Yeah, Me Too
Deliberation rarely occurs in the world at large and nor did it occur in room 308
Boucke the past few classes. For a successful deliberation, a group must have a personal
stake in the problem, have a larger knowledge base of the topic, each person should not
conform to everyone else, and less focus on following the “rules” set out by our teachers
or any higher up (sorry Kyle). The group did not fit any of these guidelines for
deliberation, making it unsuccessful.
At the start of the deliberation, the group went around and told everyone his or her
personal stake with sustainability. The circle went around saying, “ I am kind of like
everyone else; I recycle when convenient but don’t really do too much.” These remarks
set the tone for the entire discussion on days one and two, and this happened in the first
five minutes of conversation. The teacher pointed this out to the group on the second day;
however, this did not change the direction of conversation. With the same stake, each
person had similar ideas and did not honestly care where the direction was headed
because after the discussion was over, they could each go back to their semiwasteful/semi-sustainable life. In a deliberation where some of the parties involved have
a personal stake, they are more willing to argue their points or have an idea they adapt to
meet all needs. Without any stake, conformity became a part of the sustainability
deliberation. Along with lack of stake, the participants also had a lack of knowledge.
Without a personal stake in the subject of sustainability, no one had any motivation to
seek further knowledge into the subject. A deliberation requires each person to do some
research and to obtain as much information as possible on a stance. Once a stake is found,
a person will seek more knowledge about that stake to defend it. No one in the
deliberation had a personal stake or an exceptional amount of knowledge. Everyone’s
knowledge stopped at the end of the National Issues Forum and this caused the entire
group to agree with every comment made in the discussion.
Conformity occurs in everything save deliberation. Conformity is a term often
used in the same sentence as peer pressure, not in a conversation where the best possible
solution must be picked. While ideas must conform together to create the best solution,
each person does not have to have the same idea as every other person in the discussion.
Just as everyone else’s stake claimed the same thing, ideas being shared were always
agreed upon and rarely opposed by others in the room. For good conversation, new and
different ideas must be added otherwise the conversation stagnates. This problem comes
directly from the personal stakes everyone carries. If there were varying stakes in the
room, there will be new ideas and counter arguments at everyone’s points. This would
allow a moderator to continue the conversation until an idea is agreed upon by the masses
in the deliberation. This lack of stake and the conformity to ideas occurred because no
one had any other ideas than the few being said. Anyone could have come up with a new
idea, but with the lack of care, any idea sounded great. This attitude was present in every
person in the sustainability deliberation and this greatly impacted the moderator’s job.
The moderator needs new ideas to create questions to sift through each idea and form a
new idea that everyone agrees with. This is impossible if everyone has the same thought.
Most of the time, the moderators just asked a question, and then everyone answered in a
similar version or elaboration of the first person’s thought. The moderator then proceeded
to ask a new question and the same thing occurred. These repetitions of ask, answer, and
agree occurred every time discussion took place as if it were a rule.
The three rules of deliberation are: do not be rude to anyone, allow everyone’s
voice to be heard, and come up with the best possible solution at the end. In these terms
alone, our class had a two out of three on good deliberation. Unfortunately, there were
other rules in place that hindered our deliberation. After the personal stakes were
covered, a student went through a list of rules that everyone had to follow. These rules
were clearly written by or guided by a teacher for they were not the words of a college
student ready to deliberate their point of view. There were two rules in particular that
really hindered the deliberative process: do not debate or argue any points (this was
followed by a point stating that if the moderator did not stop it, the person reading the
rules would) and on day one we would only discuss stance one, on day two only stance
two for the first part, and stance three for the second part of day two. These two rules
alone hindered our entire deliberation. The “no argumentation” rule was the main reason
why conformity was such a key part in the deliberation. Without the ability to argument,
students were forced to agree in fear that they would be shut down from talking. Who
wants to be the one person who was told to calm down in a classroom because they got
too passionate about sustainability? Not one person disagreed or debated points in fear of
this. Deliberation must be peaceful but deliberation can have disagreements in a civil
manner. The second rule also hindered discussion. Moderators were forced to stick to
only their stance, which hindered their ability to begin forming conclusions and solutions
in people’s heads. A solution that fits everyone’s wants must be compared along the way.
Moderators (not to pick sides but it was from our class) made several attempts to
compare/contrast ideas from two or all three of the stances. Each time, a student (from
the other class) restated the rule, which ended the conversation right then and there. It
may have been a class rivalry in this case, however, in a general sense, this rule should
not be in place for a deliberation. Comparisons must be made or no solution will be
possible because otherwise, the deliberation consists of people saying their points and
that’s it.
In no ways did this classroom deliberation reflect how democracy works. For one,
the participants in a democratic forum have a stake in what they are doing, even if it is to
get reelected, they have a way larger stake than the classroom. These participants are also
expected to have a large knowledge base because their jobs rely on the fact that they can
defend their points and get their goals into action. These two elements of democracy were
not in place in the classroom. Since a democratic setting contains stakes, conformity
would not be an issue. Each person attempts to reach their goal and whoever comes out
the victor is happy. In this arena, there are no rules stating when something can be
discussed or to not argue your points. A lot of time, arguing is the only way to get your
point out. Democracy has a lot to add to the process of deliberation in our classroom but
it can not be considered deliberation because it usually does not partake in peaceful
exchange and everyone’s say being heard. While the classroom was effective in peaceful
conversation and equality in voicing (key proponents in deliberation), there was no real
deliberation that occurred. While some aspects were present, there was no final solution
at the end, partially because no one really cared because it was not going to affect our
daily lives and partially because we were forced to pick one solution by the “rules” set
out and no one liked that idea. As a whole, the deliberation was pitiful in the classroom;
no one held a personal stake or had a large knowledge base over the issue. Everyone
conformed to the first ideas being stated and the rules held back our conversation. Thusly,
deliberation cannot occur as long as lack of stake, lack of knowledge, conformity, and
rules hold back discussion; if all deliberations would follow these characteristics, a “yeah,
me too” attitude would plague all of them.