Deliberations

Image credit: mischiru.

Connectivism is to some extent a response to the groupiness that pervades our social, political, commercial and educational evolution. We join organisations, we become members of clubs, we form communities of practice. We are attracted to groups, but they are hegemonic traps. Groups anthropomorphise and act to preserve themselves. They foster elitism and privilege by reproducing their own discourse about ethical and political norms. Groups distinguish themselves through contested discourse that may be uncaring of the common good.

Deliberative democracy attempts to bridge a contest of discourses by finding both common ground and a mutual acknowledgement of difference.

My thought for the day is that a process of deliberation serves to ungroup us, baring us on the broad network. There are still discourses flowing like waves through the network. But without the rhetorical clothes of identity and institutional groups we are freer to consider multiple perspectives. And create new ones.

Now, where did I leave that glass of shiraz....