The description of a multi-tier Resilience Council structure in blog post fourteen and the report on the upcoming actual Polish Resilience Council(s) in blog post fifteen show that representation might be a challenge. There are serious hoops in place through which anyone must jump before potentially becoming engaged in Resilience Councils.
Three hoops
First of all, on all levels, there is the knowledge hoop. Foundational knowledge is to be proved in a test before being considered an eligible member of a local RC and, according to the SAUFEX project, also before being eligible to national RCs.
Secondly, on a national level, connectivity plays a crucial role. Since for the first actual RC in Poland, candidates need the support of at least five relevant organisations, including a public academic institution, only those who are well-connected or are being proposed by those who are well-connected, stand a chance of becoming nominated.
Thirdly, again on a national level, besides connectivity personality traits will be a factor. We can expect two types of candidates to be put forward by clusters of organisations: on the positive side, those who are knowledgeable, liked, and trusted might be proposed; on the negative side those who are weak and malleable.
General public
The hoops mean that for the general public realistically only local RCs are an option. As individuals with no ties to relevant organisations in the field of dealing with mis- and disinformation, the national RCs are beyond reach, be it that they may be invited in exceptional cases to the national strategic RC. The only hoop through which individuals might realistically jump successfully is the knowledge hoop.
Knowledge hoop
The knowledge hoop is not as straightforward as it seems. As I suggested in blog post sixteen, since currently both authority and social proof are decentralised, facts as presented by scientists (and journalists) are not generally accepted anymore while data validating any position can be derived from any group of like-minded people found online.
While RCs are to increase trust in liberal democracy by means of broadened participation, that is, by enlarging the experience of agency, the knowledge hoop can have a divisive effect since it might be seen as a top-down requirement to collaborate with state-backed truths. That this ‘state-backed truths’ will also be hard to swallow for many governmental decision-makers is something that will probably not be taken into account.
Facts
That is why the knowledge hoop cannot be a mere transfer of facts. Philosopher Michael Sandel explains: "The idea that we should all agree on facts, as a pre-political baseline, and then proceed to debate our opinions and convictions, is a technocratic conceit. Political debate is often about how to identify and characterize the facts relevant to the controversy in question. Whoever succeeds in framing the facts is already a long way to winning the argument."
Youngster reception
The recent pilot for high school students based on EMoD content (see: blog post thirteen) gave an insight into how young people might currently receive facts. In a small setting (four classes) and with the participation of a limited target group (first-year high school students at one school in Gdańsk, Poland, N=54-65) some interesting qualitative results were found.
We asked the students four questions during so-called thought experiments (see below). One of the questions was: ‘Scientists and journalists present facts that may not align with your beliefs. Do such inconvenient facts inspire you to reconsider your beliefs? Why do you think so?’
14.8% of the students outright rejected the idea of reconsidering their beliefs as a result of inconvenient facts. Some quotes:
• “No, I don’t reconsider because I listen to myself and my intuition.”
• “No, because according to me everyone can make mistakes and everyone may think what they want and I don’t do anything with it, which works both ways.”
• “No, it’s not important to me what they say on television or around us, I don’t want to be inspired by anybody, because I like having my own opinion. I am an inspiration to myself. Therefore, my belief is what I think it should be without pressure from others.”
• “I don’t think about what others believe online when I have my own opinions on a certain topic. I can listen and consider it when they have a good explanation, but I don’t change my opinion because someone thinks differently.”
Of those who either had a mixed reaction (‘yes, but’; ‘no, but’ – 24.1%) and those who say they do reconsider (61.1%), only a part acknowledges facts as having a special cognitive status. Many seem to rather consider facts as a type of opinions.
Regarding student reception of other sources of potentially challenging types of information – either fellow students or educational programs – the situation is similar: a significant minority rejects them as potential causes for reconsidering their own beliefs (for fellow students: 25.8%, for education programs: 31.3%).
What at first glance seems to be a positive outcome (95.4% say to have no problem presenting their own opinions to their closest friends even if it is contrary to the dominant opinion in the group), there is a catch: for some, this seems to be rather a demand than a description of a factual situation. One student writes: “Because in a group of friends, everyone should have their opinion and everyone should understand each other.” Another student takes it to the next level: “I don’t have a problem when someone has a different opinion if they are able to discuss the topic but when someone is stubborn about a serious topic then I simply change friends.”
Organisations for youngsters
By installing the knowledge hoop we risk alienating ourselves from those who might be the most open to entering a path of self-reinforcing radicalisation. While providing more agency to some we might diminish agency of others as a side effect.
We might need to empower the agency of all by providing additional organisations for youngsters in which they can formulate their opinions without fear of judgment while learning to listen without judgment. Experts are to provide science-informed frames that are not subject to discussion but function as introduction to specific topics.
The organisations could function as a source of information for RCs to monitor societal trends regarding facts, opinions, and misinformation. On the one hand, youngsters would feel seen and heard, and, if done well, safe, while on the other hand RCs would receive reality checks on what happens in society.
Ideally, the additional organisations for youngsters should be embedded in the educational system rather than being organised from scratch. Maybe, similar organisations should be initiated for adults too. It might make sense to start with the parents of the youngsters participating in the additional organisations.
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A ‘thought experiment’ is a didactic tool to be used in the classroom. It is employed within the Interdemocracy format and method. The tool consists of adolescents first writing and then recording their answers to a question that the teacher prepared. The adolescents are to answer the question individually within 90 seconds in silence. The answers are to be based on an individual experience. This means the answer is to be written in the I-form without a claim to external validation. After the 90 seconds, the adolescents are asked to transcribe their answers digitally and in such a way that they may read their text aloud without being hindered by unclarities or illegible passages. The adolescents are to send their resulting digital text to a common online communication channel. Next, the teacher randomly selects all adolescents one by one to read their text to a recording device. The adolescents who are not active are requested to keep silent. The audio recordings are to be sent to the communication channel.
