ACCESSING OUR BETTER SELVES

Philosopher John Rawls argues that all citizens should make decisions without knowing where their own self-interest lies. This he calls the “Veil of Ignorance.” It’s a form of empathy-training, in a way - a bit like the relationship-counselling technique where you switch roles, taking the other person’s side and articulating their point of view, not your own. The Citizen Jury similarly encourages people to see the bigger, more collective and longer-term picture. In a legal arena we might call this “natural justice.” Here, we simply call it common sense.

Common, perhaps, but also radically different. Our society is riven by shallow conflict, not least because our dominant political regime requires us all to struggle for our own self-betterment. In everything from phone plans and health insurance to super schemes and house prices, the messaging is increasingly sink-or-swim. You find the best way for yourself, or you go under.

This rather cruel system, accompanied by the disappearance of any notion of “duty”, has transformed us from citizens into consumers.

Of course, selfishness is a natural part of our human makeup. It’s also an important driver; as 18th century economist Adam Smith, the “father of capitalism” when he coined his idea of the profit motive as the “invisible hand” that shaped economies, often for the better. But as he also knew, self-interest doesn’t solve everything.  

Indeed, the traditional role of societal frameworks – including religious belief, morality, government and manners – was to counteract this natural selfishness with some bigger-picture consciousness or, at the very least, duty. As John F. Kennedy inspirationally implored America in 1961, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”[1]

In a more contemporary mode, empathy researcher and Stanford University psychologist Jamil Zaki, PhD, describes empathy as the “psychological ‘superglue’ that connects people and undergirds co-operation and kindness.”[2]

But it’s not really altruism. The capacity to see the bigger, overall picture and the small, self-centred one at the same time – to balance these forces against each other, recognising that cooperation and competition are equally important – is what defines us as humans. It requires us to see that, up to a point, what benefits all benefits the individual. This is borne out in many studies that show more equal societies, such as Scandinavian cultures, are happier. Across the board they have lower rates of all social-dysfunction indicators: crime, delinquency, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and domestic violence, to name a few. To act in the interests of the whole (including the future) is therefore less an act of self-denial and an act of wiser and better-informed self-interest.

This is why the Citizen Jury is so radically different, especially in the field of city-making.  

Orthodox “community engagement,” being self-selecting, gives voice to the disgruntled, the chronic complainers and those with a vested interest in the outcome. The Citizen Jury, by contrast, relies on random selection – or “sortition” – balanced for ethnicity, gender and other demographic characteristics. So it’s already more representative, and more balanced.

Even so, most people can be expected to embark on the jury process with their own firm and self-oriented opinions about what makes a good neighbourhood or city. Typically, though, in trying to persuade their fellows, people realise they need more knowledge, more evidence and greater understanding of the whole picture. This drives a self-education process that draws on an array of experts, thought leaders and stakeholders, as the jurors see fit.

It is all but inevitable that from this combination of information, thought and discussion, over a period of weeks, the resulting consensus represents something like the consideration most conspicuously absent from current city planning, the collective good.

[1] JFK Inaugural presidential address to the nation, January 20 1961.

[2] Jamil Zaki, The War for Kindness, https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/06/07/how-to-increase-empathy-and-unite-society