Evaluative Democracy--History

The origin of Evaluative Democracy is in response to the undemocratic nature of the western or liberal democratic system, which is characterized by autocratic hierarchy through dominant means (of dominant candidates and parties and their supporters) to influence and manipulate politically. So Evaluative Democracy is part of the evolution of western society to a more just, fair, democratic society.

The concept of Evaluative Democracy derives from two books. In the book, I Am Existence by Stephen Garvey, the incompleteness of human thought is established. (The idea, for example, "we cannot know who we are and be who we are at the same time," establishes the incomplete knowledge of who we are, and thereby incompleteness of everything we know, since human identity is the center point of human consciousness. Note, for five years and ongoing this concept has been put to the test through Challenge the Philosophy Competition 1 .)

From the idea of the incompleteness of human thought, Garvey then through the book, The Critique of Reasonableness establishes through relativity itself, a universal plane of reasonableness (or possibility) (which all human thought lies along), and a necessity of reason for decision-makers to determine the more reasonable choice from relevant choices. This latter idea is the basis for Evaluative Democracy.

The pilot studies set for 2007 and 2008, will among other things test the methodology (from The Critique of Reasonableness) for determining the more reasonable political candidate.

The political structure of Evaluative Democracy derives from the book, Evaluative Democracy. This book contains an idealistic version of Evaluative Democracy, based solely on citizen evaluations and no elections. However, through numerous public presentations by Garvey and resulting public feedback, the structure of Evaluative Democracy has changed into a viable, practical democratic form, based on citizen evaluation committees and public voting on the citizen committees' evaluations to determine the political representatives. (For a detailed summary of Evaluative Democracy see Summary of Evaluative Democracy.)