Speaking for Others: A Small Town, a Big Country, and a Tough Question about Democracy

Communication scholar and local elected official, Rebecca Townsend, revisits a strange and revealing moment in the 1990s when a small Massachusetts town debated Nigeria’s military policy. That's right - a small New England town debated what Nigeria should do with its military. What began as a human-rights-driven divestment effort in the town spiraled into thorny question: who gets to speak for whom? When does solidarity slide into paternalism or even colonialism? The conversation lands on a hopeful note: even in deeply charged debates, people can argue fiercely, thoughtfully, and respectfully.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves.

Once we take a stand, we feel pressure to behave consistently with that position. This consistency principle detailed by Robert Cialdini explains why small commitments lead to larger ones and why changing our minds can often feel so uncomfortable. We become prisoners of our past positions defending them, even when we no longer believe them, because inconsistency threatens our self image as rational, reliable people.

The consistency principle makes disagreements calcify. Once you've publicly stated a position, backing down feels like a betrayal of yourself. Your teenager takes a stance on a curfew, and now they'll defend it even to the death, even if they secretly realize you have a point your partner commits to a perspective and couple's therapy [00:01:00] and now can't modify it without feeling like they're losing the debate.

Every stated position becomes a fortress we're obligated to defend. In politics, the consistency principle creates artificial polarization. Politicians can't evolve their thinking without being labeled Flip-flops. Voters defend their party's positions even when they conflict with their own values. We vote for the same party our parents did.

Maintaining consistency across generations, even as circumstances change completely. Consistency becomes important and more important than accuracy. We become museums of our past decisions and understanding the consistency principle offers us the chance of freedom, of real freedom. Consistency is only valuable when circumstances haven't changed, and growth requires inconsistency with our past selves.

In disagreements, we can explicitly give ourselves and others permission to evolve. I've been thinking about this more and my view has changed. We can celebrate changed minds rather [00:02:00] than weaponizing past positions. True consistency isn't right. Adherence to old positions. It's consistent commitment to the truth, even when the truth means changing course.

I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on When We Disagree is Rebecca Townsend. Rebecca is a communication scholar and is currently serving in higher education leadership at Holyoke Community College in western Massachusetts.

She's also an elected official in a town in Massachusetts. Rebecca, tell us an argument story. 

Rebecca Townsend : Oh it's, first, it's a pleasure to speak with you, Michael. Thank you so much. Where should Nigeria station its own troops? Where should Nigeria station its own troops? Yes. Where should they station their own troops?

And who should speak for Nigerians? That was the topic of a local government. [00:03:00] Discussion in 1999 in a town in western Massachusetts. Not my town, but it was this town that I had studied for my doctoral dissertation a while back. 

Michael Lee: Why was this town debating about Nigerian troop? 

Rebecca Townsend : That's a good question, and that also was part of the argument.

Okay. In a couple of years earlier, a human rights advocate had encouraged the town to. Create a bylaw that would prevent investment in certain parts of Nigeria. Do business with any banks in Nigeria because of human rights violations. 

Michael Lee: Okay. 

Rebecca Townsend : So she was a member of the Nigerian community. She was not a voter in this town.

She had studied at a private school in western Massachusetts, not in this town. And had encouraged the community [00:04:00] to think globally and act locally, which is a phrase we often hear. Sure. So the town in 1997 did pass that bylaw and they had that that bylaw in effect until 1999 when Nigeria did transition to democracy.

So they didn't want to have it be forever, but they did wanna encourage Nigeria. To be democratic 

Michael Lee: the town. Just to be clear about what happened in 1997, the town per this person's recommendation passed some sort of ordinance divesting in 

Rebecca Townsend : Yep. 

Michael Lee: Nigerian. What part of Nigeria were they divesting in?

Rebecca Townsend : All of anything having to do with. Nigerian government or financial institutions that benefited Uhhuh from the military dictatorship that was in place. So any oil, money 

Michael Lee: were 

Rebecca Townsend : they similarly? It was a brutal regime. Were they divesting 

Michael Lee: in other places or just [00:05:00] Nigeria? 

Rebecca Townsend : That particular bylaw, the resolution was just on Nigeria.

They the town is famous for being a town with a foreign policy. 

Michael Lee: Yeah, I was about to say what town are we talking about, by the way? 

Rebecca Townsend : Amherst, Massachusetts. 

Michael Lee: Okay. 

Rebecca Townsend : They used to have a form of government known as town meeting, which is a there's two types of it. There's one that's a direct democracy.

That's the one that I lead. And then there's a representative form, and this is what they had elected 240 representatives to serve as the town meeting. Any citizen can make a petition to the town meeting and can speak with the leave of the moderator. But ultimately it's a local government.

It's not a state government. It's not the federal government and Massachusetts, it does not allow, and, actually the US Constitution does not allow local governments, state governments to have a foreign policy. [00:06:00] 

Michael Lee: Huh. 

Rebecca Townsend : Yet there's this big tradition for local governments to try to speak for others and engage in some foreign policy.

So there was a nuclear freeze movement. Mike Hogan, another communication scholar had written about that. There's but usually those kinds of things have something to do with the town. So even in the 1997 discussion, it was our banks the community, right? The, our banks not. Something wholly separate from the community.

And in 1999, however, it was a resolution entirely other focused about where they should station their own troops what they should do with their laws. Repealing all oppressive, unjust laws, [00:07:00] establishing a process for democracy that protects minority rights. But the big, the one that attracted the most debate and deliberation was about stationing, where they should station their own troops.

Michael Lee: I'm curious to hear about your role in all this and why this sticks with you so much. And as you're talking, it reminds me a bit of the Serenity prayer, which is finding the wisdom to know the difference between things I can affect and things I can't. 

Rebecca Townsend : Yeah, no, I I was a grad student at the time and I was sitting in the audience listening, taking field notes furious field notes by hand, Uhhuh examining this as a case of deliberation and, trying to make sense of it from within the community's own perspective. I wasn't trying to, bring, my kind of own critique to this. I was trying to understand how, why were they acting the way that [00:08:00] they were acting? What traditions and rules did they have that allowed them to think that this was something that they could do?

Michael Lee: Yeah, pause on that for a second. When you're doing that kinda work and you're trying to figure out whether to use really pat simplified language to figure out whether there's a kind of good or bad deliberation going on, a productive or unproductive deliberation, are you. Are you allowing the community to set its own terms, which is to say the community values X, Y, and Z, therefore they're consistent with those values in this group, think effort, in this deliberation, or are you going further and doing a little bit more analytical work where you're saying you're identifying the understory that they themselves might not even be aware of, that motivates their deliberative practices.

Rebecca Townsend : Yeah, no I had been trained in two different fields of communication and one [00:09:00] which is a much more evaluative, critical me method. And the other, which is a more explain things from within the members' own Yeah. Perspective. So that ethnography of communication, that method of trying to understand.

The logic of peoples in that community, the logic of their own interactions, uhhuh, what do they see as normal and how, what are the premises and like the basis for how they see this as normal. And then once I understand how they see themselves and what rules they have for themselves, how do I apply that

in a critical dimension? Okay, so I wasn't looking at the deliberations as good or bad. I was trying to figure out how does this make sense given what they've said about themselves. And so the article that I [00:10:00] wrote about this was a more critical piece based on their own notions about what it means to be a, a.

Cosmopolitan citizen, somebody who's really interested in the rest of the world. Somebody who's interested in sovereignty, somebody, people who are interested in democracy. Who is the right to speak for somebody else? 

Michael Lee: And what did you conclude in this piece? 

Rebecca Townsend : In this particular one, and drawing on some other, what, what other scholars have said about.

Human rights and sovereignty and democratic boundaries. The way that Amherst positioned itself was as a democratic expert, and they were coming across as speaking for this other group of people in a way that if they were to [00:11:00] honor. Their own ethical commitments would be a violation. And they talked about this themselves, that in, in the discussion themselves itself, there was a person who said, look, I agree with most of this, but what we're doing, and he, I'll never forget the way that he said this.

He said, what we're doing. As a comfortable middle class American, primarily white, small town 

Michael Lee: Uhhuh, 

Rebecca Townsend : we're telling a struggling, newly elected African nation where it can and cannot station its own army. And there's places that have been in rebellion for a long time. Then I remember he said it smacks just a little bit of colonialism all over again.[00:12:00] 

He was a social studies teacher. He was an elected official in the town's executive board, and he would rather not take any position on this to encourage Democrat democratization. But we've gotta think more carefully about who can speak for whom. 

Michael Lee: It's question of speaking for the other and the long history of colonialism was tainting this.

In other words, he couldn't separate the manifest destiny Woodrow Wilson view of making the world safe for democracy from the town of Amherst, talking about democratic elections and wanting more democratic elections. In other words, one tainted the other inevitably, irrevocably. And then as far as speaking to the other is concerned.

And the question I have at least in this case is when they're speaking is the other, hearing them. In other words, is there any evidence that Nigerians or the Nigerian government were listening or [00:13:00] acknowledge the existence of Amherst, Massachusetts? 

Rebecca Townsend : The efficacy of this all. Is almost beside the point.

They, they 

Michael Lee: it gets to the question of why they're doing what they're doing. Yeah. And what fantasy they're enacting of their own town's power to, to play democracy. God, as they're speaking into the void of international relations to a massive country with a massive government and a military, 

Rebecca Townsend : would they care?

Probably not. More than likely not. 

Michael Lee: And so then who is it for? 

Rebecca Townsend : It's partly for themselves. It's so that they can see themselves fulfilling their obligation to be democratic expert. There's this really fascinating concept of ventriloquism. Okay. There's a French scholar Francoise had.

Written about [00:14:00] ventriloquism, like who's the dummy? Who's the figure uhhuh and who's having the control? And he said that we're both dummy and ventriloquist at the same time, do we take other people's words and advice as this is what we should do, or, are we completely unbound?

We're totally autonomous. We can do whatever the heck we want. And he said that if we're either only following what somebody else is telling us what we should do, that's immoral. And yet, if we're totally autonomous and we're totally unbound from laws, that's also immoral too. So the, this whole debate has stayed with me for so long because I.

I think about who are we speaking for? What are we authorized to speak? Have they, have, they allowed us to speak for them. And in this case, well known Nigeria did not allow the Amherst to Massachusetts to speak for it. [00:15:00] Huh? 

Michael Lee: And so somebody speaking on behalf of somebody else has to have prior authorization.

Is that the case? 

Rebecca Townsend : Human Rights scholars will say that there has to be some sort of a history of interaction and, strong relations. That there's, that. It's much easier to have that to allow somebody to speak for you. To some degree you have to ask them whether it's, lemme put it in a different way.

Michael Lee: Okay. 

Rebecca Townsend : If somebody is a victim or survivor of domestic violence, there can be a lot of people telling them what they should do. You should do this, I'm gonna do this for you. But it's the act of control that. The victim slash survivor needs to be able to have for [00:16:00] themself and somebody else telling them what to do, keeps them in a perpetual state of being under somebody's control.

I

Michael Lee: think it's such an interesting argument and it finds so much coming up as I listen to it. I've heard some of these. Cases about suspicion about speaking for the other before and the long taint of colonialism and domination, et cetera. And then on the other hand, some of it strikes me as, there can be a difference between help and control.

There can be a difference between. Care and subversive, secretive domination, and there's lots of situations when people need to be spoken for. I find you drowning in a lake as I'm on my morning walk. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna ask for your consent before I either Yeah. Call somebody to help you or help you myself.

And I can make a presumption that you are not in a position to speak for yourself. [00:17:00] Nor are we in a position to take the time it takes to do this kind of democratic ascent giving that this particular perspective requires. And then, and another one too, is that it really depends on, it really limits the world.

And if there's a world in which we're disconnected from one another, and we have to go through this lengthy ascent giving process to even speak for on behalf of of one another. It introduces a kind of suspicion into the proceedings that might not have been there otherwise. And so it, it does seem to me that it's thorny, right?

This is not an Oh, yeah. An easy, this is not an easy question to parse out. 

Rebecca Townsend : Oh, yeah. No, and I think for me, in this case, we're talking about a government. So in the case of mutual aid, you're helping a drowning victim. 

Michael Lee: Uhhuh, 

Rebecca Townsend : it's not a government. But if your community tells my community what to do, [00:18:00] I would feel offended because who are you to speak for me?

And given the boundaries of what is you

back up. Imperial approaches to the world will say we've gotta extend control over all of these peripheral areas, speak for them because they don't really know themselves. When Kearney had talked to Trump about how we're not for sale as Canada trump replied will never say, never, the imperial reach of.

You know what we're gonna do, what's best for you?

A democratic reach would say we're gonna do what's best for us. If there's something that is within our domain of influence, like where we want our banks to spend to, to [00:19:00] do business. That's different than me telling you what you should do as a government. So to, to me, it's the key part is the government telling another people what they should do.

Michael Lee: Yeah. It strikes me as the whole thing is, so it really illustrates the problem of having hard and fast. Black and white opinions on these thorny questions because on the one hand you have a kind of we can only talk about ourselves. And so who am I in a community to tell you as another member of the community what to do or how you should behave or what my values are.

And so how far back does that go to a kind of Me first is, or Amherst first is, or America First is. And yeah. Nobody can ever tell anybody else what to do without a lengthy, a scent giving process. And then on the other hand, I'm parking all my troops. In your backyard to save you from yourself because I know what the good life is and you're a backwards idiot.

And then so [00:20:00] take those two polarized positions off the table. Yeah. And you just have a massive amount of situational, complex artistic, not scientific judgments in between. And 

Rebecca Townsend : oh yeah. 

Michael Lee: Never speak for the other or always speak for the other, or always off or off the table. Now we're just dealing with three through eight on the scale.

'cause nine and 10 don't exist and one and two don't exist. 

Rebecca Townsend : Yeah. And I think the trick is what can you, what legitimacy do you as a government want to have? If you have legitimacy over some aspect that is within your control. Aspect of a given situation like nuclear free zones. Amherst had voted not to allow ICBMs to use their local roads, so it's a truck could not drive an ICBM through the town of Amherst.

Okay. So it was nuclear free zone [00:21:00] and 

Michael Lee: love it. 

Rebecca Townsend : It is a sense of I am acting. We're taking what we can do. We can control our own roads. Now the chances of that happening slim to none. But there's a sense that we are identifying our opposition to nuclear weapons in any way we can. And that was, they have the legitimate right to do that.

So there's a difference I think between what you can do, and your moral imperative to indicate we don't agree with this 

Michael Lee: Uhhuh. 

Rebecca Townsend : It's interesting because a lot of town meetings in New England, in Massachusetts, lemme just start from there. We're celebrating our 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and town meetings were among the local bodies that had control over their local affairs.

And it was when Parliament in the [00:22:00] intolerable Acts of 1774 had said, town meetings, you can only have one a year. And it has to be, anything else, has to be in the, with the permission of the governor who we've named and you can only talk about these things, right?

It was, so labeled the intolerable acts be, those, the series of acts, but the Massachusetts Government Act was seen as so oppressive because people be, were used to talking for themselves and governing themselves, and it's that principle of self-governance that was at stake when. British was acting the British government was acting in that way.

Michael Lee: As we close, I'm curious to hear more about, or to have you sum up what the lasting lesson is here for you, because as you were recounting that what I'm struck by a [00:23:00] powerful contradiction, which is that these meetings. Democracy in action. That's why they were so threatening to the crown, right?

This kind of group talking is democracy. This is rule by the force of better arguments. Yeah. Especially in a direct democracy tradition where everybody can speak, everybody gets a right to vote and certainly so in a representative democracy, perhaps, and I'm also struck by how performative these things can be, and in the sense that we can perform a kind of. Moral purity. Where we don't tolerate dictatorship and we don't tolerate ICBMs in our town squares, but whether the people living under the dictatorship ever hear us or an ICBM has ever even driven through Amherst, Massachusetts. It's beside the question of the performative purity.

Which isn't frankly, very democratic. And [00:24:00] so what is the lasting lesson to you of the power of these kinds of meetings? So the power of people talking together to decide the fate of their collective lives. 

Rebecca Townsend : You've captured that really nicely. The, there is an element of performa form performativity. Amherst eventually changed its form of government.

They moved from town meeting to a town council. Now, did that stop foreign policy resolutions? It did not because that's the nature of the people there. And in most other town meetings, foreign policy is not a typical subject. It's about. Water, sewer zoning, regulations, funding a school where people can make a [00:25:00] real difference in their communities.

And so performativity will always happen because we're always speaking for. For ourselves and others at the same time, but it's the who we're speaking for that can lend greater legitimacy. And so I, as I reflect back on this, especially in today's climate of political polarization, I think about how even in this.

Particularly thorny debate. People still talk to each other with civility. They were able to disagree vehemently, but they were able to do so without insult name calling. It was heated but civil, and I think that reminding ourselves that this is still possible. Is something that [00:26:00] gives me a little bit of hope.

Michael Lee: Rebecca Townsend, thank you so much for being on when we disagree. 

Rebecca Townsend : My pleasure and my honor. Thank you so much, Michael.

Michael Lee: When we Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse k and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at When We disagree@gmail.com.