A Deliberative ‘Carpe Diem’ Moment

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Craig Paterson on his blog Deliberative Ideas

Certain moments in history require dedicated and focused attention to critical decisions. I believe we’re living in one of those moments…when deliberative work can be incredibly important for short-term and long-term well-being of our neighbors and our country. This is the moment for which we’ve been prepared in our experiences, our research and studies, and our professional practices. Carpe diem, my friends! ‘Seize the day’ to revive our democratic resilience through thousands of networked, small-group conversations to inform our leaders with the values, hopes and expectations of all Americans.

Last November and again in May, research workshops at the Kettering Foundation focused on how online digital strategies could encourage and effectively network greater public engagement in our most critical political dilemmas. In both of these workshops, we reaffirmed our confidence that great strides have been made in dialogue and deliberation during the past quarter century. We have a remarkably rich and deep deliberative infrastructure in place for in big cities and small towns across the country. Our biggest challenge it seems is to coordinate highly diverse efforts and then to make sense of a huge and nebulous cloud of deliberative data.