At our July’s Salon, CfA hosted Hanauer and Liu for a discussion of their recent book, “Gardens of the Democracy.” In it, they challenge Americans to approach the world not as a machinery that needs to be perfected but as a garden that needs constant attention, discretion, and periodic weeding. The book argues that since society and technology have fundamentally changed, so must our notions of citizenship and democracy: turning “the machine” into a garden.
As the election season reaches a fever pitch, Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu don’t want you to blame Republicans or Democrats for the countries most intractable problems. Hanauer, a successful web entrepreneur, and Liu, a former White House speechwriter, want you to rewrite the metaphor.
Jennifer Pahlka, CfA’s Founder, introduced the two authors, saying, “We work to make government more efficient and certainly more transparent, but [this book] started to put that work in a bigger context. Not just a better machine, but fundamentally changing our relationship to government. We are the gardeners.”
Take a look and let us know what you think.
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