From lecture hall to kitchen table to cyberspace.
In 2018, Thomas Saupique and Aurelie Viotto, following their interest in Professor Noam Chomsky, enrolled in his open community course at the University of Arizona, “What is Politics?” in 2018. After learning about ushin Thomas and Aurelie asked a few ushin volunteers, also taking the class, to gather input from their classmates on how the community course on politics might “start with the here and now”.
That question became the centerpiece of a large table, and each corner and side of the table had one of the 8 shapes. Students and community members from the course took a pen and pad of uniquely colored paper and walked around the table pensively, viewing the question from eight angles, and penning their musings. Results were mapped in Freeplane, below.
Thomas and Aurelie took the results and loaded them into Survey Monkey.
Noting the preponderance of requests for positive actions to current issues, one classmate, an deliberation enthusiast, submitted the following, on the last day of class in 2018:
A rudimentary input form was then modeled for online input, stating:
“The purpose of inviting the What is Politics community here is to continue discussing important issues we began in class – including citizen actions, and also to test collectivism in an experimental digital commons.”
With gratitude the students and community members of the class who have contributed their concerns about the course and related topics, we present What is Politics Now? for 2020 input.
Please take a few minutes to pen your input on paper, or visit https://ushin.net/WIP/2020 to contribute thoughts related to these or your own concerns, whatever they are.With gratitude the students and community members of the class who have contributed their concerns about the course and related topics, we present What is Politics Now? 2020 for your input.