Raúl Trejo Delarbre
Election campaigns overwhelmed by abundant spots but so brief that it is impossible to articulate a reasoned idea, journalistic comments that offer verdicts but not reasons, silences and imprecations in the most varied fields, confirm the dejection of public debate.
Without deliberation there is no democracy. But deliberation is cornered and shunned, both in the media and in parties, Congress and in our universities, among other areas of public space.
Deliberating involves “carefully and carefully considering the pros and cons of the reasons for a decision, before adopting it.” The mediatic vocation for the spectacle and the noise, the habitual intolerances in the political work and the argumentative indolence of leaders and rulers, makes this conversation open to the ideas of one and the other infrequent.
To fight for public deliberation is to do it for a democracy of citizens. That is neither more nor less, the bet of this book.