Deliberative Democracy, Critical Rationality and Social Memory: Theoretical Resources of an ‘Education for Discourse’

Abstract

This article brings interconnects three debates to show what this might imply for the 'redemocratisation' of UK society and for pedagogical reform. One debate concerns deliberative types of democratic reform, arguing in favour of a 'creative agnosticism' towards the two philosophical frameworks which dominate this literature. This leads into a discussion of education and critical rationality, arguing for an aptitude-based account of moral agency, one which relates to the sociocultural resources we inherit from the past. The final debate therefore concerns social memory. I do not offer a theory of social memory but critique various commentators in arguing for what I call a 'multipolar analysis'. This both describes the analytical method adopted in this article and the skills and capacities which a system based upon 'education for discourse' would need to facilitate. The article therefore proposes that democracy, education and memory-deliberativeness, critical rationality and social remembering-be brought closer together for the mutual benefit of each debate.The question of how to empower the users of public services has exercised many in recent years, with greater decentralisation, localisation, use of referenda and consultation proposed as means of stimulating popular participation, trust and legitimacy. But disagreement emerges over the extent to which the existing 'market choice' agenda can genuinely drive such empowerment. For some, consumerism exercised within public sector quasi-markets is a necessary condition for increasing accountability and user control; others are more sceptical about markets, searching for alternative democratic models without returning to the top-down, man-from-the-Ministry-knows-best approach of the 'classic' welfare state.

Democratic deliberations in the Finnish elementary classroom: The dilemmas of deliberations and the teacher’s role in an action research project

“…Therefore, this article does not aim to show how to eliminate certain patterns in teaching but to broaden the perspective on them. Following Fitzpatrick's (2009) concepts, a certain kind of creative agnosticism -an ability to move creatively and reflectively between democracy and control, between pupil involvement and curriculum, between agency and structure -might be useful here. This stance would also put the teacher in the position of a learner by perceiving teaching as a 'paradoxical quest' (Fitzpatrick, 2009: 316), an endless search that cannot be finalized.…”

“…Recent research perceives democracy (and education for democracy) as a dynamic, open-ended process, which finds it best form through interaction and dialogue (e.g. Dudley et al, 1999;Dryzek, 2000;Fitzpatrick, 2009). Following Ahonen (2005), Dryzek (1990Dryzek ( , 2000 and Held (1996), democracy as a concept can be scrutinized through the dimensions of width and depth.…”

“…Hence, pluralists -another strand of deliberative democracy -defend the perspective on democracy as a power struggle where conflict is inevitable (see, for example, Biesta, 2011). Fitzpatrick (2009) has elaborated on the benefits of both perspectives in his concept of creative agnosticism, which acknowledges both dynamism and restlessness (as pluralists do) and means for rational debate and agreement (as proceduralists do). To avoid ending up in a fruitless collapsing of dichotomies, he stresses the importance of the ability and the willingness of citizens to negotiate between these two perspectives.…”

“…The issue of feasibility thus encompasses a temporal and a situational aspect as the teacher perceived the deliberative-democratic ethos as primarily situated inside the classroom and worried about the impact of future contexts on the development of democratic dispositions in the pupils. This affects the realness of classroom deliberations, resulting in a problem of social scale (Fitzpatrick, 2009: 324): if overlapping deliberations are not widely encouraged, the point of teaching deliberation in one classroom seems questionable. It might be tempting for a teacher to conform to the perceived school ethos in order to prevent frustration.…”

Basic Income, Post-Productivism and Liberalism

“…My alternative is a republican-friendly liberalism based on the deliberative, intersubjective, self-realising interactions of socially autonomous equals (Fitzpatrick, 2009). This means preferring the greatest possible range of social goods, not because we refuse to prioritize between them but because we recognise that many prioritisations are possible and none should be allowed to ossify into rigid, intolerance-breeding hierarchies.…”