Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Who Cares?: How to Reshape a Democratic Politics
    Who Cares?: How to Reshape a Democratic Politics
    Who Cares?: How to Reshape a Democratic Politics
    Ebook51 pages1 hour

    Who Cares?: How to Reshape a Democratic Politics

    By Joan C. Tronto

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce exceptional innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world.

    The 2015 winner of the Brown Democracy Medal, Joan C. Tronto, argues in Who Cares? that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our own fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. Asserting that Americans are facing a "caring deficit"—that there are simply too many demands on our time to care adequately for children, elderly people, and ourselves—she asks us to reconsider how we allocate care responsibilities. At the same time, while democratic politics should help citizens to care better, most people see caring as unsupported by public life and deem the concerns of politics as too remote from their lives to make a difference in this sphere. Tronto traces the reasons for this disconnect and argues for the need to make care, not economics, the central concern of democratic political life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCornell Selects
    Release dateDec 9, 2015
    ISBN9781501702754
    Who Cares?: How to Reshape a Democratic Politics

    Related to Who Cares?

    Related ebooks

    Political Ideologies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Living Memory

      Jun 23, 2021

      Living Memory
      18 min read

    • Article

      The Case for Abolition

      Jun 19, 2019

      Our belief in abolition is first and foremost philosophical. It grew from watching, experiencing, and opposing decades of reliance on concrete and steel cages as catch-all solutions to social problems. We want a society that centers freedom and justi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Andrea Long Chu: Females: A Concern

      Dec 15, 2019

      Verso, 2019 Based in New York City, Andrea Long Chu is an essayist and critic whose writings have been credited with launching a “second wave” in trans studies. Females: A Concern is her first book-length work, which provides readings of contemporary

      5 min read

    • Article

      We Think The Forest Is Out There, But It’s Inside Us

      Oct 15, 2020

      Milano July 2020 not an ontological relativism but rather promoting a sort of double simultaneous movement Stefano Boeri Centennial scientist James Lovelock recounts his insight into Gaia as he investigates the possibility of a human species tra

      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Jan 1, 2023

      You believe we are at a moment of heightened importance in the history of humanity. How so? We are facing a perfect storm of crises that will require our united efforts to overcome. Climate change is accelerating at breakneck speed; citizens are losi

      6 min read

    • Article

      Living In A Material World

      Nov 6, 2017

      Living In A Material World
      10 min read

    • Article

      Lessons From India’s Covid Carnage And Need For Preemptive Action

      Jun 1, 2021

      WE ALL BECOME PHILOSOPHICAL at some point in our lives; every time we go through a crisis, some aspect of philosophy becomes my default setting. I look at purpose, reason, truth and all the fine things that are the critical ingredients of our lives.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Bill O’donnell

      Sep 1, 2019

      Bill O’donnell
      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A: Sociologist Takes On Myths About Wealth And Morality

      Apr 11, 2019

      What does the college admissions scandal tell us about the morals of the rich? Sociologist Rachel Sherman looks at the ethics of America's wealthy.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      May 1, 2021

      You have said that no group in society has been more profoundly neglected for an extended period of time than our elders. Please describe the current state of affairs. We live in an aging society, and yet it’s a society that doesn’t respect its elder

      6 min read

    • Article

      Is There a Case to be Made Against Baby Making?

      Jun 1, 2017

      As the effects of climate change become more pronounced and overpopulation threatens the planet, individuals and policymakers are increasingly forced to consider the environmental implications of personal childbearing decisions. Here, two philosopher

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Who Cares?

    5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Who Cares? - Joan C. Tronto

      WHO CARES?

      HOW TO RESHAPE

      A DEMOCRATIC POLITICS

      JOAN C. TRONTO

      CORNELL SELECTS

      An imprint of

      CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

      Ithaca and London

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      When We Understand Care, We’ll Need to

      Redefine Democracy

      Care, Inc.

      Making the Caring-With Revolution Happen

      Notes

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      Acknowledgments

      I have written this essay on the occasion of receiving the Brown Democracy Medal from Penn State University. The medal, presented annually by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy in Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts, was endowed by Larry and Lynne Brown, Class of 1971 (history) and Class of 1972 (education) respectively, to spotlight ideas to improve democracy in the United States and around the world. I am deeply honored to receive the Brown Medal this year, and I am grateful to the Browns for endowing the medal and to the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State for administering it. John Gastil, the director of the Institute, and editor Sarah Cypher also provided invaluable editorial advice and support in writing this essay. I also want to acknowledge Raymond Duvall of the University of Minnesota, Mary Dietz of Northwestern University for supporting my application for the award, and Jim Stanger of Channel Z in Minneapolis for his assistance in preparing the application.

      Over the past thirty years or so, I have discussed care as an ethical and political ideal with countless scholars, students, activists, and care practitioners, and I am grateful to all for what I have learned from this growing care ethics community. Berenice Fisher and I devised the original definition of caring that has served as the foundation for all of my subsequent work, and I remain in her debt. My students, often skeptical about these ideas, have provided valuable assistance. And my life would not be as rich as it is without all of the family members, friends, and colleagues with whom I share and care. I am also grateful to NYU Press for publishing Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (2013).

      Finally, I draw inspiration every day from seeing so much caring and democratic energy all around me. From protests around Black Lives Matter to support for food banks, citizens are pressing our democracy to become more caring. To care well and to orient our daily concerns to improve the prospect of democratic life often require heroic daily efforts. I hope this essay calls attention to an existing reality of ongoing care and commitments to equality that I see every day. And I hope it inspires others to help to transform our current politics to make democratic caring into a central value.

      Introduction

      Usually we think of the worlds of care and of politics as far apart. This is partly because we wrongly think that care is all about compassion and kindness, and that politics is all about one-upmanship. Indeed, what world seems less caring than the rough-and-tumble one of backstabbing competition that we think of as politics? This way of thinking has a long pedigree in political thought; even Aristotle believed that first you are cared for, and then you are ready to enter politics. To Aristotle, caring is a realm of unequal relations irrelevant to wielding power as a political actor.

      But there is another way to think about the link between care and politics. These two worlds are deeply intertwined, and even more so in a democracy. Only at the expense

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1