Clarification after a week in the desert

Posted on April 6, 2016 by John Burnheim

1. There are very good grounds for believing that strong public debate over a short period of time, say five years, is extremely effective in changing public opinion and consequently political decisions to the extent that they are responsive to thoroughly well-considered public opinion.

I list a few triumphs for critical moral discussion in more or less random sequence in my experience:

  • The abolition of the White Australia mentality and the laws that implemented it.
  • The recognition of the rights of Indigenous people as the original owners of this land.
  • The recognition that women should be able to take full part as equals with men in every public activity.
  • The abolition of the assumption that women should be paid less than men.
  • The recognition of unions that are not formalised by marriage, and of the rights of people to premarital sex.
  • The recognition of the right to equal respect for same-sex couples as different-sex couples.
  • The rights of colonies to complete independence.
  • The rights of individuals and groups to cultural freedom within nation-states.
  • The abolition of racism as a basis for inferior treatment, socially, economically and politically.
  • The recognition of the need of the disabled to be able to participate fully in community activities.

All of these changes were brought about primarily by critical moral thinking coming to very generally accepted by people who had been educated in the contrary view. In hardly any respect were those who embraced those changes people who themselves benefited from them. The only sense in which they benefited was in their self-esteem and, as agreement grew, in the esteem of others. In almost every case, explicit political recognition of these changes followed enlightened, critical opinion. That is the core meaning of democracy, in my view, and my concern is to extend it.
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