Democracy on a Human Scale
Frank Bryan cares passionately about Vermont. Not just as place to live but as working example of democracy at a human scale. As a scholar and a teacher, much of Frank’s research has focused on exploring Vermont’s systems of governance. Recently retired, Frank continues to write, research and advocate for Vermont as a laboratory for research. “The truths of the universe that we all need to know to make the world a better place are operating right here in Vermont because we’re a small, human scale, open society.”
We sat down with Frank on his porch in the hills of Starksboro to talk about his research and Vermont. Frank looked straight at the camera and talked powerfully and passionately about the role of Vermont in conducting fundamental research. As we talked, an occasional car passed by on Big Hollow road and the drivers waved.
The full interview with University of Vermont Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Frank Bryan.
Richard: What is about Vermont that makes it a good laboratory to study democracy?
Frank: Real democracy takes place –even with the Greeks in the beginning– in small places. That’s why Vermont is perfect. Think about it -- 246 cities and towns -- a small slab of real estate, forested and granite up there just southeast of Canada. Each one of these towns is historically a coherent unit that did almost everything on their own. They made their decisions face to face. There’s no place in the world you could study democracy that would be better.
Richard: What is it about town meeting that has given it importance on the national stage, from its role in launching the nuclear freeze movement to the adoption of “town meetings” by national politicians.
Frank: What town meeting says is that we trust ordinary people so much to govern themselves that we’ll let them make the laws rather than having them elect somebody to make the laws that govern them. Which is astounding when you think about it. Vermont is a place where we still can do that. It’s the fact that we can get along well enough to govern ourselves that the nation pays attention to us when we give them advice about governing the nation. That’s what gave and gives the Vermont town meeting its credibility.
Richard: You’ve written about how when you know your neighbors you can’t really be hostile in the same way you could be if you didn’t know them.
Frank: Yes. That kind of forced intimacy creates civility. You learn over the years to disagree with somebody in public and be civil about it. And why do you have to be civil? Because you live with them. Let me give you an example. If I’m driving home from work down Big Hollow Road here and I see someone off the road I’m going to stop and help them. Now is that because I’m a better person? No. I’ll stop because they know that’s my truck, they know that I know it’s them. I don’t want to meet them on the street or down at the store or wherever and have them say “Why the hell didn’t you stop? You went right by me.” That kind of almost enforced civility creates the habit of civility and forces us to recognize our common humanity in a way that electronic distances never can.
Richard: You’ve devoted most of your career to the study of Vermont and are nationally known for your scholarship on democracy and town meeting. Why do research in and on Vermont?
Frank: Because fundamentally it’s small, it’s accessible, it’s measurable, and it’s universal enough to provide a laboratory for conclusions that matter for humanity at large. Let’s just take my field of social science. In Vermont we have access to data, we have access to leadership, we have access to environments that are clear open and measurable. There are very few things that matter to the world that are not happening in Vermont on a small scale. And because it’s a small scale it’s more accessible to us. I based my career on studying democracy but you can do the same thing in so many venues of scholarship in Vermont.
For more on Frank’s work see his web site http://www.uvm.edu/~fbryan/aboutprof.html
RETN, Vermont as a Civil Society: The Search for a Genetic Code http://retn.org/show/vermont-civil-society-search-genetic-code
Burlington Free Press, April 26, 2013, ‘Real Vermonter’Frank Bryan calls it a career http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130427/LIVING20/304270001/
The View from the Big Hollow Road (at the 2005 Vermont Independence Convention) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQ0Ms4jZiE
Among Frank’s books are Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How it WorksChicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
The Vermont Papers: Recreating Democracy on a Human Scale (with John McClaughry), Chelsea, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 1989
And several humor books including Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats (with Bill Mares) Shelburne, Vermont: The New England Press, 1983.
