They Don’t Represent Us — with Larry Lessig

We often talk about the need to protect American democracy. But
perhaps those of us in the United States don't currently live in
a democracy.


As research shows, there's pretty much no correlation between the
percentage of the population that supports a policy and its
likelihood of being enacted. The strongest determinant of whether
a policy gets enacted is how much money is behind it.


So, how might we not just protect, but better yet revive our
democracy? How might we revive  the relationship between the
will of the people and the actions of our government?


This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're doing something
special. As we near the election, and representation is on our
minds, we're airing a talk by Harvard Law professor and Creative
Commons co-founder Larry Lessig. It's a 2019 talk he gave at the
Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, DC about his book,
They Don't Represent Us.


The book title has two meanings: first, they — as in our elected
representatives — don't represent us. And second, we — as in the
people — don't represent ourselves. And this is where social
media comes in: we don't represent ourselves because the more we
use social media, the more we see extreme versions of the other
side, and the more extreme, outraged, and polarized we ourselves
become.


Last note: Lessig's talk is highly visual. We edited it lightly
for clarity, and jump in periodically to narrate things you can’t
see. But if you prefer to watch his talk, you can find the link
below in Recommended Media.
 


RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Video: They Don't Represent Us


The 2019 talk Larry Lessig gave at Politics and Prose in
Washington, DC about his book of the same name


Book: They Don't Represent Us


Larry Lessig’s 2019 book that elaborates the ways in which
democratic representation is in peril, and proposes a number of
solutions to revive our democracy -- from ranked-choice voting to
non-partisan open primaries


Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups,
and Average Citizens 


Princeton's Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page study measuring
the correlation between the preferences of different groups and
the decisions of our government
 


RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

Digital Democracy is Within Reach with Audrey Tang


https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/23-digital-democracy-is-within-reach


How Political Language Is Engineered with Drew Westen and Frank
Luntz


https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/53-how-political-language-is-engineered


Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for
Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_