The Courage of Imagination, A Pro-Democracy Movement, and the Civic We
Roberto Bedoya
“You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts?
The answer I think is: with courage” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Citizenship is an act of the imagination” — Teju Cole
The relation that links Courage and Imagination in Democracy asks us how we imagine our lives together as citizens/inhabitants of this land — our civic imagination that animates the Civic “We” and shadows my thoughts and community work. I define the civic we as the secular body that includes people we don’t know, a we beyond the sphere of me and my friends, that exists in “We the People,” a democracy of equity and humane practices.
The thought of democracy is not the exclusive domain of governmental systems but also how we govern: how do we envision governance in the park, the social clubs, the board room, in ways that animate the civic we? That addresses civic trauma?
Today’s civic trauma, that which emerges from the MAGA Authoritarian tyranny, is aimed at elimination of the public sector workforce, at the value of public service itself, and of the ideal of a public good only to privatization. What does this suggest of the meaning of our lives? Be dammed the democratic “we the people”.
The urgency of now is clear: resist the construction of complicity and instead feed the imagining of our lives together, the explosive rhythm of our drive to protect and advance the Civic We as a Pro-democracy Movement. And, not a movement replicated on the U.S. State Department’s Cold War export of democratic practices to counter the authoritarian communist states, but a pro-democracy movement that is rooted in our civic lives, right now. It must be a movement to protect our civil rights and civil society against the authoritarian laws and policies designed to dismantle our capacities to enliven a US multiracial democracy and belonging in civic life through intersectional work.
Some years ago I wrote about courage and produced a conference called the Courage of Imagination (1998) during the cultural war of the 1990’s linked to the fight for freedom of artistic expression — a battle that went to the Supreme Court. Today’s cultural war burns in different chambers. The Congress — the house of democracy itself — is assailed through the dismantling the rules and regulations of government agencies. The MAGA assault on DEI, the Academy, the NEA and NEH, the Smithsonian Institutes, PBS, The Kennedy Center and other forms and sites of aesthetic speech that celebrate and affirm our Nation’s multiplicity are being kneecapped.
So, what does courage mean now?
It is not linked to the lone, brave soul who runs into a burning house to save lives, but the fire bucket brigade that, as a unit, works to put out the fire. Courage as collective action, as a constellation that leads and shapes the civic we — messy, wild, and brilliant — is upon us with a charge to re-imagine a democracy of care embedded in the civic body.
Old school U.S. democracy, with its separation of powers, is against the ropes — government and governance that scaffold democracy are under attack. This attack asks of us, to quote Muhammad Ali, “Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee,” and john powell’s "Bridging is a salve for our fractured world," as cultural strategies for reimagining democracy, to build trust in the civic body.
I think often of the civic body and how it has been traumatized recently by COVID-19, and now this authoritarian moment and its impact on our society’s social cohesion, our sense of community and belonging in a just society. The language of trauma is often spoken only about the “I” and not the secular “We.” What are the remedies for trauma to the we of our civic body? How do we breathe as a civic body, fully, in emancipatory ways, that prompt the future of our publicness, our democracy?
We already carry muscle memory: voting, organizing for fairness and equity, creating the beauty of art expressed in what we share between us — images, songs, movements, designs, or letters — shapes the will of the people and creates knowledges and visions of a fully manifested democracy.
To this end some thoughts on a remedy: As a public servant I embrace Deliberative Democracy and work as a Deliberative Practitioner. I understand Deliberative Democracy is a form of governance in which dialogue and decision-making are the interlocking practices that position individuals as active agents in their own social conditions. The analysis of these conditions informed by these deliberative practices permits and allows for conjectures, contestation, debate, power sharing, agenda setting and discursive practices that imagine and articulate our democracy.
My career as a deliberative practitioner operates in this flow. I am mindful of how Culture is fluid and Policy aims to fix, via rules and regulations. How does one work with these energies as an artist, cultural manager, public sector leader, philanthropic program officer or government employee? What are the methods and strategies that will advance government practices and cultural work that shape our civic imagination? How will we resist the cynicisms and defeatism that has soiled civic life?
All of the aforementioned questions enter into my thought much like a phantom limb — a kind of lyricism that turns the pages of my curiosities, my poetic trap of loving the curve in a question mark.
I came across this quote by the poet Charles Bernstein the other day:
Stop the lie
Of G.O.P. D. I.E
Discrimination, Inequality, Exclusion
Come home to D.E.I.
Democracy, Equality, Imagination
Imagination — the letters and voices of the public arguments and agreements that shape the civic we. Look up and around and act with your courage badge pinned proudly to your daily ways of composing the civic we — the interlocking practices of democracy and art-making.
For example:
While in my role as the Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland, I shepherded Oakland’s Cultural Strategist in Government Program, which placed 12 artists and cultural workers in various city departments aiming to operationalize belonging as a democratic charge within government. I believe a shift in the practices of art-making and governmental norms generates impacts that support risk-taking, capacity building for civic understanding, and deep listening to and learning from the ways of government and the ways of culture. For government leaders, deepening their grasp of how policymaking and imagination condition each other results in civic engagement, cultural activity, and government processes that enliven municipalities and develop social cohesion among their residents — work that addresses civic trauma.
What’s your example?
Belonging as a pro-democracy goal, and how to operationalize it within government, is a poetic and praxis undertaking that shapes the stories we tell. Governments have a transportation strategy, a housing strategy, a workforce development strategy all that shape how a city serves the public. A governmental belonging strategy is an intersectional activity that brings together various city departments to foster belonging as central to a fully realized democracy, a north star for cities and serving the civic we.
The MAGA policies afoot to dismantle the belief in “public good” through the intentional weakening of government systems and rhetoric that belittle and dismiss the value of the public servant and public service, is a dis-belonging strategy at play. It is one we must and will address. And where are arts philanthropies in this strategy? Where shall we gather to scaffold support? To shape the path to that north star of belonging in our places and spaces? To collective action and civic imagination? Toward healing civic trauma? Where are arts philanthropies in this strategy?
I am mindful of my decades-long career as a Latino arts leader of color and how often I have been a singular voice at a policy table addressing racism in the sector. I have also been a mentor to many emerging arts leaders of color who seek advice on how to address the default frame of White ideologies as a baseline starting point in U.S. cultural policies. I have been characterized as some form of AI, not artificial intelligence but ancestor intelligence. The assault on DEI programs demands that public servants lean into the ancestor intelligence of our civil rights movement, the emancipation movements of self-determination within communities of color, feminists, LGBTQ folks, and other marginalized groups, and rejuvenate them as a U.S. pro-democracy movement that is needed today.
Listen to the fine piano playing of the generative as we puzzle it out: our mutual aid actions embedded in the civic imagination of a social movement of belonging.
The courage of imagination will drive us to animate the secular we of belonging that is liberating and liberates our understanding of community. Community as a verb embedded in the retooling of civic actions, of public service, of a pro-democracy movement that prompts radical hope and change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roberto Bedoya retired in October 2024 as Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland, where he shepherded the City’s Cultural Plan, “Belonging in Oakland“. Throughout his career he has consistently supported artist-centered cultural practices and advocated for expansive definitions of inclusion and belonging in the cultural sector. His essays “Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-belonging”, “Spatial Justice: Rasquachification, Race and the City”, and “Poetics and Praxis of a City in Relation” have reframed cultural policy to shed light on exclusionary practices and decision making. He is the recipient of the United States Artists 2021 Berresford Prize given annually to a cultural practitioner who has contributed significantly to the advancement, well-being, and care of artists in society.
ABOUT THE COVER ART
We Shine Together, by Ana Filipa dos Santos Lopes for The Greats. Find more of her work at @analogictinker across socials.
The Greats is made with hope and love by Fine Acts.
