The Lies We Tell Ourselves

A reflection on “three of the most pernicious lies we tell ourselves about democracy, civic life, and community… Solidarity without proximity, civic renewal without economic renewal, and democracy without participation.” Pressler argues that “a genuine commitment to solidarity (in any form) requires a genuine commitment to proximity and mutuality”; that “our capacity for participation and membership is downstream of our capacity to exercise agency, and our capacity to exercise agency is downstream of our political, socio-cultural, and economic structures”; and that “professionalising” democracy, risks signalling “that these activities are only for some people and not for everyone else,” instead: “do the long-haul work of blurring the line between insiders and outsiders.”