Civil Society Brunch: Repairing Democracy: The Task Within Us

There’s general agreement that our democracy is in the grip of multiple pathologies: toxic partisanship, extreme polarization, incivility, and the like.  Because these dysfunctions emerge within our civic relations, it is frequently assumed that repairing democracy must focus on easing the political tensions between citizens.   In this talk, Robert Talisse argues that this is not entirely correct.  "Although our dysfunctions manifest in our relations with our fellow citizens," Talisse writes, "they have their source in our attitudes and dispositions.  The task of repairing democracy is thus not only a task among us.  It is also a task within us."  

Robert Talisse is  W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University.  He is the author of Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in its Place (Oxford University Press, 2019), Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe to the Other Side (Oxford University Press, 2021), and most recently Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance (Oxford University Press, 2024), among many others.

All are welcome for this free  event, but registration is requested using the RSVP link below.  

The Dinner & Dialogue series present debates on timely ethical and political questions that model reasoning about value questions and the positive side of disagreement.

This event is organized by the Civil Society Initiative and is sponsored by the Frick Initiatives.