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January 08, 2007
I've often mentioned the conversation as an intergral part of political life, deliberative democracy and how bloggers help to keep the conversation going. As Mark Bahnisch over at Larvatus Prodeo says, a conversation as a public deliberation can be seen as an anti-foundationalist Enlightenment rationality.
Here is Kenneth Burke's description of this kind of conversation from back in 1941:
Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.”
The internet brings in many more participants into the conversation that is already well underway, headed in a particular direction, with a few topics dominant. It is hard to get a say and to be heard by the others, in this conversation because of the gatekeeping media.
Bloggers broaden the possiblity of different indiivduals, promoting and participating in rational and public deliberation in our political life.
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