Creating Living Democracies: Facing Fear, Engaging Conflicts, Building Communities

Frances Moore Lappé facilitating an Uplift Academy Workshop, August 8, 2006, Wellesley, MA. PHOTO: © TOM MUNNECKE

Frances Moore Lappé's newest contribution to the debate over public policy and political reform is spare, well-argued, and supported by both anecdotal and scholarly evidence. In it, she rejects the model (called "thin democracy") which in essence consists of free elections plus a capitalist marketplace, in favor of  "living democracy," which employs a more positive view of human potential and the world's resources.

A framing of human nature as immutably selfish, coupled with a faith in an unfettered marketplace, has led to a downward spiral: centralized power, a mistrust of democratic institutions, lack of deliberation, denial of cooperative potential, and the failure to bring creative meaning into our lives. Frances Moore Lappé explains:

"Finally, Thin Democracy is dangerously vulnerable because its materialistic premise can't satisfy our higher selves' yearning for transcendent meaning. Thin Democracy's narrow, insulting assumptions about human nature cannot sustain dedication and sacrifice… its demeaning materialism and its concentrated wealth help to swell the numbers of excluded people who feel humiliated and angry."

If this were all that Lappé had to say, I would argue that her contribution was not a major one. Political theorist Benjamin Barber (whom she cites), for example, argued persuasively almost two decades ago for what he terms "strong democracy," though as an academic he reached a different audience than Lappé's. Ted Becker and Christa Slaton have done similar breakthrough analyses of experiments in "teledemocracy" in Hawai'i. And Green Parties, among others, have argued (mostly in vain) for a genuinely ecological approach to nature as well as to politics - a perspective that Lappé shares.

But Lappé integrates her model with other material: on economic scarcity; on practical steps toward the actual practice of Living Democracy; and on the psychological roots of our tendency to avoid conflict. Her pithy style (including helpful summary charts tucked into the back and front covers and other "Ideas" scattered throughout her presentation) sets her work apart.

I found her challenge to reexamine our assumptions about conflict (in Chapters 7-9) especially valuable to Quakers and others espousing a nonviolent approach. She argues that while conflict avoidance is a given from childhood for many of us (including males and non-pacifists), it is by taking a deep breath and plunging ahead (or "seizing the moment" as Lappé puts it) that we learn how moments of dissonance can bring new opportunities to us and to others. Here is this approach summarized in "Idea 7: Ways to rethink fears" adapted from her earlier book, You Have the Power (2004):

• Fear is pure energy. It is a signal. It might not mean stop; it could mean go!
• We don't have to believe we can do it to do it; the decision to act itself has power.
• Conflict means engagement. Something real is in motion. It's an opening…
• To find genuine connection, we must risk disconnection. The new light we shine draws others toward us and we become conscious choosers.
• Every time we act, even with fear, we make room for others to do the same….

Many of us have been Lappé fans ever since she published Diet for a Small Planet, which I use when I have guests for dinner even today. I recommend the newest publication from this innovative spirit as well.

In fact, I gave it to my daughter-in-law, who was newly elected to the Ithaca (NY) City Council, once she informed me of the surprisingly conservative views of that group. I especially commend it to the attention of nonviolent communities as well.