Samantha Worthing English 138 T Professor Adam Haley March 1, 2013 What Actually Happens In a Deliberative Space In his

book Political Communication and Deliberation John Gastil expatiates on how to create a productive deliberative space in which people can come together in an unbiased manner to discuss a topic in a respectable manner and leave the table with a broadened understanding of the issue; at the risk of insulting an established author and scholar in liberal arts, I must say that his concept of deliberative spaces is an absurdly unrealistic fantasy. His nine key features of deliberative conversation and discussion can be useful in any discussion and are good habits to practice. However Gastils system requires that the right people discuss the right issues. Take for example my freshman college English classs deliberations on sustainability efforts; for a group of young college students, who have the world at their feet and not much stopping them from finally achieving their dreams, sustainability is not a primary concern. We had little to no experience in paying taxes, owning a home, or having a family which were all heavy matters that were affected by the different plans presented to us for discussion. We had no real understanding of how raising taxes to give our local governments more money to make our communities more environmentally friendly would have an impact on our daily lives. We had little knowledge of ways that individuals could make their own homes more sustainable. We had only small concerns about what kind of world our future children would be living in with or without a more sustainable lifestyle. Our entire discussion was a series of speculations and unsupported examples of what we thought we believed in. Without a personal stake in an issue, Gastils entire process for deliberation will fall apart. The first component, which is to create a solid information base involving establishment of emotional connections and facts of an issue, is leaving out two primary flaws of human nature; apathy and ignorance. Some topics do not lend themselves to a personal stake by every member of society. The majority of my deliberation group agreed that, besides making the environment last to support humanity for as long as possible, most of us didnt have any sort of emotional attachment to the issue we were charged with deliberating. Obviously sustainability efforts are important and, if anyone wants to have children and grandchildren someday, keeping

the Earth beautiful and habitable are paramount concerns, however creating a personal attachment to sustainability is difficult for college students. Similarly having the top businesses CEOs deliberate about which therapy is better for back pain is going to be useless unless every one of them has had or intimately knows someone who has had severe back pain. The exception in my groups scenario was two students who were in environmental classes, and they had information which exceeded that of the majority. Therein lays the second issue of ignorance. Without a personal attachment to an issue people will obviously not have much detailed knowledge of an issue. This makes an unbalanced comprehension of the issue which defies one of Gastils social features of deliberation, ensure mutual comprehension. Establishing facts is difficult to do when only a small handful of a deliberative group has them to put out. No doubt this was an issue in the deliberation groups in my English class; I was told by one of my classmates that she had no idea about any major sustainability efforts. Unless the issue being discussed is well known and a concern for the group discussing it, creating any sort of substantial information base is impossible. Without a personal stake the second analytical feature of a deliberative conversation, prioritize the key values at stake is also a debacle. If everyone has the same personal stake then not a whole lot of reflecting on each others values can be done. My group essentially skipped over this step in Gastils deliberative process because we simply couldnt say anything about it. Admittedly there are other peoples concerns which we should have considered and discussed to gain a broader perspective. Certainly it is important to apply other viewpoints than ones own into any sort of constructive discussion. However without a proper mode of personalization, discussing and understanding other perspectives is challenging. A third step in the analytical process by Gastil is to identify a broad range of solutions, and it is one which relies heavily on the seriousness taken by the group on the subject they are discussing. For example my group found it pertinent to draw a picture of an octopus driving a car on our notes, thus we were not too intimate with our topic. The weight an issue has on a group is directly proportional to the emotional and personal stakes in the issue. Furthermore, looking at major options individually and incorporating Gastils next feature of weigh[ing] the pros, cons, and trade-offs among solutions is a great idea in groups which have knowledge of the issue theyre speaking about and take time to put real effort into discussing them. However, once again, without personal stakes in the issue there is a lack of honest desire to discuss the situation

and this can lead to inane statements and rants by the few individuals who do have some strong feelings for the issue. A lack of seriousness also makes the task of adequately distributing speaking opportunities arduous for those in charge of moderating the deliberation. A proper way to tackle this issue would be to make a list of pros and cons for each solution and discuss them in an orderly fashion. My groups lack of true consideration for the issue of sustainability led to a chaotic manner of approaching each solution. In reality my group managed to make a statement about each solution during every session. This made for confusion and stunted any possibility of coming to an agreement. We completely shredded any hope of Gastils final component to the analytical process of deliberation, to make the best decision possible. All of this simply because the issue we were discussing was not pertinent in our daily lives. The only features out of the nine which Gastil lists as prominent constituents to effective deliberation that seem easy to manage when all else is lost are the social processes to consider other ideas and experiences and respect other participants. Clearly, unless serious in depth thought is taken to consider the experiences of people outside the group of deliberators, the former of the two features is less worthwhile. Still, even applying the practice of considering the ideas proposed from the people around the table, can promote a level of comfort among participants to be able to share their own ideas. Finally respecting other participants is much more easily done than any of the other components. In a space where deliberation is taking place surely those in it are respectable. If for no other reason, many participants will try to respect others simply because to not respect the ideas of others could lead to awkward encounters in the future. In one particular instance, a member of my group began to rant that we should all live in the wild and avoid technology. There was obvious hostility in the air towards this idea and many members of the group thought his idea was ridiculous; however we attempted to remain cordial and eventually moved on to a different possibility. The main issue with these two features is with the groups who do have personal stakes in an issue. Problems can occur when someone takes an issue too much to heart and considers any disagreements as personal attacks. When people feel the need to get defensive they might lose their senses of respect for the other members in their group. Then they will not want to consider the ideas and experiences of their peers. Therefore Gastils model for deliberation can only work with an appropriate level of personalization. In an altruistic world Gastils nine principles of effective deliberation would work; unfortunately the world we live in is not and never will be ready for this perfect model.

Therefore the only way his model is even remotely practical is if the issue matches up with the concerns of the people. No one will want to spend time openly considering the wide range of options for a problem that doesnt interest them. Personal stake is the most paramount part of Gastils entire deliberative model, and without this attachment to an issue a group can spend all the time in the world discussing it and still only manage a pathetic and generally ineffective solution; and what exactly is the point of wasting time on that?