When stating that Democracy demand deliberative judgment, Barber is simply stating that to achieve democracy, judgment needs to be made after long and careful thinking over the alternatives and evaluative judgment. Without the long consideration process, the citizens might not have the information and the grounds to make effective judgment or find a common ground.
In my opinion, the deliberative judgment is the essence of making decisions, especially when they are important. The process of deliberation before making a judgment can shape the society and make people more aware about the realities of things around them. Important issues and problems in our society that divides opinion should not be based on the personal choice, rather it should be based on a long process of thinking and understanding unknown facts, prior to making a decision. Without having a deliberation process that gives people time to observe and think, real power of democracy cannot be felt. Therefore, deliberate judgment is a necessary aspect of democracy, in fact, it is essential that every participating citizen gets the opportunity to thinking long and hard over important issues and educate themselves on the issues, before they make their decision (Barber, 2010).
In many ways, deliberative judgment is under threats from the social mechanisms at work in the American society. The best way to understand the decreasing respect for deliberative judgment is to simply analyze the opinions of the Tea Party in America. The members of the party challenge the basic essence of democratic system when they claim that: “evolution and creationism is merely a matter of opinion: you think man is descended from the apes; I think he is a creature made by God” (Barber, 2010). Their thinking not only challenges the science we have at hand, but their inability to accept the scientific facts and even give an ounce of thought to evolution being a real possibility points to their subjective opinion and prejudice. Overall, such behavior indicates the arrival of the mob rule within the democratic system of thinking of Americans.
Another important example of deliberative judgment can be on the issue of climate change. When the whole world is fighting against the rising temperature and melting of the polar ice caps, the Republican Party in America has completely falsified the issue and consider the climate change phenomenon a hoax designed to make millions for the politicians of the Democratic Party. Such avoidance of the alternate thinking and inability to take the reality into picture shows the decline of deliberate judgment in the American political system and thinking of the people who vehemently support the climate change is a hoax thought. In my opinion, deliberative judgment is slowly dying in America as many politicians and people have become too stubborn to lend their ear and learn about important issues affecting the society and prefer to side with their prejudicial thinking that only gains for a short term.
Reference
Barber., B. (2010, 10 November). America’s Knowledge Deficit. Retrieved 13 January 2017 from, https://www.thenation.com/article/americas-knowledge-deficit/
