50] I think it’s both. I think that systems generate and produce mindsets. So the structures that we exist in are going to change the way that we inhabit those structures but if we actually have a different mindset going into those structures, then we might think that they’re not adequate and they’re not fitting our needs. So it’s not one or the other. I think we need to sort of shift expectations while at the same time redoing the work of design, which is working with the organizations that are having the most impact on the design of spaces wherein people are interacting. And that’s media organizations, that’s government organizations, that’s MGOs. That’s the sort of large kind of tapestry of civic organizations that we’re operating within.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:04:38] I guess one of the things that I want to ask you is in kind of looking around, so you said, this is really government, this is media, this is kind of community based organizations or MGOs working on this. What do you think the role of other institutions are in doing this space? What’s the role of businesses in this area? Or…
Ayushi Roy: [00:04:58] Or like news media. You were talking about-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:04:59] Or news media. Just stuff like… Yeah.
Eric: [00:05:02] It’d be huge. So I’m going to… Those are separate. So-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:05:06] (crosstalk) -
Let me take… News media or journalistic organizations are a huge part of this. And I’ve actually been doing some work with journalistic organizations and I actually think that the problems that they’re facing are quite similar to the problems that government is facing, for example. And what that means is that all of these organizations, let’s just say legacy organizations, are experiencing a trust deficit. They’re operating in a situation where they don’t have trust of their constituents, their listeners, their audiences. And part of that is that the expectations from listeners and audiences are changed because of the possibilities of direct communication now that digital media has created. So if we can speak directly to one another, or if the President of the United States can speak directly to the people through Twitter, then why do we need government organizations? Why do we need the organizations that surround these things?
Eric: [00:06:09] News organizations, for example, are… They play a mediating role. They play an editorial role. And they’re experiencing a situation where their audiences don’t trust their editorial decisions, and the notion of objective reporting is in some pretty significant questioning. So the challenge that these organizations from journalism all the way to government are facing is how do we build trust with the people who suspend their disbelief and enable us to take editorial actions as an organization. Those organizations are the mediating entities and that requires trust among the people who are the beneficiaries of those mediating entities for them to function.
So this work I’ve been doing with news organizations, we’ve been talking to journalists who are exploring things like engagement journalism or solutions journalism or these other kind of modes of reporting, where communities are not reported on but reported with. And they’re doing it as a means of… Because they understand that part of the role of journalism is actually to build trust with readers and audiences and to build community. And in fact there is a relationship between community organizing and journalism. So again it’s not just reporting on but reporting with.
And so you have large organizations that are creating engagement desks for instance, that are thinking about these issues well beyond, say social media marketing. They’re thinking about this in the form of community organizing. So it’s not just kind of small blog outlets that are doing this. And that transition, I think, is a fascinating one, and one suggests that something has to change. That the organizations have to adapt in this context of immediate networked communication. They have to do that extra work to generate the trust and the goodwill among the constituents that they represent or serve.
And I think what’s so interesting about this is that, I have the opportunity to work with news organizations and also with governments. I see the same problem, both of them. Both of these kinds of organizations are struggling with generating legitimacy and trust and having to do things in a different way, having to redesign the structure of how they interact with publics so that they can do their work and even re-conceptualize the work that they do.
Ayushi Roy: [00:08:50] Right. This is so interesting to me, because I actually feel like what you’re describing is a story of these government players or these players in the journalism space seeing their own irrelevance. And all of a sudden, they’re like oh (inaudible) . If I’m going to be irrelevant, how do I reverse that trend? It’s fascinating to me because I feel like the literature around building civic trust or a sense of civic duty is actually a bit removed from this conversation around legitimacy and relevance. So that’s really fascinating to me that you’re kind of describing actually this evolution in the organization itself to do more than just sell to or market to their user base, whether it be constituents or readers.
Eric: [00:09:39] Yeah. When I first started doing this work, I was very interested in the front end of engagement. I was very interested in what the interface was between the public and the organization, I suppose. And now as I do this work more and more, I think about the front end matters. There needs to be engaging opportunities for people to interact and to discuss and to learn and to influence. But if the back end doesn’t respond to the front end, if the organization cannot learn and sustain, then we’re going nowhere. And I’ve come to really believe in the importance, the continued importance of not just organizations but institutions. So we could talk about these emerging institutions, we can talk about kind of networked organizations, or even just networked groups of people that can rise up and then go down in a moment. That’s really important that that’s possible now. But if we don’t have the sustainability of the institution, I think our democracy suffers.
Again over the last couple of years, I’ve really shifted my concern to this kind of organizational framework, trying to understand how organizations can adapt and achieve that… reimagine themselves in order to remain relevant in a way that’s driven by a different value structure. So for instance, look at the New York Times as an example. The New York Times is of course attacked by the right as fake news and illegitimate, and then it is also distrusted by a lot of people on the left. If you’re a person of color and poor and you feel like your entire life you’ve been ignored or worse, you’ve been inaccurately represented, then of course you don’t trust that organization.
And so you’ve got this sort of middle, and I realized this about myself. It’s like when I realized, well I trust the New York Times. The New York Times has always served me. Institutions have been good to me, and I’ve benefited from them. What I’ve realized is that it’s not just the reporting capacity of an organization like the New York Times, but it’s about an influential organization like that doing the work of redefining itself in a moment where that distrust cannot just be swept under the rug or ignored. That distrust is loud and present right now and there has to be work by organizations to reimagine themselves to accommodate and respond to that distrust.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:12:25] Wow. Hearing this from you, Eric, it’s making me think back… kind of the life of our democracy in some sense is going to depend on how these institutions respond to this. I think a lot of times we think about what it’s really about government, and it’s just about, so this is voting but there’s this whole other piece. How they vote and how they interact will have a lot to say about how much trust they have in institutions that are there to support them and work with them. And so if these institutions aren’t able to step up in this way, then we’re kind of really in big trouble. Wow.
Ayushi Roy: [00:12:58] What’s another example of having worked with a sort of private entity, whether it be… I don’t know if you work with… You know we’ve been thinking about real estate development in the role of urban life or banking in the role of… Even we work like coworking spaces. So can you maybe speak to how these engagement desks you were describing look outside of the realm of journalism and government?
Eric: [00:13:22] I think when we’re talking about the private sector, in some ways it’s a much clearer proposition. Because there is a bottom line that’s fairly transparent. We know what real estate developers need to do. And yes, we can align motivations so that the profit making motivation of the real estate developers aligned with other benefits that we can imagine. But we’re not going to change the profit motivation of the real estate developer. And in some ways there’s a real nice clarity there. It’s like, cool. Technology companies need to sell technology. Data companies need to market their data, and real estate developers need to develop and sell the real estate. But when we talk about government, and we talk about… even though news organizations are often for profit, they have a messier… it’s a messier proposition there. So in some ways I’m comforted by the business model that’s clear. And it’s sort of easier to tweak and to work with, whereas these other organizations that I think are more foundational to our civic infrastructure need some more attention.
Ayushi Roy: [00:14:32] But how do you align profit and trust? Or back end monetization and engagement? How are those things being aligned and positively correlated with profit? What does it even look like?
Eric: [00:14:46] Because there’s all sorts of ways of making profit. So let’s just say the community wants the real estate developer, let’s say, to have 30% affordable units in what they’re developing. The real estate developer will come back and say, “Okay. Well if we do that then we need to develop two more stories, so that we can have the density that we need in order to meet that 30% mark.” In that case they’re not saying we’re not motivated by profit, they’re saying, “Yeah. We’re still motivated by profit. Here’s what we need to do in order to make the profit that we need to make.”
And again, I’m not saying that… It’s possible that we could say, “Well their profit margin is too big. They should lower their profit margin so that they can do good in the world.” And we can advocate for that. And then we can advocate for the government to make some of those demands and put limits on density, for example, if that’s what our desired goal is. But again, we can put restrictions and regulations on that profit motive through other kinds of regulatory bodies and advocacy attempts so that the real estate developer is placed in some sort of check. So they’re not civic actors, nor should we expect them to be. We want to create the infrastructure for them to continue to do their work, but with an accepted framework. So again I don’t think we need to include them in sort of civic washing their organization, because that’s not authentic. Let’s just let a duck be a duck. Let’s just let that happen and work around it, and then build the other infrastructure so that we can make sure that their profit motivation is not in complete dis alignment with civic goals.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:16:26] I want to push on this one a little while. Because I think it’s a really interesting perspective to think. I want to go back to the issue of trust in institutions and how people trust institutions. So one way of looking at it is, okay these institutions need to change. They need to figure out how to actually work better with their communities. They need to do a series of things that develop that trust bill. Another way of looking at it is saying, they can do that all they want but the real distrust issue is actually among the people. And if we build up trust among the people, then they’ll be able to hold those institutions accountable for the things they want to do. So maybe we shouldn’t be putting the emphasis on the institution, we should be putting the emphasis on the polity and figure out how it can be in a more trustful relationship, and if that will actually right the rest of these institutions.
Eric: [00:17:18] Why do we have to pick?
Ceasar McDowell: [00:17:21] We don’t.
Eric: [00:17:21] Yeah. I think those are both important things. But if we don’t focus on the institutional transformation I don’t know that those institutions are just going to automatically transform themselves. I think that there needs to be some deliberate assistance in allowing those institutions to transform. And I agree with you that we need to also work on the polity side, but I guess I don’t believe that that kind of interpersonal communication is ever totally absent of these institutions, that in the background there are these government organizations that are facilitating certain aspects of civic life. There are news organizations that are creating information landscape that we’re operating in. There are media platforms like YouTube and Facebook that are also a part of this conversation. We haven’t talked about that yet. But I think that that’s another piece of this information landscape that we need to address. But I kind of feel like we need to address all of these things at once. What I’m saying is my personal efforts have moved towards the institutional transformation, but I think that there’s all sorts of room for other things.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:18:41] Other things. Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about the social media companies and their role in this. Because there you almost have a mix. They are creating the peer-to-peer conversation, but they are also institutions that are generating (inaudible) a lot of mistrust. So they’re actually an interesting space because it’s very different.
Eric: [00:19:06] It is, and I also think that their business model tends to be a little mysterious for most people. Most people don’t realize that Facebook is a data company. That’s important to know. So I think we have to be better at laying bare how these companies are making money so that people can make better decisions about these things. If people understood that data is the big money maker, then maybe the reason for the particular AI that’s directing me in a direction so that I stay on that site and continue to contribute my data, maybe we would question that a little bit more. So I think again it’s about transparency in business models. And I would like to see the social media platforms be a little bit more transparent in how they’re making money so that consumers can be a little smarter about how they’re using it.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:20:03] That’s really… I’m actually fascinated by this. All the time we’ve talked, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this point specifically. But the idea that one of the things we need in order for the public to understand where it is (inaudible) these institutions, particularly in the business world, is to really clearly understand what the model is, really be able to be clear what the goal is, really be able to be clear what their business proposition is. People need to know that, because if people know that then they have an ability to kind of work with that. And you’re not even saying there’s a right and wrong model in that. It’s just be clear about it.
And then one of the problems with our public institutions, there is no clarity.
Eric: [00:20:49] There is no clarity, yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:20:50] And there probably can’t be any clarity.
Eric: [00:20:52] That’s right.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:20:53] So you have one set of institutions in our life that can provide clarity, another set of institutions that may not be able to provide clarity, and the public has to work in both of those in order to make a democracy work.
Eric: [00:21:04] Right. When I watch TV with my kids, if there’s a commercial break I’ll turn off the volume and I’ll ask them, “What are they selling?” And so when you watch commercials, like a car commercial, and you’re seeing a-
Ayushi Roy: [00:21:22] Oh, I love this.
Eric: [00:21:23] … You’re seeing a kind of wild landscape and a car driving through a wild landscape, and then if they say, “Well they’re selling a car.” And just ask them, “Why are they… You haven’t even seen the car yet. You’ve seen the landscape. So what’s going on?” If we look at commercials, and the way that commercials tend to frame what it is that they’re selling, often they’re trying to obfuscate the object that they’re selling, too. They’re selling a feeling. They’re selling a lifestyle. And so that’s so often what happens, is that the clarity of what people are selling, the goal is to actually make that unclear so that you’re just sort of mildly inspired to go and fulfill this fantasy that you’ve been given. So I see that in sort of… I think we can expand that notion of like if we just for a moment just turn off the volume on this stuff, and we just ask that everything around us, we’re being sold things, what are we being sold and why, is a really good exercise.
And I think we should even do that with our public institutions. Our public institutions aren’t necessarily selling anything but there’s a set of values that’s guiding the work. What governance means is always a factor in how things get done. And if our public institutions are not effectively reflecting on what governance is and should be, then we should hold them accountable.
So I think that there’s something there about just silence and reflection, in a metaphorical sense.
Ayushi Roy: [00:23:00] One thing that you were saying about not only is it important for us to be mindful of what we’re being sold, but also for these institutions to be maybe more transparent about their models. And in the government’s case there’s sort of this… I don’t know, this value or sort of moral ethic almost about how they should serve and who they should serve and how often, etc. But in the case of this car company, for example. We’ve come to a place where the car that you drive or the clothes that you wear are often as telling about your political beliefs as your actual vote. So what’s the sort of responsibility of this car company, as an example, or I’m thinking about Nike, I’m thinking about some of these even clothing brands. What’s their responsibility in being transparent, in being open about the role that they are playing in our civic life, in our civic space? Do they have any role? Is this a regulatory question? How do you see that playing out?
Eric: [00:24:06] It’s interesting. What is their responsibility?
Ayushi Roy: [00:24:09] What is its corporate social responsibility?
Eric: [00:24:11] That’s… Yeah. Exactly.
Ayushi Roy: [00:24:11] Can we redefine this?
Eric: [00:24:12] But maybe that’s a different thing. And maybe it’s a scale question. If I’m selling kind of wooden flutes on the corner. I make wooden flutes and I sell them on the corner, and I make money based on me selling these wooden flutes that I make, do I have any responsibility to anyone besides myself in this case to make enough money so I can get by? So on one sense, that’s sort of pure capitalism. We have this idea that, yeah it’s super clear what I’m doing. I have a thing, I’m selling that thing, and then people are buying. And I’m going to do what I need to do to sell it. But then at some point when I become Nike and it’s no longer about simply just peddling shoes on the corner, but now all of a sudden my responsibility has increased because now I’m, in a way, I’m a civic actor. I’m giving money to politicians. I’m employing thousands of people. There’s all sorts of other responsibilities now that come out of that.
So does Nike have a responsibility to invest in certain values of inclusivity and kind of anti-racism? Maybe not. Maybe Nike has a responsibility to not exploit its employees. Maybe Nike has a responsibility to be clear about its business models. And maybe we should be able to compartmentalize. Here’s capitalism. Here’s some clarity and purpose that’s happening within this sector of society. And then over here, here are our kind of public sector organizations and systems, and we hold that to a different level of scrutiny.
I guess I keep going back to this. The responsibility of actors is dependent on their specific role. Americans tend to trust corporations more than we trust government. If that is the case, then what needs to happen is that we need to really focus on making that trust that we have in corporations transparent and critical. And then allow us to cultivate and to build our trust in government and in public sector and civil society.
I feel like… Again I keep going back to… I don’t care that much that Nike is a civic actor. I want them to be clear about what they’re doing, and I want to feel okay about being able to sort of put them in a corner and say, “Okay. That’s what these people are doing and I can watch my back if I want to, or I can buy their stuff if I want to.” And then over here I need to have clarity as well.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:27:13] Wow.
Ayushi Roy: [00:27:13] I don’t know. I want Nike to use the trust it has with its consumer base to do more. Maybe I’m asking too much. But I’m perhaps still in this right eyed stage of if these organizations… Especially as the way that we engage with these civic actors goes from purchasing their products to just viewing. Like in Facebook’s case. I’m giving them money by simply viewing their page on my browser or their app on my phone. And the fact that my relationship is so simple in viewership, and yet is so somehow trusting, is so, as a result, easily exploitable by Facebook. I understand that. If I was in Facebook’s shoes, not to make Facebook some sort of human player, they’re obviously a corporation and there’s more going on. But I wonder if I would never be treated that way by an individual, or by my civic actors that I’m calling civic actors, what gives Facebook or Twitter or YouTube the right to do that?
Eric: [00:28:17] Because your relationship with those corporation entities is transactional. You go to Facebook… Facebook may be a little bit more complicated-
Ayushi Roy: [00:28:27] But so is my relationship with the government.
Eric: [00:28:27] Not necessarily. So let me use a slightly easier example before going to Facebook. Let’s just say, a car company. I buy a car and the car is a good product. I trust the company because I had that transaction. It was a good transaction. I feel good about the price I paid. That’s how I build trust with that particular entity. With government, let’s just say the government could repair a sidewalk. All right? So I’ve got a hole in my sidewalk, government repairs it. Great. In some ways that’s a transaction. But what’s happening there is that there’s something more relational that actually needs to take place. Because my interaction with that government is not just about the single and efficient transaction, but it’s about over time my ability to interact with this organization for a number of different things that actually scaffolds a huge piece of my life in ways that I don’t even realize.
And I think the same is true for news organizations in that it’s not simply transactional, the way that we interact with our information. It can be more relational. So the way that I see the different in these kind of civic actors, both public sector and otherwise, versus private sector actors, the sort of more traditional kind of corporate actors, is that that’s okay for that to be transactional. We want it to be transactional. We want… When I buy shoes, I want that to be… It’s a transaction, and I want that to be a good one. But I don’t need a relationship with Nike. So I think we should think differently about what kinds of organizations require relational engagement, and what kinds actually would be better served by transactional engagement.
And when companies like Nike start talking about caring about their customers and having relationships with me, that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to have a relationship with my bank. I want to have a transaction with it. And so I think it’s productive for us to differentiate these things. Again, it gets to this kind of civic washing that happens that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:30:40] I was going to say something about, when you said the thing with your bank. But sometimes the nature of the transaction and the ability to transact is about the relationship. It’s like, because I am actually in a relationship with you even though you’re my bank and I’m carrying transactions with you, if I have a good relationship with you and you have one with me, I get advantages in the transaction. And if I don’t, I don’t get them. So in some sense, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that these institutions are not in relationships. They’re in relationships with certain parts of society, which get different kinds of transactional… are able to do different things through their transactions than other parts of society. And I think that’s one of the… institutions say, well maybe I need to be a little bit more even about that, or at least transparent about it. At least transparent about it. It’s like, I guess banks are kind of transparent about that, because you have to be a gold customer and put 5 million dollars in your bank and you get to do this.
Ayushi Roy: [00:31:43] It’s not the experience I have, Ceasar, but yeah. No, absolutely.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:31:46] I’m just (inaudible) .
Eric: [00:31:48] I suppose you can think about airlines in the same way. You can-
Ayushi Roy: [00:31:53] Most-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:31:53] They’re the opposite. They start it with a price where everyone is equal. And then they decided let’s change the price. Let’s keep that price and give you less.
Eric: [00:32:04] Well sure, that’s true.
Ayushi Roy: [00:32:04] (crosstalk) .
But if you think about the way that they treat their first class customers, the lounges that they have access to. So there’s all sorts of… there’s definitely a class system. But we’ve become comfortable with that. It’s okay in some ways because we understand. Because the rules of capitalism are transparent in that. In some ways, yes everyone can get on an airplane if you can afford it. Capitalism has played a really important role in integration and assimilation in the United States. It was the railroads that allowed African Americans to ride if they could pay, and that was controversial. But it was capitalism. So it’s like, okay. It’s capitalism. So then why would we turn our backs on customers?
Eric: [00:32:54] And I think see a history of that. We see a history of business actually making really progressive strides because of the bottom line.
Ayushi Roy: [00:33:03] It aligned with capital.
Eric: [00:33:04] Because look, if you can pay, why do we care who you are? So in some ways, the market has been able to make in-roads into our diverse society faster than these public sector organizations, which I think is super interesting. So there’s a role… Again, this goes back to the point. There’s a role to the kind of transactional and clear. This is capitalism. This is what it’s about. We don’t want anything more from it, and we demand things from the other sector.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:33:36] This is where there’s a sort of interesting question for me. Taking those two areas, there are places that are really operating out of capitalism, the really transactional relationships, and then we have these public entities, civic entities that are out there. So what happens when, which we’re seeing a lot of now, they actually try to take the capital market and deliver public goods through it like education. It seems like there may be some things that’s… Just taking a model where actually maybe these things should not operate in certain areas because they’re driven by something that maybe they can’t even deliver.
Because when a private company comes in and takes over a school system to do charter schools like in New Orleans, their actual transactional relationship is with the government, not with the customers. So there’s no more relationship with the people who need to benefit from it actually on either end. They’re kind of cut out of the equation, just become… I don’t know what you… What is that name? They become cogs of the wheel in some sense. So maybe, yeah we can make this distinction that says, okay, there are these places where we really just want to have these transactional relationships, and that’s okay. But there are some places where we should be very careful not to let those kinds of relationships enter into certain kinds of services and spaces.
Eric: [00:35:00] I couldn’t agree with you more. I think that this is true when it comes to where we need to prioritize public value. Education is a perfect example, that we shouldn’t be outsourcing that. We see this happening… We see the Veterans Administration, this new effort to privatize health benefits for veterans. I think it’s a terrible idea. It’s like, here we have a public system that is driven by certain values of inclusion and access. And we’re privatizing it with the idea that the market is going to get it out there faster, but the transactional nature of that is actually counterproductive to where we need to go. And I think it’s exactly the case with schools, as you mentioned. Privatized prisons is another example.
So yes, we need to be really clear about where these boundaries are. And the worst thing is to sort of have that creeping in of the transactional, the creeping in of the business model into what should protected as the public domain. And really this comes down to where public value needs to be prioritized over profit motive. And that’s part of the conversation that we should be having as we neo-liberalize so many aspects of our society. But I think what I’m saying about the clarity of the business model would go to… That’s the core of the critique of the privatization of the educational systems. In that case, that doesn’t work. Because not only are you… You’re not clear about the business model, your customer is obfuscated. All of it is unclear. So instead, we should be drawing a line around that and say, “Look. No, the educational mission is a public sector, public value proposition.” And in that case it needs to remain public.
And again, I’m not saying that because it remains public it needs to be completely organized by public sector organizations. We haven’t talked a lot about civil society organizations, but that may play a huge role here.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:37:07] (crosstalk) . Right.
Eric: [00:37:08] Which are this kind of in between player. So it’s not just government or not government. There’s this whole other realm.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:37:15] But it’s really these kind of business models versus public. You’re really making that distinction. This is a really interesting argument. I just want to raise up for me, what’s been really powerful about this conversation is I think this is one of the first conversations that I’ve ever had with somebody that’s been able to say, well, actually you can take a business model. And it’s good for certain kinds of things. And if you keep it in that box, it’s okay. Our problem is we’re letting it get in a lot of other boxes, and it’s messing up things. And if we’re worried about civic life, we should be worried about civic life and stuff in these public realms. Don’t worry about it in the business realm so much. Because you have other ways of doing it.
Ayushi Roy: [00:37:57] It needs to be contained. Yeah.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:37:57] Yeah. It’s contained and we can use… That is transactional and we can actually use that to shift behavior in it if we want to. But this other realm is a lot more messier. It’s where we should be putting our attention. And we should be putting up some pretty clear firewalls.
Ayushi Roy: [00:38:13] Right. A lot of what I’m hearing you say, and I feel like I need to reflect on this long after our conversation, is about not trying to make these private actors civic players. And actually, like Ceasar was just saying, keeping them in that box, because there is that difference between a relationship and a transaction. And sometimes we’ve gotten to the point where we’re kind of mixing the two either based on who we’re giving our money to or who we’re viewing the products of. And it is scary. It is really scary as a consumer to think that I’m being sold this black box, and so why not just make the box a little more transparent and why not take it out of the civic realm? That sounds really reasonable to me, and this has been incredible. Thank you.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:38:58] It’s not where we thought we would be at. I can tell you that. In some sense, you may not know this, but you actually challenged the-
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:04] The very premise of our season.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:06] … The very premise of our season.
Eric: [00:39:09] Oh, sorry.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:09] But it’s good because we can-
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:11] Don’t be sorry.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:11] Don’t be sorry, because it’s actually great. Because that’s what we wanted to do and that’s why we’re here. Eric, it’s been great having you here. (crosstalk) .
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:17] Thank you so much.
Eric: [00:39:17] My pleasure. It’s been great. Thank you.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:19] Okay. Thank you.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:20] Nice to meet you.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:23] Wow.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:24] That interview was not where I expected we were going to go.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:39:28] Yeah, it’s interesting. We started out with this whole notion of there are new actors who are really shaping civic space and we wanted this season to be about really interviewing these new actors. And Eric comes in and says maybe not.
Ayushi Roy: [00:39:46] Right. And he’s also incredibly clear, or so far it seems like a clear division between the kinds of organizations that should focus on transactions. And the kinds of organizations that should focus on relationships. And it’s making me think a lot about… I think I told you this kind of off air, this book I’m reading right now by Michael Sandel called The Moral Limits of Markets. Incredible book. I highly recommend it to people. Very easy to read, and it’s all about kind of exactly this. Which is why did economists start all of a sudden including psychology and behavioral studies as a part of economics. No, no, no. That’s a different discipline. Let’s not bridge them. Because then all of a sudden we’re giving these economists, or people that are thinking about markets, a lot more authority and authority in industries that were in conversations that they really shouldn’t have, and the authority-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:40:42] In spaces (crosstalk) . Yeah.
Ayushi Roy: [00:40:42] Exactly. And that’s kind of what I heard Eric saying.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:40:45] And maybe the thing we should take from Eric is not that being engaged in civic life, that some people should do and some shouldn’t, but that if you are a transactional based organization you should actually not lose that and pretend you’re something else as you’re engaging in civic space. Because it’s that lack of clarity that really confuses people. Where they think they’re stepping in something that’s going to be relational, and it’s not going to be. You can be very clear of that. No, this is actually a transactional space, and we end with that. And there are some specific things we can take up as transactional things. And you know that, I know that. We understand what the rules are. Where in these relational spaces, it’ll be different.
Ayushi Roy: [00:41:34] Right. And another thing that I had taken away about was not just this sort of clarity. But the other part of it was that engaging in civic spaces isn’t inherently a good thing. And I think that’s an assumption I also walked in with, is those people that are taking on the extra effort, kudos to them for being a part of shaping public life and shaping civic life even as industry players. And he was like, wait that’s not inherently good. Let’s not automatically pat them on the back for taking on that role, because maybe there’s a bigger question here about who even deserves to take on that role. And I appreciated that as well.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:42:14] Yeah. What does it mean to be prepared to take on that role and where do you need to be coming from to actually add value in the right way? Yeah, that was a really powerful conversation. I’m really glad we started with him, because we would have been really embarrassed to end with him and say, “Oh, we got that wrong.”
Ayushi Roy: [00:42:31] Right. And now we’re going to have a whole different gambit of interviews and guests to bring into our studio given the conversation we had with him. The audience is here with us on our journey to evolve the scope in our questions for these interviews.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:42:47] Yes. I hope you do appreciate the fact that we are evolving this-
Ayushi Roy: [00:42:51] Exactly.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:42:52] … as we go through. And we appreciate you going on this journey with us.
Ayushi Roy: [00:42:56] We take your feedback-
Ceasar McDowell: [00:42:56] Take your feedback. And who should we have with us next?
Ayushi Roy: [00:43:00] We’ll be talking with David Wertheimer formerly from the Gates Foundation, the director of democracy. And we’re going to continue this conversation around transactions and relations with him. So stay tuned.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:43:12] We’ll see you in two weeks.
We’re a production of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT with support from MIT’s Office of Open Learning.
Ayushi Roy: [00:43:24] Our sound is produced by Dave Lishansky. Our content by Julia Curbera and Misael Galdamez. I am Ayushi Roy.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:43:31] I’m Ceasar McDowell.
Ayushi Roy: [00:43:32] And you can find us online at themove.mit.edu.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:43:37] And with our medium site at…
Ayushi Roy: [00:43:38] Medium.com/themovemit as well as our Twitter and Facebook. Thanks so much.
Ceasar McDowell: [00:43:44] Bye bye.
