The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One

by Hanzi Freinacht

In the future of democracy cognitive stages may have an important role to play. But the point is not to exclude the voices of all the stage 10 Abstract and stage 11 Formal thinkers—that would be unethical and sure to backfire dramatically. The point is to create processes in which people’s perspectives make up a part of a larger whole, a whole which resides at a higher order of complexity. The main political implications have to do with the cultivation and design of a deeper democracy, not the contrary. In our current political system we are not nearly democratic enough, and that’s exactly what holds the more complex ideas and solutions in check. In a good democracy the more complex answers to life’s problems can emerge, answers that are more inclusive to a multiplicity of interests and perspectives. In a poor democracy, the lowest common denominator sets the limit.