Massively Parallel Democracy Building Goals

5. Massively Parallel Goals

We have identified six goals that are necessary for Massively Parallel Democracy Building and Problem Solving to succeed. They are

Cultivating Compromise: MPP encourages people to focus especially on aspects of democracy’s problems that have win-win potential and are not unavoidably win-lose. It encourages people to seek creative solutions which would enable each side to uphold its values and effectively pursue its most important interests and needs. Of course, not all problems have win-win solutions, but many more do than is commonly recognized.
Cultivate Respect for Society’s Many Identity Groups: People are often afraid to compromise because they feel compromise is selling out “their tribe.” But as John Burton and other human needs theorists long ago pointed out, while fundamental human needs, such as identity and security, cannot and will not be compromised, it is possible to maintain one’s identity and security without having to compromise^.3 Indeed, the more security one side feels, the less likely it is to attack the other side. The more one side feels secure in its identity, the less it will feel a need to attack the other side’s identity. So, one key to a healthy democracy is developing a healthy respect for all the identities that make it up.
Preserve Electoral Integrity and Continuity: In healthy democracies, people must feel that, even if they lose one election and the winners enact policies that they (the losers) find unacceptable, they (the losing side) can regroup and try again in the following election. If people fear that losing one election or one decision will make it impossible for them to uphold their values or meet their needs forever, they will fight as hard as they can to win – even by cheating or using violence or other destructive strategies in an all-out effort to prevail.
Expose and Delegitimize “Bad-Faith Actors:” We use the term "bad-faith actor" to describe people who try are try to subvert or destroy democratic institutions and processes to advance their own selfish goals. This behavior needs to be exposed and denounced, and blocked whenever possible, even if it is happening on one's "own side."
Promote Reconciliation: Ebrahim Rasool, a former South African ambassador to the U.S. explains that a key element of black-white reconciliation in South Africa was the ANC's willingness to proclaim that "South Africa belongs to everyone who lives there." Once they accepted that fundamental idea, that paved the way toward figuring out how they could all live their together in a democratic, cooperative way. We need to come to that conclusion too. Here we are not talking about illegal immigration, but rather, the Left and the Right. America is made up of both; they are not going away or converting to the other side. So both sides are going to have to figure out how they can live with the other side in a democratic, cooperative way.
Effective Communication and Problem-Solving: Leaders and grassroots citizens must be able to understand the nature of the problems we face; the concerns, interests, and needs of all of the stakeholder groups (not just their own); and the advantages and disadvantages of options for addressing those problems, concerns, interests, and needs. This takes good communication. We also need to be able to have effective problem-solving skills that take into account all those interests, concerns and needs, and balance them out with the facts on the ground that determine what is needed, what is possible to do, and what is not. These problem solving processes need to be transparent as well, so people understand how the decisions are being made, and they don't feel any one side is cheating or being cheated.

We will talk much more about each of these goals and how to meet them below.