Three sessions: Saturdays 10:00am-11:30am April 19, May 3, May 17

Is this what democracy looks like?

A Three-Session Premise Pod

Most of us can feel it, even if we can't quite name it: something is shifting. The institutions we grew up trusting feel shakier. The news is loud and the facts are contested. Showing up and voting feels both essential and insufficient. And somewhere underneath the noise is a question that is both urgent and ancient:

Is this what democracy looks like?

In this three-session Pod, we'll sit with that question in a way our culture rarely makes room for. Not as a civics lesson. Not as a debate between left and right. And not as a doom spiral. Instead, we'll use founding documents, surprising fiction, and some of the sharpest political writing of the last century to look at how democracies are built, what they ask of ordinary people, and what it actually takes to keep them alive.

You'll meet three times with the same group, guided by an experienced Premise facilitator. Prep takes less than 2 hours.

What We'll Read and Watch

Session 1: How Are "We the People"?

• The Iroquois Constitution: The Great Law of Peace, curated excerpt (12th to 15th century)

• The Preamble to the United States Constitution (1787)

• The Declaration of Independence (1776)

• Jorge Luis Borges, "The Lottery in Babylon" (short story)

• Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" (short story)

• Claude McKay, "America" (poem)
  

Session 2: What Does Democracy Demand of Us?

• Parks and Recreation, democracy montage (video)

• Pericles, Funeral Oration (excerpt, as recorded by Thucydides)

• Václav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless" (excerpt, essay)

• Audre Lorde, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" (essay)

• Toni Morrison, "No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear"  (essay)

• Adrienne Rich, "What Kind of Times Are These" (poem)

  
  

Session 3: What Makes a Democracy Healthy?

• Alexis de Tocqueville, "What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear" (excerpt)

• Octavia Butler, "Speech Sounds" (short story)

• Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, (curated excerpts)

• Zadie Smith, "On Optimism and Despair" (essay)

• Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again" (poem)

• W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939" (poem)

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