IF Blog

Is Our Democracy Out Of Date?

October 9, 2012

Is Our Democracy Out Of Date?

Interactivity Foundation The United States Democratic Promise Public Policy Discussion at 1st Presidential Debate It was a wonderful occasion. People arrived and introduced themselves to each other. You could feel the anticipation. Everyone...

NO MORE TEACHERS, NO MORE BOOKS, NO MORE TEACHER’S DIRTY LOOKS….

September 13, 2012

NO MORE TEACHERS, NO MORE BOOKS, NO MORE TEACHER’S DIRTY LOOKS….

This policy discussion was centered around The Future of K-12 Education. The conversation started off with a general discussion of educational reform. From that prompt, the participants seemed to touch...

What’s Your ‘Fair Share’?

February 1, 2012

What’s Your ‘Fair Share’?

It’s common sense that billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes. Everyone should agree to that. It follows a fortiori, as people in the logic business say, from the idea...

Democratic Discussion, Public Discussion, and the Policy-Making Process*

September 26, 2011

Democratic Discussion, Public Discussion, and the Policy-Making Process*

Conventional views of the policy-making process are helpful--as far as they go. But they usually leave out a good deal, especially with respect to the potential role of democratic discussion....

Reason and Ridicule⎯Or Sarcasm and Solidarity

Reason and Ridicule⎯Or Sarcasm and Solidarity

Someone once said that sarcasm is the weapon of the weak. The same can be said of ridicule. This is why people often resort to them when they disagree with something...

Gamification and Motivating Civic Action

Gamification and Motivating Civic Action

How might public policy get people to act in certain ways? The question of how a democratic society could impact the behavior of its citizens is a near constant one...

What could we do? vs What should we do?

What could we do? vs What should we do?

‘What should we do?’ seems to be a fulcrum of our public discussions today. This is a question that is raised in the streets of Madison and Washington alike. The...

‘American Culture is Really Our Only Hope’

October 26, 2010

‘American Culture is Really Our Only Hope’

Cultural diplomacy is the exchange of ideas, information, values, systems, traditions, beliefs, and other aspects of culture, with the intention of fostering mutual understanding. -- Political scientist Milton C. Cummings Jr. I...

The Questions We Ask

September 17, 2010

The Questions We Ask

At the dawn of western philosophy Socrates was asking questions in the Athenian agora. The whole of western thought has arguably been developed in search of answers to the questions...

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