Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has published a new book, The Idea of Justice. In it, he argues that to achieve justice you need public reasonable discussion, outlawing the use of torture no matter what the situation. (Christopher Hitchens gets water boarded to get the inside scoop, check out the video here ) Sen argues, “Dedicated terrorists survive on the basis of very large number of people who are compliant in some sense,” so, we need to reduce the bases on which terrorists depend in order to continue their actions. How? Public reasoning and debate. Terrorists may not be reasoned with, but the compliant masses, the guard that says, “Sure go ahead, I’ll be quiet about it,” can be brought to discussion.
This is just one case for the importance of public discussion. Expanding the reach of law and order toward a public discussion. The interview reaches a lot of points of contention, but Dr. Sen dismisses them all. Do you have any more?
Each day of this week, the Blog of Akio Matsumura will see a new post about the power of dialogue.
Use this blog as a launching point for a discussion or at least a thought-provoking read. Check back in tomorrow for Global Hip Hop.