Democracy is often framed as a battle between political candidates or parties that have opposing viewpoints and are trying to win over voters to join their side. However, there’s another way to think about democracy as a system of self governance that everyone shares and has a stake in preserving and protecting.
Jeremy David Engels articulates the latter point of view in the book “On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World. The book blends Engels’s prior work studying democratic theory and history with his experience in yoga, meditation and Buddhism.
Engels joined us to discuss the concept of mindful democracy and why it’s important to consider during the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. He describes how we can — and should — consider a "declaration of interdependence" in addition to the Declaration of Independence the country is celebrating this year. We also talk about the different conceptions of democracy outlined by John Dewey and Walter Lippmann
Engels is Liberal Arts Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State and a mindfulness and yoga teacher. You can find him in the classroom, lecture hall, on a meditation cushion, or a yoga mat, sharing his insights on how to become capable, compassionate, and engaged democratic citizens.
Episode Transcript
Jenna Spinelle
Hello and welcome back to Democracy Works. I am thrilled to bring you a conversation I had recently with my Penn State colleague, Jeremy Engels, who has a new book out that is all about mindful democracy. The publisher describes the book as an antidote to political burnout and civic despair. That sounds pretty nice right now, right I think we have a lot of both of those things going on right now in the US and around the world as well. Jeremy, in addition to being a scholar of rhetoric and communication, he teaches yoga and practices meditation, and he thinks a lot about mindfulness, not necessarily as self care or some of those kinds of things, but rather about the ways that we connect to each other and how we can find areas of shared agreement and understanding and translate that into meaningful actions that can benefit everyone and our democracy as a whole. We talk a lot in the interview about moving from seeing democracy as combat to seeing democracy as collaboration. Jeremy is very much inspired by scholars like John Dewey, and we talk about Dewey in this interview, as well as Walter Lippmann and some of those debates about what really is democracy for and who should have a say in decision making? Is it really best if everyone contributes, or should it be restricted to a few elected officials or folks who have political power? So that is not a settled question by any means, but Jeremy and I have some thoughts, and we go back and forth, and I hope you find Jeremy's work both engaging and hopefully a little calming and peaceful in these turbulent times.
Jenna Spinelle
Jeremy Engels, welcome back to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's so great to be here.
Jenna Spinelle
So the last time you were on the show was promoting your last book, which was about Emerson and Walt Whitman. And from my recollection, it was a more theoretical book and a more theoretical conversation. This book is very different. You describe it as a warm hug for weary hearts. So I wonder if you could just start off by talking a little bit about the evolution in your thinking over the last couple of years from the last book to this one.
Jeremy Engels
This book really grows out of my experiences in the classroom more than anything else I found. I'm a Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences here at Penn State. My PhD is in rhetoric, and rhetoric has always been really closely related to democracy, civic engagement and civic education, and I found in my classes that introducing some of the basic techniques of Mindfulness helps my Students tremendously. It helps them to be able to process difficult emotions that come with being a citizen. It helps them to engage with each other much more openly and productively. And so I've wanted to write this book for a long time, actually, and the book itself came together in such an interesting way. You know, sometimes serendipity happens, but I was really fortunate back in 2018 to go on a pilgrimage to India. It was also a research trip, but I got to visit some of the sites of the Buddha's life, and I traveled with a group of monks who were part of Thich Nhat hanh's tradition. So Thich Nhat Hanh is the Vietnamese monk and peace activist. Was very good friends with Martin Luther King. King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 and he was exiled from Vietnam for almost 40 years because he refused to take a side in the war. He stood for peace, and he's built this international community, a beloved community, is what we call it. And in 2018 I was in India with monks from the Plum Village tradition. Got to know some of them. Got to be friends. And in 2024 I traveled to Vietnam to visit where Thich Nhat Hanh was born, and where he first studied to be a monk his monastery there. Also got to visit some sites associated with the war. And I wrote a poem one morning that was about my experience at Thich Nhat hanh's grave site. So this was the place where he was cremated. And the poem was called a lovely morning at the crematorium. So it's kind of a two. Geeky title, but the Thich Nhat Hanh community has a magazine. It's called the mindfulness Bell. It's a beautiful, beautiful magazine, and I submitted the poem to be published there, and I didn't hear back for almost a year, and I really just I forgot about it, and I got an email about a year ago from right now I'm saying that they were going to publish the poem, which I was so excited about. And a day after that, I got an email from the editor at parallax press, which is the press that Thich Nhat Hanh started. And she said, I loved your poem. I looked you up. I see you're a scholar of democracy. Are you working on a book? Could we work on it together? And I said, Actually, I am working on a book, and I would love to work on this book with you. And so this book came together very, very, very quickly in that way. So it's been a wonderful experience. So, long story short, I guess one of the big differences between this and the previous books that I've written is this is a book really written for a wide public audience, and I'm very hopeful to engage people around these ideas.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, yeah. And I'll say it's very it's a quick, easy read. I probably wrote it intentionally that way, lots of short, sort of meditations on different ideas around democracy. But I want to start with the idea of one of the first things you tackle is the idea of democracy as a practice versus democracy as combat. So unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by the distinction between those two things?
Jeremy Engels
Sure, it's interesting to me when you read the New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Huff Post, where, wherever you go for your news, something will happen. And a lot of the coverage will talk about, is this good for Republicans? Is this good for Democrats who's winning this conflict. And to me, it symbolizes the way that we've come as a culture to think about democracy as a political battle between two parties during election season, which is interminable now. And we've come, I think, to see people who disagree with us as political enemies, and from a Zen Buddhist perspective, one of the problems is that we've come to mistake labels for people. We've come to think that you are a Republican or you are a Democrat, or you are a liberal, you're a conservative, you're Antifa, you're Maga. We're not We're human beings. And so the practice of democracy, as I understand it, which is deeply rooted in American traditions of pragmatism. John Dewey, Cornel, West, democracy in the book, I argue, is how we care for each other in the life that we share. And that's practice. It's something that we can get better at by doing it, but it's difficult to do that if we're so stuck on these labels that come with this political conflict, this political war, in the context of war, democracy is about who wins and who loses, instead of how can we care for each other in this world that we share
Jenna Spinelle
And so how much does everyone in a democracy need to buy into that for what you're describing To be successful? Because it seems to me that if not everyone is in line with that, then you sort of get combat by default in some ways, right?
Jeremy Engels
I think that, you know, a lot of people will ask me, my students will ask me, what do we need to do to fix things? And I'm not so arrogant to think that I have that answer, right? I think that there are many answers and there are many things that we need to do, but I think one of the things that we need to do is that we need to remember, or maybe relearn, how to talk to each other as human beings. We're embodied beings. We have bodies. We have needs. Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. Everyone hurts, everyone wants to be happy. There are just basic things that we share. I think if we remember how to talk to other people as human beings, as opposed to labels, it will go a long way. There are so many other things that need to happen, including some of the work that you're doing, I think is so important, but the question of motivation becomes central. Why? Why would we change? Because this is a profitable situation for a lot of people, but for. For those of us, it's not profitable. For we're so used to it, it's difficult to break habits. And I think that's where the mindfulness piece of things come in. In mindfulness practice. You know, we talk about mindfulness is often framed as being like stress relief, self care, self care. And it is that, and that is so important, I don't want to dismiss that, but in Buddhist and Zen Buddhist traditions, it's deeper than that. You know, mindfulness practice is a practice that aims at enlightenment and liberation, and those are really, really big words, but mindfulness practice is about slowing down. You know, our constant reactivity, our busy minds, the way that we're so captured by the attention economy, slowing that down and then beginning to look deeply at things. And in meditation practice, we begin to see how profoundly interconnected we are, and I think that that waking up to interconnectedness is an essential step to all of this, because political war divides us. Enemy ship divides us. We have lots of just easy platitudes for what brings us together, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about waking up to the realization that if you suffer less, I will suffer less because you will be less likely to inflict your suffering on me. And if we suffer less, everyone will suffer less because we will be less likely to inflict our suffering on others. Waking up to that realization that actually your will well being is connected to my well being, I think is central to this. Does everyone need to wake up to that? That would be great if it did, but I think it has to start somewhere, and I think it will be combat by default for a long time, but I think that we respond to other ways of being in the world, if those ways make us happier and less stressed, and I think that this would.
Jenna Spinelle
And so, you know, there's we're in the 250th anniversary of the founding now in 2026 the semi quintennial, is that right?
Jeremy Engels
The semi quincentennial? I think
Jenna Spinelle
Of course, I gotta practice that.
Jeremy Engels
It's a very awkward way of saying the 250th anniversary.
Jenna Spinelle
So you also ruminate on this idea of the Declaration of Independence, turning it into a declaration of interdependence, and so, you know, I wonder, as I've also been thinking a lot about our history at this particular point in time, are there points in American history where you think that obviously, it's never been perfect. We've never been, you know, democracy is practice versus combat, or, you know, we've never gone all the way away from combat, but other, are there times that's true when you think we've gotten closer to it? Or, you know, examples of where that interconnectedness and that mindfulness, as you describe it was more prevalent than it perhaps feels like it is today.
Jeremy Engels
Sure, you know, one moment that I take a lot of inspiration from is the early civil rights movement, and that's such an interesting movement for those of us who practice meditation, study meditation, because, you know, a number of American black civil rights activists in the 1930s and 40s were going to India to study with Gandhi and to learn from his non violent practices, which are deeply rooted in this ethic of interconnectedness. James Lawson in particular was such a brilliant, brilliant meditation teacher, and I think that the early civil rights movement, especially as it begins to dovetail with anti war movements and other movements for housing reform and social justice, I think that's a moment that we can look to to understand What this ethic might look like, and so it's not a passive ethic at all. I think that's one common misperception of those of us who want to talk about like mindfulness or meditation, is that what we're really talking about is just accepting the world as it is. And that's not the case. There's a difference between acceptance and acquiescence, right? We have to accept that the things that are happening are actually happening. We can't change anything if we don't do that. So mindfulness is a practice of acceptance in that way. But we don't have to like the things that are we don't have to. Believe that they are just we also can believe that they can change, because we've seen that they can. And so that's a moment that I look to, but I also look to moments just much more local and commonplace, just moments of communities coming together, working across difference, to make little changes in their communities that seem little in the big scale of things, but are incredibly meaningful for the people who are participating in those.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and you write a lot about the value of community, and I think it is easier to not apply those labels when you're talking about your neighbor, right? Someone you see face to face, or someone you see at the grocery stores, that's much different than you know some name or some like anonymous person on social media or whatever, like, they're this party, I'm this party. So of course, we're not going to agree exactly.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, and you know the Surgeon General's report that came out in 2023 Vivek Murphy's report about, you know, our crisis of isolation, alienation, loneliness, epidemic. Exactly, it was interesting, because, you know people, scholars have been talking about this since. Do you remember Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone? Yeah, and I remember when that book came out, he came to my college and gave a really interesting talk about bowling leagues. And I thought it's so interesting, you're talking about bowling leagues. Who cares about that? But our places where we gather as communities have really shrunk a lot as public space has really shrunk, and I think we need to rededicate ourselves to actually talking to talking to people, talking to strangers, talking to people that we potentially disagree with, to see that, yeah, even Though we disagree, it doesn't mean that we're in conflict.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, I just wonder, I mean, we also live in addition to, maybe this is the other side of the loneliness coin. We live in a very individualistic society. And so I wonder how people shift that mindset, from thinking about, okay, my house, my car, my, this, my, that to, you know, focusing on the things that we share together.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, I think that's really one of our our biggest challenges is that not only are we liberal individuals, but we're, you know, hyper neoliberal individuals, just so trained to focus deeply on ourselves and the things that we have and that we own, and so I don't know, is there a way that we can recognize that My house, I love my house, but my house is made up almost entirely of things that I don't own. It's not my electricity, right? It's not even my street that goes out in front of my house. My Backyard opens up into a public space shared by other people, and so the boundaries become fuzzy. You know, if I realize it's not my electricity or my gas or my heat, does that encourage me to think a little bit more about where those things come from, potentially, and to recognize how those are actually collaborative things that we share with other people, people that we might not share a label with. I know, what do you think?
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and then, I mean, I think that that it's about. So I'm my mind always goes to structure, right? So it's great if individually and in our communities, we think about this, but then, how do we scale that up so that we're not, you know, it's less of a battle with neoliberalism and those forces that are still going to be part of our our economy and the way that we, all, you know, sustain ourselves economically, yeah, so I just Thinking about how that scales up, or if that's possible.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think what the power here in State College, at least in my neighborhood, went out, I think, three times last year, during the summer, actually, during the hottest week of the year, and it was out for, I don't know, three days or something like that. And we were fine, but I was thinking about what that would have been like if I was back home in Kansas, where it's much, much, much hotter. And that got me interested in the kind of. Work that people are doing in town to build like solar networks that would potentially provide cheaper energy that wouldn't be tied to the demands of something like an electric company or something like that. And so I wonder if there are ways in which these individual realizations that we have could potentially open up curiosities to participate in more structural reform. Because I think with a lot of my students, at least, it's a question of motivation. You know, they're they care really deeply, and they're often very interested in things, but they don't necessarily know what to do, and then they're not necessarily very motivated to do it. And so I think that's one of our big hurdles, actually, yeah.
Jenna Spinelle
Well, I think a lot of the structural reforms, at least, that I'm familiar with, they also focus on reducing the prevalence of labels that you were talking about before, right? So if it's, you know, getting money out of politics, I think the vast amounts of money spent on our political machinery is one of the reasons that drives up the partisanship and all of that. So think that's one thing, I think about folks who are trying to work to make primaries open to all voters, to reduce the partisanship there. So there's, there's a lot of things, I think that maybe have some of what you're talking about at heart, but they don't talk about it that way. And I'm actually thinking it would be really interesting to put you in a room of like the National Association of nonpartisan reformers, one of the groups that does this work, to see what they think about, about what you're doing, and for you to hear how they come at the same problem from a different lens.
Jeremy Engels
So in, you know, mindfulness practice, one of the realizations, you know, in Buddhism, it's called The First Noble Truth, though that's, you know, a lot of religions understand truth as something that you believe in, and then it sets you free. But in the traditions of Buddhism that I'm familiar with and practice in truth is much more of like a proposition you try out to see if it helps. And it's not that like believing in a noble truth makes you feel better. It's instead, taking that and making it a practice, the first noble truth is that there's suffering in life, and a lot of times we focus on our individual suffering, and there's certain kinds of suffering in life that are inevitable, right? I mean, we get sick, if we're fortunate, we get older, but that brings with it its own kinds of suffering. Change can't be helped. I mean, everything is constantly changing all the time. All of us will die, and the people that we love will die, and that's painful. We can't help that, but we can relate to it differently. But that's not the whole of suffering, and that's one of the things I talk about in the book. And I think sometimes meditation teachers and practitioners get stuck on that, and that becomes very individual focused. So I call that suffering sorrow. But there's a whole other kind of suffering that is the kind of suffering and violence that humans inflict upon other humans. That suffering is not necessary, it's not inevitable, and it can be fixed. And so in the book, I call that injustice. And I think waking up to and recognizing how injustice feeds our own sorrows and suffering, and that we're really not going to be able to be happy in the way that we want to be unless we address those kinds of injustice. I think it's central to the kind of meditation that I am interested in teaching and practicing, and so I feel like that's where we kind of link the structural reform with the individual reform. But that individual reform that comes with meditation practice, I think, is also really important. You know, Thich Nhat Hanh said there is no way to peace. Peace Peace is the way. And what he meant by that, I think I mean he was a Zen master. So you can never pin a Zen master down. Right is that if you try to wage a war for peace, you will undermine your goal, because if you wage a war for peace, you will only bring more war into the world. Martin Luther King said, You cannot. The quote is great, and I'm just forgetting it right now. But it's in essence that you can't hate your way out of hate, that love is the only way that you can relieve yourself. Of hate. If you hate hate, you will bring more hate into the world. If you create an enemy ship out of enemy ship, you will only bring more enemy ship into the world. If you wage a war for democracy, you will bring more war into the world. And so I think that's why this individual practice of learning how to relate to these things differently and embody love peace is so central.
Jenna Spinelle
Well, and this also gets to the idea of power, which I think you talk about in the second part of the book. You know, democracy starts you right when we stop living a lie that some people are naturally more important than others. So I don't disagree with you on that, but I did find myself thinking like, if it truly is the lie, if it truly is a lie, then why or how have societies continue to organize themselves this way for time immemorial, you know, there is there some kernel in there? Or, you know, what? What is it about the lie that makes it so appealing that people keep doing it?
Jeremy Engels
Yeah. You know, I rhetorically in the book, thought a lot about how to phrase that whether to call it a lie or not, and I think it is a lie that there are certain people because of their race, gender, class, upbringing, nationality, wealth, fame, whatever that they're somehow more deserving of safety, happiness and well being than other people. I think that that lie continues to prosper because it's really profitable for people in positions of power and influence, and often people in positions of power and influence are the ones who are able to propagate the message. Why do the rest of us continue to believe that? I don't know. That's an interesting question. What do you think?
Jenna Spinelle
I mean it also, you know you mentioned John Dewey at the beginning of our conversation. That seems to me like a very kind of Dewey esque thing to say. And you know, Walter Lippmann might say, Oh, well, it's better that way, right? If every you know, the people who are supposed to have the power have the power, and everybody else just kind of defers to them. That is a point of view about how to organize society. Of them. There is this other view of like, well, no, everybody should actually have a say, and it'll be be better for it if everyone is contributing. Of course, it's it's messier and it takes longer to do things. And, you know, it's not as efficient, certainly in the neoliberal sense. But I think it just sort of, for me, encapsulates those two competing worldviews.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, the you know, famous debate between Dewey and Lipman about democracy, and I think you captured Lipman's position very well that he would probably say it's better for social stability. If people believe this, it's easy to say that when you're in a position that guarantees your safety and well being and happiness, right? I think it's much better for the majority of people if we believe what do we believe that everyone actually should have a say in governing the world that affects them, and that's what I that's what I believe.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, so I mean Lippmann also and Dewey as well, thought a lot about the information that we consume and how it can be manipulated. And so I wonder to what extent having a mindful, interconnected democracy depends on having a shared understanding or shared reality of what's even happening.
Jeremy Engels
I think that that's absolutely right. I mean, I think it's one of our biggest challenges is just this attention economy of social media that has become such a profound propaganda echo chamber that it really does seem to be possible for people to exist and just alternate realities from each other, and those alternate realities make it seem like there is no common ground, and so I don't know that structural reform is going to come for the attention economy, but I do think, you know, I taught a class on propaganda last semester. I'm a lecture class, and one of the things that I tried to help my students see is that there actually are. Are techniques we can use to determine what information is better than other information. And so I think, along with mindful democracy, I think we need media literacy. I think it's central. It would be wonderful if we could have some structural reform and actually recognize that information and news is a public good and we should protect it as a culture. I'm not sure there's much incentive top down for that to happen, but maybe there could be a demand bottom up. Yeah, what do you think?
Jenna Spinelle
And is this getting to the idea of a beloved community, I think so.
Jeremy Engels
So that idea of Beloved Community was central to American peace activism. You know, beginning in the 1900s it became really important to civil rights reformers in the United States, especially Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King and Thich Nhat Hanh met twice. They met in 1966 and then 1967 and they met in the United States in Chicago in 1966 and then they met in Europe and Switzerland in 1967 and at their meeting in 1967 Martin Luther King invited Thich Nhat Hanh to continue some of his work in building Beloved Community. And so that idea of Beloved Community has become really important to the meditation practice community that I practice in. You know what makes a community beloved? I think so much of it has to do with the way that we approach other people, other people in that community, treating them with respect and dignity, but also recognizing the capacity that all of us have, no matter who we are, to be able to be more mindful and recognizing the power of practicing together and offering a hand to others as we struggle with our own sorrow and as we work together towards remedying injustice.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, so we're coming to the end of our time we have maybe five minutes or so.
Jeremy Engels
I can't believe it went so fast.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, a couple of wrap up things here. So toward the end of the book, you list symbolic public acts that people could take, I think, maybe an effort to bring some of these higher level theoretical concepts down to, okay, how do you actually manifest this in your day to day life? I wonder if you could just give, give a few examples. I hope people will get the book and read all of them. But if you wouldn't mind just sharing a few of the things you're thinking about in that regard,
Jeremy Engels
Sure, you know, one of the things I thought was important in this book to do was to give people some practical things that they might be able to do. And a lot of these are inspired by nonviolent activists around the world. But I talked about this is on page 149 of the book, if you haven't, you know, one thing that we can do is participate in moving symbolic public acts that brighten collective awareness. And so a few things that I listed create new holidays that commemorate important local historical moments when people cared for each other in spite of their differences, celebrate community heroes who defend the spirit of democracy. Have an interdependence night at your local sporting event stage a teach in a vigil or a multi faith prayer and public worship service where people can learn from each other and bond in the practice of loving kindness and compassion. Develop free public libraries where people can access censored or under appreciated works about interdependence and democracy. Perform plays and skits, poetry readings, communal concerts, things in that nature.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, yeah. So there's, there's a lot people can, can take there and sort of bring in to their own lives, which I think is good. I think that, you know, I mean, we can, we can talk about if this is good or bad. But I think one of the consequences of our social media, you know, attention economy, is everybody wants, like, the quick hit, right? What do I do?
Jenna Spinelle
I guess is your hope that starting with these actions might eventually lead to a more deeper practice, and maybe into some things like the meditation that I know you practice, and you know some of these deep. Are deeper awakenings that I know you've had?
Jeremy Engels
Yes, absolutely no. I think deeper awakenings lead to action, and action leads to deeper awakenings in a way that it can really reinforce and deepen itself. And so, you know, the book is not prescriptive in the way of saying you should do this. I think that communities come together, they talk, they communicate, they practice together, they deliberate, and then they do something. And so this list at the end of the book is just some things to maybe spark inspiration.
Jenna Spinelle
And then I you at the very end of the book, you have a poem about hope, and that's something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. People often say that they feel a sense of hope after listening to this show. And also I hear a lot that hope is in short supply when, especially when it comes to thinking about democracy right now. So I guess before, I'm going to ask you to read the poem, but just talk a little bit about how it came about, and how you think about hope in all these these other ideas that you've written about.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, I think hope is a practice. Hope is something that we cultivate, and I think it's essential that we do that, we do that, because without hope, why continue on? Why do anything to change anything? And so for me, a lot of my own kind of practice of hope is remembering moments in my life where I've made changes that had an impact, but also remembering in our history that we share this 250th anniversary history, moments when people came together, often against the odds, and were able to create change. You know those stories sometimes get washed out in the negativity of things, but they're real, and they're just as much a part of our history as anything else.
Jenna Spinelle
And so I like to have you close leave our listeners with some hope and and read the poem for us.
Jeremy Engels
Sure. This is just a little short poem I wrote about a year ago, actually, and it was a poem that's very much occasioned by living in central Pennsylvania in January and February, as we find ourselves right now, exactly when the sunshine is not very plentiful and it's cold. And so this is a little poem called Hope. Snow melts from a tree branch. Someday soon, it will be a cloud, and rain will fall on new leaves. There is spring and winter, and winter and spring. Take heart.
Jenna Spinelle
I believe that is the first poem we've had read on our show, so thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for this book and thank you for joining us today to talk about it.
Jeremy Engels
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for having me.