A Discourse of Ideas:
A platform for discussing and debating political action.
Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas — Elenor Roosevelt.
It is not by accident that one of the great leaders of our country, Elenor Roosevelt, shared this thought, allowing it to echo throughout the ages. Ideas are the foundation of human existence. Everything we experience in our lives that is not a natural part of the world began as an idea. This is true from the simple inventions, like the wheel, to the exceedingly complex technologies that have become common place in our modern world.
Mechanical ideas become technologies that influence and impact our lives in various ways. These ideas are powerful and our societies have set up protections that ensure our ideas, and particularly the ones that we are able to bring into actualized form, are connected to their originators. These precautions allow ideas to flourish as real things. Websites, computers, cars, planes, and everything else are able to move from the realm of ideas to the realm of real, concrete items.
Political ideas are different from mechanical ones; they are. Reflections of cultural inclinations, and there is a rich, deep history of their discussion, debate, and consequence ranging back to ancient times. The study of political philosophy was formally introduced by the early Greek philosophers; Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, to name a few. These same philosophers were, interestingly, simultaneously the originators of what we now regard as scientific thought. Aristotle wrote equally prolifically on the categorization of different modes of scientific endeavor as he did on the philosophical underpinnings of the various types of possible political systems; ranging from tyrannical dictatorships, to democratic and free societies.
These masterful inquisitors into the realm of ideas recognized and understood the need to think deeply and at length about the world they wished to bring into being, weighing the caveats and pitfalls of all possible types of social organization. Plato goes so far, in his republic, to conceptualize an ideal state; a true utopia that places ideas, and those most capable of parsing and understanding them, philosophically minded people, at the center of the political discourse. The republic Plato crafts in his masterwork heavily implies that the important and vital function of a state is to train those capable of understanding and contemplating ideas in the craft of just that. It is from this place, he posits, that the best leadership will arise; the leadership that does not wish to lead for any other reason than the love of and service to the best ideas that serve the best aims of the society at large.
This wonderful ideal, unfortunately, is not represented in modern forms of democracy. Modern democracy places an emphasis on politicians, polarizing incidents, and sensationalized media stories about these politicians and incidents. Rarely in the public discourse is there any actual discussion about ideas, about what a good society would look like, and how we would get there. Look to social media, and you find this problem multiplied; people are often likely to turn to their feeds to tell one another why they are wrong to react a certain way, or to share support around a uniting story regardless of the intellectual merit of the story they are supporting. Again, in these cases, the presence of ideas; of clear and concrete solutions to the problems that seemingly plague our society, is absent.
Policies: ideas for action.
Policies are political ideas that are capable of being carried out by governmental bodies in order to serve the population of a given country. These policies generally fall into two categories; active, and passive. Active policies induce action on the part of the government. They are ideas such as “the protection of citizens from harm,” “universal health care,” or “ban the use of a particular harmful substance.” These policies appeal to various degrees to different people for various reasons, and there may be extreme variance in the acceptance of any or all of these types of ideas throughout a layered and complex society such as those that exist in most modern countries. Too often, however, we are subjected to hearing media personalities and politicians debate over the merits of particular policies, while doing little to take the pulse of the general population in terms of their preference for these policies. In a democratic society, lawmakers are meant to serve their constituents, instituting policies and protocols that serve both the interests and desires of the general population.
Today, everyone has access to the information in abundance. We are all a few keystrokes away from knowing whatever it is that we desire to know. Throughout our history, we left policymaking to the lawmakers because we could be reasonably confident that they were more clearheaded, capable, and knowledgeable about the actual political solutions- the policies- that could serve us, their constituents. We would elect officials based upon their expertise, character, education, and ideas. Though not perfect, this effectively solved the problem of how to arrive at, and institute, good political actions.
This system has worked for a long time, but the increase in available information has precipitated its breakdown. Lawmakers no longer know more than the general population; their expertise has become specific and their idea generation has become inadequate to serve the needs of our modern society. While our collective attention is still focused upon these individuals who we have elected to move our society forward, we have lost the thread of our collective narrative, which is the true place from which ideas spring forth.
Better ideas from collective intelligence:
The only way we come to new ideas, and thereby better ways of serving everyone in our society, is through careful, reasoned engagement with those ideas. In our democratic society, we should all be able to voice our ideas, imagine how the world may be better, and suggest concrete action that can be taken towards that betterment. By placing ideas at the center of our discourse, we move away from obsessing over the people who implement them, we disconnect our identities from narrowly defined groups and begin to think for ourselves and engage with ideas for ourselves.
If we were to place ideas at the center of our political and social discourse, we would be able, through careful discussion and dialogue, to negotiate new policies and ideas. We could find agreement where previously there only existed identity-driven dissent. We could engage in thought experiments that would lead to concrete action; to actual policies being instituted. We could drive progress where possible, and hold back unreasoned and ill-defined ideas until they had been given their due diligence. Building a political culture with ideas at the center would lead to a greatness of those ideas. Just as placing ideas at the center of science, and the academy, has led to the technological marvels that are commonplace in our modern society.
Building an infrastructure for ideas:
Until today, this type of open discourse within a society was not possible. The best that could be managed at any given time was for a relatively small number of people to gather in university halls, town halls, or religious centers to swap, discuss, and debate their ideas. It is only in the last decade and a half, with the rise of social media, modern internet protocols, and other communications technologies that we are able to discuss, debate, and dialogue about ideas collectively; with everyone else at the same time. This has caused discord and chaos, but it has the potential to cause the opposite: harmony and order. What must be discovered is the mechanism by which the latter state can be attained.
It is this question I seek to answer: how can we collectively discuss and dialogue about ideas online in a way that increases harmony and order? I am a firm believer in incremental improvement towards a goal. As a programmer, it is important to fail fast, break things, and try again until the desired result is achieved. Even then it may be prudent to seek flaws in one’s program or logic, and attempt to fix them. It is in this spirit that I set about my first attempt at answering my question in the most basic way possible; by creating a Sinatra MVC app to store, discuss, and support various policies, and positions for, or against those policies. This, my Minimum Viable Product towards my end goal is, I hope, an extremely early iteration of what will eventually be a far more robust and functional web app dedicated to sharing ideas, placing those ideas at the center of political conversation, and working towards the realization of those ideas in actual policy positions held by lawmakers at the behest of the collective.
It is time that we, as a society begin experimenting with new ways of sharing ideas and acting on those ideas in the form of policy-based action. If great minds discuss ideas, then a society that holds the discussion of ideas as sacred is one filled with great minds and is thereby a great society. It is no secret that there is work to be done if we wish to imagine and build a better future for everyone, which is certainly the goal of anyone who genuinely cares about curing the social ills of today. The best way I can see to begin this work is by sitting down and discussing, together, what that better future looks like, and what policies we must institute in order to get there.