The Handbook listed five major requirements which each participant should attempt to fulfill: responsibility, self-discipline, respect, cooperation, and struggle. The requirement of responsibility stated that “participants are responsible for voicing their opinions, participating in the discussion, and actively implementing the agreement.”13 This is an aspect of discourse that is often ignored. When Habermas speaks of the conditions of discourse, he often talks in terms of non-interference as opposed to positive requirements. For example, he says: everyone may enter discourse; no one may interfere with a participants rights to speak and be heard; anything may be questioned.14 It is conceivable that all these conditions are met and yet the discourse itself falls short of a full participatory discussion. That I may enter the debate does not mean that I will enter the debate; that I am given the equal opportunity to speak and be heard does not mean that I will avail myself of that opportunity; that I may question and challenge anything does not mean that I will actually question and challenge. Successful discourse involves more than ensuring that people who want to engage in discourse may engage in discourse. Successful discourse involves fostering the desire to participate; it involves, as the women at the Seneca Peace Camp saw, a positive responsibility to engage in the process.
If the emerging consensus is to represent “what all want,” then it is essential that as many voices are heard in the debate as possible. A practical discourse is made up of a web of talk. The more people caught in that web, the better the guarantee that all possible objections to the proposed claims have been given a hearing. Thus, the question of who enters the debate goes beyond whether individuals or groups have been systematically excluded from the process. The major barrier to discursive resolution in liberal democracies usually comes in the form of political apathy rather than conscious suppression. People have little interest in many decisions which affect them and are willing to allow others to debate those issues and find solutions. Thus, to the rule that no one may be excluded from discourse must be added the positive requirement that people ought to be encouraged to include themselves in the debate. This calls for an active reaching out to others which is never fully or adequately addressed in the formal language of proceduralism.
Next, the Handbook informed participants that self-discipline would be needed if the process was to be successful and advised that “blocking consensus” should only be done for principled objections. Object clearly, to the point, and without putdowns or speeches. Participate in finding an alternative solution.”15 It is interesting that the women of Seneca Peace Camp understood constructive opposition as a form of self-discipline. It requires a se/^-discipline because it asks participants to put aside the desire “to get one’s way.” Objections may reflect a particular or private interest but not an interest in winning the argument. Further, the reason for an objection cannot be simply that the proposal does not further an individual’s particular interest. For example, one of the most hotly debated issues at the Peace Camp was whether or not to include men. Women who had male partners equally committed to the peace movement could not argue for inclusion solely on the grounds: “I want the company of my partner.” Instead, they had to explain why the inclusion of men would also be in everyone’s interest. Why is personal preference not a valid ground for objection? If the goal is agreement, then sincere discursive actors must move beyond the individual utility maximization model of action. They should not come to the table with the attitude: “I want X and my wanting X is, in and of itself, a good enough reason to try and hold out for X.” Again, this is a form of self-discipline because it requires participants to argue in terms of what will contribute to consensus and not in terms of how to further their own interest. In addition to reasonable grounds for objections, the Handbook also speaks about the tone of objections. Here discourse is being envisioned between real people with real feelings and reactions to each other. An adversarial attitude, even when defending “principled” objections, can destroy the process.
The third requirement asked participants to “respect others and trust them to make responsible input.”16 At a minimum, respect involves allowing participants to speak their minds. This also requires a form of self- discipline. Participants must refrain from monopolizing the conversation and must understand that silence is often just as important to the discursive process as talk. But, in addition to the negative requirement that individuals be given the space and opportunity to speak, productive discourses contain the positive requirement that individuals listen to each other, respond to each other, and justify their positions to each other. To treat each other as equal dialogue partners means that we must start from the assumption that each participant has something potentially worthwhile to contribute to the discourse; that each participant deserves to have her claims considered. A dismissive or condescending attitude toward interlocutors can silence them just as effectively as shouting them down. Thus, the “egalitarian reciprocity” of discourse must express itself in something more than an equal distribution of opportunities to speak and be heard. In treating people as equal dialogue partners, participants must do more than refrain from cutting a
speaker off. Participants must adopt attitudes that encourage and foster equal dialogic opportunities.
Cooperation is the fourth requirement stipulated in the Handbook. It asks participants to “look for areas of agreement and common ground and build on them. Avoid competitive, right/wrong, win/lose thinking.”17 As with Habermas’s conception of practical discourse, the organizers at Seneca understood that successful discourse requires that participants be motivated by a desire to reach agreement. This desire must outweigh any desire to have one’s own position win the day. Without the desire to reach agreement, one cannot explain why participants would be motivated to reevaluate their positions and be persuaded by argument.
Finally, the Handbook suggests that struggle and disagreement can be positive learning experiences and need not destroy the solidarity of the group. It counsels participants to “use disagreements and arguments to learn, grow, and change. Work hard to build unity in the group, but not at the expense of the individuals who are its members.”18 Learning from discourse is part of being a discursive as opposed to strategic actor. Successful discourse requires that participants are open-minded in the sense of being willing to reevaluate their positions and change their minds. As Seyla Benhabib has pointed out, unless one assumes that a harmony of interests already exists prior to discourse and that discourse simply tears away the mask hiding that harmony, then one must assume that people enter discourses with real disagreements and emerge from the process having changed their previously held beliefs.19 Strategic actors will also change their position in the course of negotiation; however, this does not necessarily indicate a “change of heart.” A strategic actor will settle for what she can get and not necessarily what she wants. A consensus is supposed to reflect what all want. This implies that what one wants is altered and changed through discourse. A willingness to “learn, grow, and change” is an essential aspect of the discursive process.
What we see is that discourse requires that participants possess a willingness to get involved, to use reasons that appeal to the other’s point of view, to treat each with respect, to grow, learn, and change, and finally an interest in reaching agreement. This last is the most important for if possessed it can lead to a learning process in which the other aspects of discursive action are acquired. If we sincerely engage in the search for agreement it will become apparent that some attitudes are conducive to this end and some are not.
Should one party make use of privileged access to weapons, wealth, or standing, in order to wring agreement from another party through the prospects of sanctions and rewards, no one involved will be in doubt that the presuppositions of argumentation are no longer satisfied.20
Although the discursive attitudes outlined above are necessary for any successful discourse whether it be among like-minded antinuclear activists or unlike-minded citizens, when we try to visualize the place and scope of discourse in a larger political context the Seneca model has only limited applicability.