Podcast
Archon Fung, Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, was recently asked to give the Morning Prayer at Harvard’s daily service. It is conducted each weekday morning from 8:30 to 8:45 a.m. in Appleton Chapel during the academic term. The service consists of music, prayer, and a brief address by a member or friend of the University.
Hello,
I would like to thank Seminarian Kelly Wool, Doctor Calvin Jones and Revered Matthew Potter for inviting me to participate in today’s morning prayers. I’ve never had this privilege, so I’m a little nervous. I used to go to the Presbyterian church where my grandfather ministered, but he and mom didn’t pass their faith down to me.
However, in much of my life as a citizen and a scholar, I find that I am guided by a certain kind of faith. It’s a humanism combined with small-d democratic commitments. John Dewey called it a democratic faith. That faith holds that, given the right conditions, a good way to govern our collective affairs is for us all to deliberate together as equals in public life. It is the faith that democracy as a way of life and system of government can deliver respectful inclusion, peace, flourishing, and progress.
I did probably inherited this faith from my parents. My father used to say that he lived in four occupied territories. He lived in Macao under the Portuguese; fled the Japanese in WWII; lived under the British in Hong Kong; He came to America after the Communist party take-over of China; He took his responsibilities as an American citizen seriously. We watched the five o’cock news and 60 minutes every day on our little black and white TV on the dining table. He was a responsible voter. And he never took freedom for granted – indeed, he used to have nightmares about the Chinese communists taking him back to China.
But my democratic faith is not nostalgic. Many people wish for an America before that of our current political leaders. Not me. Over the last century, America fell far short of its democratic ideals. Economic inequality increased steadily to hyperbolic levels, greater than ever before. And for a long time, American democracy catered much more to those with wealth and privilege.
The most concerning change is spreading fear of political retribution. There are good news organizations and bad ones. Good media gets rewarded with access and bad media gets kicked out of administration briefings and gets sued. Many people devoted to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion are on the bad list. We see many companies trying to be good companies by, for example, but donating funds. Many universities seem to be trying avoid becoming bad universities because they don’t want to suffer even more punishment, perhaps from investigations or funding cuts.
When I was in college, I started advocating on issues like homelessness and peace. This made my father nervous, because he didn’t want me to get on a bad list. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, he said. I said, Dad, please, this is the United States, not the People’s Republic of China. He might be saying now, “you should have listened to me.”
So it’s hard to keep the democratic faith these days. It’s even hard to know what to do to be on the side of democracy. There are lots of things that leaders – of universities, governments, and countries – can do. But most of us are not them, and I believe that democracy requires each of us to do our part, in good times and bad.
So I think a fundamental task is to keep our free spaces of thought, learning, conversation, and expression vital. Without free spaces, we can’t properly think through what to make of things and what we think would be good for the community or for the country.
So, here are a few suggestions.
First, err on the side of courage rather than caution when you’re worried about getting on the bad list. A few weeks ago 1,200 political scientists signed the petition to defend the rule of law and democracy. Some of the signatories told me that they were worried about getting on a bad list.
But they signed anyway. Because participating in the big public discussion is part of our responsibility as citizens. And, when one person expresses themself freely in public, it creates a little more permission for everyone else to do the same.
Second is to express solidarity. Many people on this campus and around the country are worried that they will get on a bad list. And many people have been hurt already. This is a time when, even more than usual, we should extend a helping hand and open heart to those who are worried about being harmed, and especially those who already have been harmed.
Third is to practice democracy by engaging and creating free spaces – sometimes virtual but physical is even better – to come together with others to make sense of the big disruptions that seem to be happening on a daily basis. Edmund Burke famously argued that the “little platoons” of civic life – in families, churches, neighborhoods, dinner parties and study groups – were fundamental to the health of democracy.
I wish I had more suggestions about how to keep the democratic faith, perhaps you have more. I wish I could offer some assurance that our democracy will prove resilient, that it will widen and deepen in the time ahead. But ultimately that future depends on what you and I, and millions of others, do, individually and together.
These days, I find myself thinking about the dream of America that led my grandfather, mother, and father to make a new home here, on the other side of the world. They would want me to keep that special democratic faith and help make America a little more perfect, as they did.
I am grateful and honored for the time and attention that you have granted me.
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