Thinking Democracy Together: The Wisdom of the People

Welcome to Confluence humanities in the public sphere, an IASH sponsored podcast that discusses various public humanities projects on the Binghamton University campus as well as outside. In this episode, we are joined by Colleen Watson, a PhD candidate in the philosophy department at Binghamton University. Along with her dissertation, Colleen is also working on a public humanities project titled, 'The Wisdom of the People'. In this episode, Coleen talks about her project, her dissertation and her public facing attempt at doing philosophy together in a democratic society.

Coleen's podcast: The Wisdom of the People

Transcript

Shruti: Welcome to Confluence humanities in the public sphere, and I ash sponsored podcast that discusses various public humanities projects and bring him to university campus as well as outside. Thank you for listening to our podcast. I'm your host Shruti Jain. Today we are joined by Colleen Watson, a PhD candidate in the philosophy department at Binghamton University. Along with her dissertation, Colleen is also working on a public humanities project titled, The wisdom of the people. Hi, Colleen.

It's so wonderful to see you. And it's so wonderful to have you on this podcast talking about your public humanities project, which is also a podcast. So would you like to start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your project? 

Coleen: Sure. It's an honor to be invited on this podcast to Yeah, so my name is Colleen. I am a PhD student in the philosophy department at Binghamton University. My research areas are generally in Political Philosophy in Applied Ethics with special attention paid to liberal theory, democratic theory and issues and citizenship. So I am working on my dissertation right now Letson, citizenship and liberal democracies. And I was able to get a grant from humanities, New York for my podcast. So it's a public humanities grant that funds most everything I do on the podcast, in the podcast topic is democratic philosophy. My vision for the podcast is to really kind of breathing democratic philosophy down from the clouds of the ivory tower, to general audiences who like actually live in democracies, and whether they are cognizant of it or not, are like dealing with the issues that we talked about every single day when they make political decisions when they decide how to vote when they decide how to evaluate the politicians that govern our systems of government and the US, and especially in basically most of the world. The format of my podcast is basically, I invite other people who do philosophy, or who do some scholarship in democratic theory, or citizenship or something like that, to talk to me about those issues in democracy. We have talked about like, you know, how do we identify the goals of democracy? What is it to identify a goal of governance at all, and then as you identify goals, then that's going to give you the tools to be able to evaluate, you know, the democratic life that you are leading. And I hope, you know, citizens will be able to access the information that we're giving them. And hopefully, we can have more fruitful debates. I think a lot of the discord that especially the United States finds itself in is that we end up talking past each other, we're not really addressing the same issue. So I think giving people a philosophical lens will help them be more precise about what they're talking about. So we can actually address each other as citizens and bring back dialogue and respect for each other.

Shruti: All that sounds incredibly exciting. It also really makes me wonder why you chose to do this project in the sense of why a public humanities project and specifically buy in the form of a podcast. 

Coleen: So I kind of applied for the public humanities grant on a whim, I had been interested in applying for that. But like it was kind of one of those things you see, as like a academic, you just kind of get emails for like all these like potential funds, or like, hey, applied to this, see if you'll get into this conference probably will walk in, I initially kind of ignored it and put it on the back burner. I thought like it would be cool to have a project but I didn't think about it too much. And then Wendy wall, who is the director of our IOSH program at Binghamton reached out to me and she said that, you know, I have like maybe what it takes to get a grant like this, she's always heard me talk about, you know, trying to make my, the philosophy that I do more public to do things that you know, the public can engage with. So she really encouraged me to apply for the grant. And I have the idea of a podcast for one. I'm a huge podcast fan. I listen to podcasts when I work out. I listen to podcasts. When I do chores. I when I'm driving, I grew up as one of those backseat, NPR kids, where my parents were always listening to NPR before podcasts were really a thing. You know, I was listening to the news in this American life and all that while in the car with my parents. And so it was really a medium I was super interested in.

And I also knew that. It didn't have like a huge startup cost. Like, I mean, I really have used the funds and like, I haven't gotten that much money. I mean, I'm very grateful for the money I have, but it's not so much. But it was enough to be able to I'm speaking to you through my professional Yeti microphone. And I've got, you know, these professional headphones I was able to buy, I mean, these two things together were maybe $300. And then being at Binghamton, they have a recording studio, and people who have helped me, like, watch my website and go through the recording process. So I just had, like, a lot of resources available to me that made like putting on a podcast, very tenable. I really had all these things at my fingertips that I was beforehand was not, you know, taking advantage of. And now, you know, I'm seeing myself as a part of a medium that I really love to consume for myself. And that makes me feel really cool. 

Shruti: That's awesome. That's really awesome. And very cool. Like you said, your project is not just podcasts alone, but a combination of in person public facing events that then combined with the podcasts, right? 

Coleen: Yeah, so we're trying to get public events off the ground to where I can sit down face to face with, hopefully my listeners. So I don't want to be, you know, the academic who's just like, I will show you what democracy means. And it will improve your life, if you learn from me, you know, I want to encourage citizens to have conversations about the ideas or concepts that I'm not really introducing them to, I think most people like kind of know this stuff implicitly, but are like more defining and making more concrete for them. And I want citizens to be able to utilize what they're getting from my podcast. And the way to utilize that philosophic information. I mean, this is kind of a truism of philosophy, going back to Socrates, like bothering people around the marketplace and Athens is you have to engage in dialogue, you have to be able to talk through the ideas to understand what's good or bad about each philosophical idea, you have to understand, you know, what comprises the arguments that you value really. And so I want to give citizens the opportunity to do that and to talk to each other. I really am hoping to get people from across the political spectrum and across like, you know, different professions, lots of people from around the Binghamton community, so that they can kind of have a conversation, not about like those hot button issues like abortion or critical race theory, or whatever, that tend to get people riled up. But like, those things that are underpinning what we, I think most of us value together, and that is democracy. We value self governance. And I would like people who would normally disagree to be able to talk to each other about what it is they share in this ongoing project of self governance that we're trying to do here in the United States, and mostly all over the world.

Shruti: Awesome. So keeping with the Socratic tradition, you call your podcast, the wisdom of the people. And I'm wondering if you could kind of share with us the kinds of conversations you've had or witnessed at these community events as well as your podcast so far? 

Coleen: Yeah. So um, as I said, in episode two of my podcast, I kind of explained why I named this podcast the wisdom of the people is democracy comes from Greek words, Deimos, which means the people and criteria, which means authority or governance. So democracy is the governance of the people in philosophy comes from two Greek words do Philo meaning love and wisdom, and Sophia, meaning wisdom? And so my podcast is the wisdom of the people in that it is that's what democratic philosophy really is. We had one where we did get to talk to you to citizens who were interested in the project. One of them was one of the chairs of our local league of women's voters, who I got to talk to about the wonderful work that they do on in advocating for, you know, expansions of their rights and getting people to pay attention to issues that women have to pay attention to that sort of thing. 

Coleen: So this is something that John Stuart Mill, a famous philosopher from England in the 19th century said in his work considerations on representative government, where he kind of asks you, what would you lose, if you had a completely benevolent dictator, who watched out for all of our interests kept us safe kept us well fed, had a society where like, we didn't really have to worry about anything. And he would treat us all like equals, he or she would treat us all like equals, why not just want a benevolent despot instead? 

Community Member 1: So I have a hard time imagining what the real complaint would be in the dust this sort of despotic government. Now, the obvious complaint is, well, choosing is nice. And my sense is that we're, we skew that way. Because we also know something about human psychology and ruling, which is that even if you could guarantee that you got the good dust, but the first round, like somebody's gonna have to take over, and humans have good reason to trust that systems will not continue to work, right? So I think if you construct the thought experiment tightly enough, and you say, look, they will not err, they will give you what you want, you will, you will have all of the instrumental and intrinsic values you could ever possibly want save for the ability to self legislate, something like that. I would say I don't know why anybody would want to be in a position of self legislative. 

Community Member 2: So I think we're having this tendency here to look at democracy. And we're looking at it in this kind of very narrow sense, where we're just thinking about like, we go to the ballot box, and we vote. And that's it. So we're just looking at like this output. But really, democracy is a kind of process. 

Coleen: There are other tasks besides voting that citizens do. 

Community member 2: Yeah. So imagine we have, maybe we'll get to this in a little bit. But one argument that people make to justify democracy is an instrumental argument saying that more it tends to get the right answer, historically, speaking, more often than like dictatorships, like the tents that produce better outputs in terms of like protecting people's rights and that sort of thing. So let's say that arguments, right, and we have a very well informed democracy, that is always getting the right answer. And we have this benevolent, this always good, desperate, this person who has total control of our lives and all that legislation, we gotta to think about, like what life would be like in those societies, aside from the outputting policy in the democracy, that's always getting things right. And you know, this is relevant right now, because we're in an election cycle, we're going to have this process that occurs for a while we're all of a sudden talking publicly, we're approaching one another, we're speaking about the issues, we're exchanging reasons with one another, trying to defend our views and persuade others. None of that is happening in the despotic society, even if they're getting the right output. Notice the kind of way you're getting treated, that the despot essentially thinks it is not your place to even weigh in on these issues. These issues may matter greatly to your life. But you don't get to really give me your input. It doesn't matter. It's almost like a parent talking to a small child. The small child doesn't want to eat their vegetables, but it doesn't matter, because it's not your place to weigh in on that. 

Coleen: Yeah. So this is like kind of pointing at Mills answer to the question is, the reason why it would be still wrong to have a benevolent despot who would largely be successful at like providing a good society is that you don't get to develop the intrinsic sense of autonomy that mill thinks is like, the inherently good thing about being a human being is developing that sense of autonomy in the sense that you choose your own life for yourself, even though you might have to maybe live with being on the losing side of a particular vote about the laws or particular politicians, you still benefited and like lead a more flourishing life when you're able to go out and learn for yourself and not be treated as a child and mill thinks like if we live in that society, we would in turn become children. Like we would become just like kind of spoiled and sniffling brats for the desperate to keep like, you know, handing out candy to kids…

I just kind of throw out a couple of topics and say, Hey, like, what does it mean to be a citizen of a democracy? Do we think that democracy is valuable? Because it just like produces good things? Or like, is there something intrinsically valuable about the freedom and equality it supposedly espouses? And we just talk, we're not reading lecture notes. You know, I do a little bit of reading beforehand, just to kind of like, refresh myself on the concepts that I want to talk about, and like, put together an outline that like, has a topic order. But it's very informal. It's very conversational, because like, I don't want it to seem like this is always necessarily hard, hard work. I mean, doing philosophy at the academic level is hard work. But like, we're always doing philosophy, every time we think about what is the life I want to lead? What is the good life? Should I do this? Or should I do that? What is the moral thing to do? You're doing philosophy. And so I want to make the podcast more about that every day philosophy that you just do when you talk to people about this is a good or a bad politician. And they are good or bad for these particular reasons as it pertains to what we need in society 

Shruti: Absolutely. makes so much sense. I'm so curious to know how you go about organizing these conversations and these community events, how do you pick out a venue? How do you make inroads into the community, you know, all of the work that actually goes into organizing an event?

Coleen:  Yeah, so so far, all of our events are at the Broome County Public Library. And I chose that venue for one because it's an easy place to get to, for a lot of people, it has a big parking lot. So people don't have to worry about, you know, parking, it's in the center of town. So like, it's within walking distance for a lot of people. And I can't and I think that libraries are actually important in vital spaces for democratic life. I'm a big fan of libraries as like our free way to get information from one person to the next. And I want to utilize that space with libraries and like really help support our local libraries just by being there. So just by like, showing that people want to come to the library for events and that sort of thing. For like, planning how I'm going to get out in the community, so far has kind of been like sending lots of emails.

We have a Center for Civic Engagement at Binghamton University. And they have this like database of organizations, that I've actually just been kind of emailing them. So League of women's voters, the College Republicans, the College Democrats, the caught the college democratic socialists, the college libertarians, are American Civic Association in town. And then what if I get like a yes from them, you know, I also tried to promote them on my Facebook page. And I've talked about them a bit on some episodes so far. And I want it to be like a symbiotic relationship. So I want to invite them supporting me. I want to help support them, especially those organizations that like do a lot of community good. And like are putting a lot of hard work into providing resources for people and lobbying in Albany or Washington DC on behalf of people in Broome County, that kind of thing. 

Shruti: I guess my final question to you is, what are the public humanities to you? 

Coleen: Yeah, that's a good, big question. But like, I think I'm a little bit in a good position to answer because there's been a big push in the field of philosophy for more public philosophy. In the last few decades, a lot of people doing academic philosophy have kind of realized, we have not been doing very well at PR, you know, as a way to show that philosophy is a worthwhile, you know, project for everyone to do. In as a way of like public service, more and more people are trying to do public philosophy, public humanities, I would think is kind of the same thing, right? It's bringing these concepts that make us better humans. I mean, that's why that's where the field of humanities gets his name is that these are the spaces and fields of learning that make us human. Not that math doesn't make us human or human or that science doesn't make us human. But like, thinking about what morals are comprised of thinking about you know, What the best books are and why they're the best books and why they inspire us to be better people or why they stoke our imaginations. Those are human things that like we've always done. Doing public humanities, to me, means showing people that there's value in just reading a book. And that there is value in talking to your friends about, you know, what democracy is, and why we are doing it at all. At my previous university, Texas State University where I got my master's there, and I was an adjunct faculty member there for a while, we had a series called The philosophy dialogue series, run by one of my mentors, Dr. Joanne Carson there, where they also did public talks at the local library in San Marcos, Texas. And we had talks inside of like our philosophy department, conference room that the public were invited to. And it was speakers talking about philosophical problems, talking about the philosophical projects that they were working on. And speaking in a way that would appeal to humans to like, make it accessible to a general audience, and Stoke conversations about philosophy, not just about, like, the political philosophy that I, you know, ended up doing after my master's, but, you know, there was some philosophy literature, I was really inspired by that program. That's how I got my feet wet as a real academic philosopher. So I've really tried to bring that spirit of public dialogue here in, you know, wherever I go from here, whether it's fingers crossed through that tenured position in a, in a university, or no, no matter what I end up doing after this, I hope to be doing something like public philosophy and public humanities for the good of the general public so they can, you know, understand what makes a flourishing life for them. 

Shruti: Thank you. Thank you, I am really glad that we could have this conversation. I'm sure that people listening would really appreciate the work that you're doing. And then, hopefully, after listening to this podcast, go and log on to yours and listen to that one. 

Coleen: Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Wisdompeoplepodcast.com is my website. I have Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Y'all can follow me there. And we're on Spotify. And I believe Google Play and Amazon. So okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Shruti..