Session Two: Imaging a Future Preferred State

Essential Questions:

• What core values should define a healthy democracy of the future? • How do we want people to feel living in a thriving democracy? • Who is not fully included today—and what would full inclusion look like? • How might democracy look when belonging is a daily lived experience?  •What does meaningful participation look like beyond voting? • How should power be shared, checked, or decentralized? • What would a trustworthy and transparent information ecosystem look like? • How can we strengthen dialogue across differences? • What does justice look like in a positive democratic future?• How important is accountability in sustaining democracy? • What community relationships support a vibrant democracy? • What shared stories or traditions could help knit people together? • How can democratic systems become more effective at solving complex problems? • What innovations could strengthen democratic governance? • What responsibilities do we have to future generations? • How might youth shape a more hopeful democratic future? • What assumptions limit our imagination of democracy? • What would we design if we could start from scratch? • What is within our control to build the democracy we imagine? • What practical steps can communities take today? (Chatgpt)

• Music: "Love," Imagine Dragons, Playing for Change, Link to Site

Gathering: " A positive hope for the future that I have is..."

Video: Rob Hopkins, "A Walk Through a Day in 2030," Transition Town, 2019  Link to Site

Brainstorm "What are the characteristics of a healthy democracy?"

Exercise:  "Moving into the Future"/Preferred State (see participant handbook)

Closing: "Something I learned Today was...."

Readings:

• Participant Handbook, "Imaging a Healthy Democracy," Link to Site

Resources: 

• "Futures Worth Imaging: Four Alternative Futures," Institute for the Future, 9/4/25 Link to Site

• Rob Hopkins, "Inner Change for Emerging Futures: From imagination to action," ChangeNow 2023,  Link to Site

Quote 

We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave—to the ancient enemies of man—half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.

                        Adlai Stevenson, 1965, speech at the United Nations