American Values Are...®

Metaphor from the Midwest

December 14, 2009 — Dave L Overfelt

Civic engagement cannot simply be demanded from citizens, it must be cultivated among them. In this presentation (pdf), we offer a few of our favorite quotes as guidelines for understanding civic engagement as an ongoing process through which citizens gather skills and become more aware of and more involved in the issues that impact their lives. We hope that you can find some time to reflect on and engage with the issues that impact your community over the holidays. In the new year help plant and cultivate the seeds of citizenship.

Posted in Civic Engagement, Culture, Dialogue. Tags: Civic Capacity, Dialogue. Leave a Comment »

Words Matter!

October 7, 2009 — Dave L Overfelt

Words are more than just emotional triggers. “Fascist” and “socialist” are not simply synonyms. When we use words simply to spark emotion without understanding or respect for their definitions, we erode civic capacity. When words are used with respect to their meanings and with the purpose of conveying a critical point of difference, we invite thinking and build comprehension and understanding. In order to bridge differences we need to be able to use the language and thinking skills required for difficult dialogues. Without these skills our attempts at dialogue will likely prove unsuccessful, possibly even degenerating into simple bickering.

If we are truly interested in building civic capacity, we need to think about the way we use words. In our American Values Are…® discussion guides we talk about definitions because words are extremely powerful and dictionaries very precise about what vocabulary they use in their definitions. Furthermore, it is important to respond when words are misused because misuse creates a flaw in the foundation needed for both trust and sound analysis.

We invite your thoughts on what we can we do to bridge the gap between the collective thinking skills we have and those we need to participate effectively, and any other thoughts you have on why words matter.

Posted in Civic Engagement, Culture, Dialogue, Political Participation. Tags: Culture, Dialogue, Engagement, Political Culture, Political Participation. 1 Comment »

Focusing on the Structure of Engagement

September 29, 2009 — Dave L Overfelt

It is surprisingly important to establish a structure for citizen engagement. Without a structure, your engagement process can become easily derailed, becoming nothing more than a venting session. I recently sat through one of these sessions as an observer. While I was happy to see several different groups of people normally opposed to each other in the same space, it was disappointing to see that there was no purpose or forward movement to this “dialogue” session. It is certainly good to let people air their grievances and begin to understand each other but if the process doesn’t aim toward resolution then nothing positive can come of it and the energy to tackle the issue at hand can dissipate.

As we mentioned in the last post, we have looked at some of the specific steps that can be taken in working toward resolution and we have created this presentation for The Communications Center, Inc. This describes our addition to the two Public Agenda’s and The Harwood Institute’s tools, a list of “Ways of Working Toward Resolution”. In addition to focusing on the endpoint of a deliberative process, we include possible methods that communities can use to build the relationships they need for sustained dialogues and to reach sustainable resolutions. We invite your feedback.

If you have trouble with the powerpoint, make sure you are clicking on “Read Only” or download this pdf version without any of the nice animation. Sorry OpenOffice users, still no support for password protected ppt files so you will have to use the pdf.

Posted in Civic Engagement, Political Participation. Tags: Civic Engagement, Culture, Dialogue, Engagement, Political Culture. 1 Comment »

Moving Beyond Negative Norms

July 24, 2009 — Dave L Overfelt

As we mentioned in some of our previous posts, dialogues are regularly plagued with the sorts of oppositional behaviors (finger-pointing, name calling, ridicule) that make constructive solutions to real problems difficult to achieve. Other factors undermining effective dialogue include wishful thinking, simple dismissal of alternative viewpoints, insistent oversimplification, jockeying for credit, and unwillingness to trust in others. If we are to make dialogue a part of our self-governance, how do we go about moving beyond these negative norms?

This is no easy task. What we may require is a sea change in the way we do politics. What must we do to create a truly inclusive and functional public sphere that leads citizens into dialogue, helps them collaborate to develop the knowledge needed to make good decisions, and then results in those decisions being reflected into policy and action?

Posted in Dialogue, Political Participation. Tags: Action, Civic Capacity, Democracy, Political Culture, Politics, Public Education. Leave a Comment »

From Dialogue to Policy

June 26, 2009 — Dave L Overfelt

In our previous post, we indicated that interlocking sets of bounded dialogues may be necessary to make broad scale public dialogues more productive in evaluating or implementing policy changes. While many can agree that dialogue is a useful tool for public engagement, it is not so clear how this dialogue can or will intersect with or influence the legislative or regulatory processes that lead to changes in policy. And dialogue cannot be expected to replace procedural or other safeguards inherent in those other processes. Sustained and informed dialogues that are designed to interact with those processes could over time help make those processes more accountable to the public, and serve both to educate the public and inform decisionmakers. Americans indicate that they want greater involvement with, and greater transparency and accountability from, their government, yet, it is unclear exactly what this means. Is the general public prepared for intensive and informed dialogue? Why or why not?

Posted in Dialogue, Political Participation. 1 Comment »

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