In a book by that name, Frances Moore Lappé contrasted "thin democracy," which is little more than a structure of government, with "living democracy," which is a web of cultural patterns and habits of engagement that surround, support, and challenge the bare structure of government. For example, experts and elected officials run the economy and the government, but Lappé says they can't do their best without us:

• The market and government can only function to create strong, healthy communities if guided by the insights and engagement of citizens closest to the problems. Citizens share responsibility for public problem solving. (319)

And if the citizens lean toward silence and private life, then what surrounds, supports, and challenges government is special interests.

So the model of citizenship most of us follow today is literally fatal to democracy. Educators need to counter that model; journalists need to recover their adversary mission and challenge us; technologists need to keep inventing tools that help us publish and affiliate and demonstrate. We need to cast off the consumerist private life and recover the pleasures of working on our democracy, which is, after all, not a thing but a process.

Democracy can't stand still. It's either being worked on or it's fading away.