Picture the Data

How information is presented can have a significant impact on the debate. This image, produced by The Guardian, is an excellent example (apologies for the small scale). If you look at it with a view to reducing our budget deficit perhaps it will clarify your values: perhaps you will want to compare the value and cost of the Department for International Development and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Will other voters agree? Will it cause an analysis of the benefits from each department?

The Lost Art of Democratic Debate

In this entertaining lecture, Michael Sandel, teacher of Political Philosophy at Harvard, highlights the importance of morals and values in democratic debate.

Thanks to TED for this lecture.

Brain Washing, Education, Values and Democracy

The worry is that any one organisation could brainwash a section of the population and attain a majority, thereby controlling the country. This may be easier to do with young, malleable minds, and makes me wonder about our system of education. Yet it's clear that participation in a modern education system, including alternative sources like online Master's degrees or vocational programs, are practically required if today's youth want to have comfortable future lives.

As a society, are our values inculcated in us through our education system?

Teaching values seems to me to be essential if we are to teach right from wrong, but then who chooses what is right and what is wrong? Maybe the only way to overcome this is to encourage children to think for themselves and to feel empathy for others. But that in its self is a value shaping statement.

Maybe a different way of looking at it is to itemise what values are required to make Interactive Democracy work:

• Freedom of thought
• Freedom of speech
• Empathy for others
• Critical respect for the majority decision

Values and Choices

It seems to me that one of the common sticking points of any argument is a difference in values:

• "I value mountaineering - you think it's stupidly dangerous"
  
• "I eat too much - you think I'm a drain on the national health service"
  
• "I value freedom - you value security"

It's very difficult to appreciate other peoples' values, which is one reason why we should all have an equal vote in Interactive Democracy... and not be governed by the values of a small group of 640 odd MPs.