Fragile Democracy: Technocratic Takeover and Popular Renewal

The Lumen Christi Institute

A panel discussion with Charles Taylor (McGill University), Patrizia Nanz (German Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management), and Jason Blakely (Pepperdine University), moderated by Fr. Patrick Gilger, SJ (New School for Social Research). We are experiencing a crisis of democracy more powerful than anything seen in a generation: inequality continues at a galloping pace; policing is increasingly racialized and militarized; political decision-making appears remote and divorced from the lives of ordinary people. This panel discussion—including renowned philosopher Charles Taylor--will consider sources and solutions to the present crisis of democracy by drawing on two recent books: "Reconstructing Democracy" by Charles Taylor, Patrizia Nanz, and Madeleine Beaubien Taylor and "We Built Reality" by Jason Blakely. Both works identify within our political and cultural crisis the loss of democratic participation and the rise of top-down technocratic, managerial rule. This event is co-presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Nova Forum and co-sponsored by America Media, the Collegium Institute, the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies.