How should we live as citizens? In evaluating this question we must refer to the ideas offered by John Dewey's “Creative Democracy” and Jane Mansbridge's “Using Power/Fighting Power”. Both of these publications wish to achieve the same goal, that is, equality, as it is of utmost importance to preserve the democratic way of life. Dewey and Mansbridge both talk about how we should live as citizens in order to achieve equality. Dewey believes that as citizens we should conceive of the idea of ​​friendly cooperation or being able to deliberate on issues to achieve our goals. While Mansbridge expands this idea further and states that in times when deliberation or friendly cooperation is not successful, we must pursue the idea of ​​coercion to achieve the equality we as citizens wish to see. We as citizens should strive for social, economic and political equality. We must move our democracy in that direction to achieve equality if we fail to do so; we are not doing our part as citizens in society. Before I expand my vision of how we should live as citizens to achieve equality, we must first understand the major views of Dewey and Mansbridge. In Creative Democracy, John Dewey states that as a society “We have been in the habit of thinking of democracy as a kind of political mechanism which will function so long as the citizens are reasonably faithful in the performance of their duties” (Dewey 1939, 2). He challenges this idea by speaking of democracy as a concept that individuals within our society should live by. As he says “Democracy is a personal way of individual life; which means the possession and continuous use of certain attitudes, which form personal character and determine desire and purpose throughout the...... middle of paper ...... which defines the standard of education that we as citizens receive if we are not sufficiently educated on many topics, how should we be able to express our ideas coherently? We as a society must fight for equality because we all know how it feels to be overlooked. Yet we fail to implement or enact the policies that will help us circumvent the problems we are facing. The reason for this is that friendly cooperation does not occur when addressing issues of equality. For this reason these disadvantaged minority groups are not listened to because they are constantly repressed by the very conditions to which they are inherently subject. Works Cited Dewey, John. “Creative Democracy: The Task Ahead.” Speech read by Horace M. Kallen at the dinner honoring John Dewey. 20 October 1939Mansbridge, Jane. 1994. “Using Power/Fighting Power.” Constellations 1: 53–73