Page 108 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

Once a decision is made about how to proceed, people test to see if anyone or any group is

willing to act on the decision and identify resources that they can draw on. Kettering calls this

political practice identifying and committing civic resources.

Commitments produce collective political will. When citizens then join forces to do

something, we refer to that as organizing civic actions, a practice that brings the many and various

resources a citizenry has to bear on a problem. Action is normally followed by evaluating what

was accomplished, which the foundation has labeled learning together in order to distinguish

collective from individual learning. This practice provides the political momentum needed to

follow through on difficult problems and having the space to meet to discuss issues is important.

All six of these practices are part of the larger politics of self-rule, not stand-alone

techniques. People will continue to name, frame, and deliberate even as they assess what they have

done, and people will learn together but can they answer what are the four common democratic

practices? Free elections; representative constitutional government; citizen participation; majority

rule, minority rights. Democratic practices are ways citizens can work together—even when they

disagree—to address shared issues. Democratic practices are variations on the things that happen

every day in communities, but for these routine activities to open-up, citizens need to be proactive.

Dialogue is essence. One style called the Bohm Dialogue is a freely flowing group

conversation in which participants attempt to reach a common understanding, experiencing

everyone's point of view fully, equally and non-judgmentally. This can lead to new and deeper

understanding. The purpose is to solve the communication crises that face society, and indeed the

whole of human nature and consciousness. It utilizes a theoretical understanding of the way

thoughts relate to universal reality. It is named after physicist David Bohm who originally

proposed this form of dialogue and evolved it from his long association with Jiddu Krishnamurti.

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