Each voice con­tributes to a mighty cho­rus. To acti­vate a more par­tic­i­pa­to­ry democ­ra­cy, every­day civic life has to con­nect to col­lec­tive decision-making.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cies com­mon to mod­ern gov­ern­ment leave plen­ty of room for improve­ment. And with this acknowl­edge­ment, we, the cit­i­zens of our respec­tive gov­ern­ments, are giv­en an awe­some oppor­tu­ni­ty to be involved in that process of improve­ment. The main chal­lenge comes in fig­ur­ing out how exact­ly we should each get involved.

With decades of gov­ern­men­tal stag­na­tion, and the bro­ken promis­es of our elect­ed offi­cials for­ev­er locked in our col­lec­tive mem­o­ries, it’s no won­der that so many feel entire­ly dis­il­lu­sioned by the elec­toral process. Betray­al by elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives has become entire­ly nor­mal­ized. As a result, many feel as though none of the giv­en options for can­di­dates ever suc­ceed in rep­re­sent­ing their interests.

Deci­sion-mak­ing itself is increas­ing­ly influ­enced by hid­den algo­rithms in society’s dig­i­tal space that pre­dict and tai­lor the con­tent each view­er sees. Vot­er turnout in gen­er­al elec­tions in many major democ­ra­cies has been in decline for sev­er­al decades. Non-vot­ers are some­times chas­tised for their inac­tion and told that their right to crit­i­cize or demand alter­na­tives is lost upon their choice to abstain from vot­ing. This issue reflects a wide­spread belief that polit­i­cal engage­ment begins and ends with the trip to the bal­lot box once every few years. Gov­er­nance can, and must, be so much more than this.

Democ­ra­cy demands par­tic­i­pa­tion and per­son­al invest­ment. Pol­i­cy deci­sions affect life for all cit­i­zens. So why leave those deci­sions to oth­ers when they ulti­mate­ly affect us? Espe­cial­ly when we already pos­sess the fun­da­men­tal means for greater involve­ment through our own per­spec­tives and voices.

We all have a stake in the deci­sions being made around how we orga­nize resources and atten­tion. Are we going to choose to arm our­selves, or edu­cate our­selves? What is the most effec­tive approach to lib­er­a­tion? Democ­ra­cy is the means by which auton­o­my can be assert­ed. Pow­er can be more even­ly dis­trib­uted and free­dom can be claimed by all. Vibrant par­tic­i­pa­to­ry democ­ra­cies, pro­pelled by informed cit­i­zens exer­cis­ing author­i­ty over their own lives, can become con­duits for a more rea­son­able and respon­si­ble civ­i­liza­tion. Every grass­roots move­ment work­ing for empow­er­ing change takes us a step clos­er to this ideal.

“The smart way to keep peo­ple pas­sive and obe­di­ent is to strict­ly lim­it the spec­trum of ­accept­able opin­ion, but allow very live­ly debate with­in that spec­trum.” — Noam Chomsky

The sta­tus quo thrives off the polit­i­cal­ly dis­en­gaged. Dis­en­gage­ment should be not be under­stood to refer only to the apa­thet­ic, but instead to the vast major­i­ty of us. Regard­less of how well informed we may be, or how thought­ful­ly we’ve con­struct­ed our opin­ions, these fac­tors do not con­sti­tute polit­i­cal action. With­out direct par­tic­i­pa­tion in some polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion or goal-dri­ven endeav­or, cast­ing our vote rep­re­sents the sum total of our input in the gov­ern­ment. This is not a moral or per­son­al fail­ure, but sim­ply the result of struc­tur­al cir­cum­stances. In the course of dai­ly life, it is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for most peo­ple to find time for some­thing like direct polit­i­cal action. Jug­gling life, fam­i­ly, work, and oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ties takes enough time and ener­gy with­out adding on polit­i­cal action. Becom­ing involved in the machi­na­tions of pol­i­cy-mak­ing and polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing is most­ly messy and overwhelming.

The media doesn’t help encour­age engage­ment either. Through much of main­stream media, the mech­a­nisms of pow­er have become high­ly adept at mud­dy­ing real­i­ties and spread­ing a mes­sage that fails to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo or the roots of injus­tice. It’s cru­cial we all under­stand that there is no con­spir­a­cy or shad­owy cabal of fig­ures who meet to deter­mine the cho­sen nar­ra­tive to be dis­sem­i­nat­ed by the media giants. Instead, the very, wealthy own­ers of enor­mous cor­po­rate media enti­ties tend to share the same base polit­i­cal inter­ests found­ed on mate­r­i­al con­cerns. It doesn’t pay to ques­tion the prof­it-dri­ven sta­tus quo when the goal is to reap prof­its. That is the rea­son why we so often get caught up in repet­i­tive cycles of the same old sto­ries. Or, at the very least, media activ­i­ties are led by a desire for high rat­ings, so sen­sa­tion­al­ist twists try to lure view­er­ship or readership.

It is sel­dom a case of news out­lets out­right lying. Rather, the cur­rent infor­ma­tion land­scape strays from the truth through a game of pri­or­i­ti­za­tion, omis­sion, dis­missal, and decon­tex­tu­al­iza­tion. Events can be described, but with­out the suf­fi­cient infor­ma­tion required to ful­ly under­stand their cause. Alter­na­tive ideas are occa­sion­al­ly pre­sent­ed but are often either deemed rad­i­cal, or appro­pri­at­ed into a gen­tler, less chal­leng­ing form. The aim is to dis­guise the dom­i­nant ide­ol­o­gy and rein­vent it as com­mon sense.

The Over­ton win­dow is the term used to describe the “accept­able” range of ideas and ide­olo­gies that can be used in pub­lic dis­course. Although fuzzy and intan­gi­ble, it rough­ly dic­tates the fla­vor of nation­al con­ver­sa­tion. Con­trol of this win­dow is a pri­ma­ry func­tion of pop­u­lar media. The illu­sion of vir­ile debate must be main­tained, but with­in a care­ful­ly posi­tioned and shrunk­en Over­ton win­dow. Each time the Over­ton win­dow skews in a direc­tion of greater sen­sa­tion­al­iza­tion, we are cheat­ed by our intel­li­gence being under­es­ti­mat­ed. It’s crit­i­cal that we as an audi­ence reject this pan­der­ing of over­sim­pli­fi­ca­tions and we get our hands dirty by dig­ging fur­ther into what’s actu­al­ly going on in mat­ters of policy.

As cit­i­zens, it’s time to focus our atten­tion on the deci­sions that have the largest impact on how our pri­or­i­ties are con­struct­ed. It’s essen­tial we find ways to cre­ate more mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions with our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We can­not set­tle for sim­ple tac­tics for decid­ing our approval of them like how they look or speak. It’s time we feel engaged in our com­mu­ni­ties at every lev­el and real­ly work togeth­er. In par­tic­u­lar, we should focus on the deci­sions that shape the future of our health­care, the edu­ca­tion of our chil­dren, and our oppor­tu­ni­ties for last­ing peace. The best means of revi­tal­iz­ing this sense of engage­ment will come down to, not only feel­ing that our own future is at stake but also, find­ing the moti­va­tion to par­tic­i­pate because we know it will make for a ful­fill­ing life.