‘Know Thyself’: Learning about Oneself to Participate as Democratic Citizens

• In Event: Seeking New Directions in Contemporary Thought

Abstract

With so much focus on listening and hearing about “the other” in research on political dialogue, there is less attention to how these experiences strengthen a person’s way of understanding and voicing their own viewpoints. As part of a multi-year study of co-curricular student political dialogues, analysis of qualitative post-essays revealed that the dialogues foster important democratic learning and practice, exercising democratic muscles that may have been new to participants or that they were fearful of even trying out amidst mass polarization. However, not only do dialogue participants learn about others, but they learn about themselves; the exchange helps participants better identify their own views in ways that are important for their formation as active citizens and in the context of “agonal” democracy where divergences are engaged rather than limited to reaching consensus. This learning allows for one’s own and the other’s views to collide and conflict as Simona Goi promotes (Goi, 2005); thus, this exploration of the political self takes place not in isolation, but in connection to one’s fellow neighbor and citizen. The idea of self-knowledge is of course not new, originating in part in Socrates. However, applied in the context of 21st century polarization and political dialogue it illuminates anew how the interaction between and with those of different views becomes a precursor for responsible citizenship.

Author

• Julie Schumacher Cohen, Temple University