Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet Read Online Free PDF Page B

everybody. These are widely shared values. They manifest in issues. But power in public life derives from consciously naming the values that motivate action.
    Such an understanding of motivation belies the dominant understanding of self-interest—simply a synonym for selfishness. Realizing the many dimensions of one’s own interests makes it possible to see that they cannot be furthered except in relationships—public and private. In fact, self-interest derives form the Latin interesse —“to be among.” As political philosopher Bernard Crick puts it:
     … the more realistically one construes self-interest, the more one is involved in relationships with others. 18
    Thus, citizen democracy is not about learning to give up one’s interests for the sake of others. It is about learning to see one’s self-interests embedded in others’ interests. From concerns about environmental health and neighborhood safety to effective schools and job security—none can be achieved by oneself. Each depends upon the needs of others being met as well.
    In this light, we see that selfishness—narrow preoccupation with self—can actually be an enemy of self-interest. In citizen democracy, self-interest is not to be squelched or simply indulged, but consciously developed in relationships with others. It is the basis of constructive political engagement.
    Citizen politics is about solving problems . In today’s political world, moral grandstanding and vicious mud-slinging are the order of the day. Poised against this dominant politics is the politics of protest—we’ve all learned how to decry what we don’t like.
    Citizen politics takes the next step. It is task oriented. It is less concerned about proving our own righteousness or the others’ failings than about taking responsibility for solutions. Whether it is citizens developing land trusts to keep down the cost of housing or the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth moving from protest over toxic waste to joining a state taskforce to work out solutions. 19
    But where do we learn to be problem solvers, rather than merely good complainers?
    At home, at school, at work … just about anywhere people come together. Among the most effective classrooms in the country are those in which teachers are encouraging students to learn by tackling real problems in their communities. One of my favorite examples is in a grammar school in Amesville, Ohio, where Bill Elasky proves that his sixth graders can plan and carry out long-term problem-solving projects, given encouragement and back-up.
    After a chemical spill in a nearby creek, Elasky’s students decided they “didn’t trust the EPA.” Constituting themselves as the Amesville Sixth Grade Water Chemists, they set out to test the water themselves—and succeeded. In the process they had to divide into teams, assign tasks, plan sampling and testing times, and so on. Soon the Sixth Grade Water Chemists became the town’s water quality experts, and their neighbors were buying their water testing services. These kids are learning democracy not by memorizing distant structures of government but by “doing democracy.” 20
    Citizen democracy assumes that citizen participation is just as necessary in governing economic life as it is in political life . At the time of our nation’s founding, the primary unit of economic life was the family. We were family farmers, shopkeepers, and traders. It made a certain amount of sense to think of economic life as private, and therefore not governed by the same democratic principles that we deemed appropriate to political life.
    But in the intervening years, what has happened? The determining unit of the economy is no longer the family. Dominating the economic landscape are giant bureaucracies—non-elected, but nevertheless with more power over the quality of our lives than most governments have. We call them corporations. They determine the location and the quality of many jobs, the health of the