Officials welcome citizen self-interest speech but treat public-spirited debate as rude

Evidence

Local government and corporate authorities did not appear to discourage anti-toxics activism. They appeared to accept it: they spoke of citizen participation in vaguely positive terms, and they usually responded to citizens’ requests for information. Yet, their thin model of citizen involvement corresponded to the volunteers’: citizens should get involved in solving local problems, with hands-on work. Citizens can attend meetings about other sorts of issues, but officials should be in charge of calling the meetings. Citizens can request information, but cannot be sources of information themselves. Citizens have a right to be concerned about their own health and safety, but are unreasonable if they are motivated by political principles or analyses that go beyond ‘‘self-interest.’’ Thus, officials invited citizens to speak for themselves, but only for themselves. Public-spirited questioning was considered rude. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1369

Categorization

• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1369
• XREF: connects to: The power to set the etiquette of debate is itself political power — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 161

Broader Connections

• The power to set the etiquette of debate is itself political power #expands (0.78) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 161