In previous posts I’ve emphasized that successful exploratory public discussions tend to have more to do with the facilitator than with the Reports that are used to get them going. The Reports might matter; but the way the discussion is handled is likely to matter...
“Know your audience.” It’s the first rule of rhetoric, and no less relevant to IF’s Discussion Reports than to ad copy in a Google pop-up. So who is IF's intended audience for its discussion Reports? I think a reasonable beginning point in answering that question...
In all it does, IF tries to both widen and deepen democratic discussion. Widening discussion seems pretty straightforward. But what does “deepening” democratic discussion mean? —The short answer is that it means aiming at real learning and, from there, to...
Among the most distinctive features of the IF discussion process is how it deals with emotion. Rather than treating emotion as the "opposite" of "reason" and subordinating one to the other, the IF process sees reason and emotion as interactive. (If there's any...
One of the ways in which the IF discussion process is most distinctive is in how it deals with emotion. Rather than imposing a dichotomy between "emotion" and "reason" and then raising one above the other, the IF process treats them as interactive partners in...
In my last entry I described some of the main differences among IF's principal activity areas. I also pointed out that some of these differences were sources of important interactivities in IF's work, which will be the subject of this post. "Interactivity" is...
IF’s three principal operations areas are: sanctuary projects, small group public discussions, and education. Here are some of the important differences between these main activity areas—differences which, as I’ll try to explain in my next entry, help account for...
Who should receive the resources available to organizations interested in promoting democratic discussion? It’s an important practical and moral question, regardless of the size of the organization. It’s also inescapable, involving what IF’s founder Jay Stern...
“Diversity” no longer means what it did to my parents’ generation. Rather than simple “variety” the word now means something more like “a mixture of important social categories”—hence the demand that we “Respect diversity” means something like “Recognize the...
A fractal is a unique kind of fraction—one that reproduces the form or shape of the thing it’s a part of. Since the concept was first described, fractals have been found in lots of places, some of them quite unexpected. Here’s another one: exploratory democratic...