Democracy, too, is unsustainable without competence at every level. To be worth anything in a democracy, the idea of competence also needs to encompass judgment, humility and empathy. The concept of “competence” will always be messy and contested, and to some extent, that’s as it should be. If we give up entirely on the idea of developing a broad and shared understanding of competence or on the idea that competence matters, we might as well give up on the democratic project itself. Rosa Brooks, a professor at Georgetown’s law school, is the author of “Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City.”

Source: International New York Times August 15, 2021 14:15 UTC