Inner Democracy

Book excerpt: Inner Democracy: Empowering the Mind Against a Polarizing Society investigates the psychological backgrounds of contemporary societal problems such as hate speech, authoritarianism, and divisive forms of identity politics, and how we can counter such destructive forces. The book argues that a democratic society needs citizens who do more than just express their preference for free elections, freedom of speech, and respect of constitutional rights. Rather, democracy is vital only if it is deeply rooted in the hearts, minds, and selves of its participants. In the field of tension created by societal power clashes and absolute truth pretensions, the book investigates how opposition, cooperation, and participation work as innovative forces in a democratic self. Democracy is understood as a personal learning process and as a dialogical play between thought and counter-thought, between imagination and counter-imagination, and between emotion and reason. Written for social scientists, teachers, journalists, and parents who are interested in the facilitation of democracy in a wide variety of situations, this book proposes inner democracy as an antidote against the widespread polarization in our society.