10 ms·

What is your definition of a democracy? Imo it's not a binary term

sametmax 10y ago
demo => the people, krato => the power. The problem is not the system here. It's the fact people are not willing to use the power they have. They don't vote with their money, act like citizen, organize their life so that it reflects the way they wants things to be. Having children is a political statement. Watching TV is a political statement. Getting in shape. Eating at mac Donald. Leaving in the city. Working in a bank. Taking a loan. Having a car. Dressing up. Embracing religion. Every decision of life has consequences on the system. This is the power people have. They seldom use it for a lot of good and bad reasons. Indeed, if you make a default choice, something you don't think about, or something you refuse to bother with, you give up your power. Often they will say "there is nothing we can do" or "it's x's fault". But the reality is, it's impossible NOT to change the world. You just change it locally, at your scale, all the time. A democracy can only work if the majority of the people are trying to make it work. If they just live in it, any system will decay, no matter how fair and benevolent it is. A system is just a canvas. There are better than others, but eventually democracy is how we are using it. Actually having democracy implies thinking less about freedoms and more about responsibilities, and how to all share them. Few people want to do that. You can't blame us, it's hard, exhausting and scary. It's easier to expect the system to be fair, to have "people that know" being responsible, and to be far away from the consequences of failure. Voting a few times in X years is not democracy. Delegating power to a minority is not people having power. It's quite the contrary. If people accepted real power, we would have much more numerous, regular and direct access to the management of our society. Note that I'm not saying I'm unhappy in our current systems. It's been very generous with me, I enjoy a good life with many benefits, more than most on earth, more than even most of my neighbors. It's just not a democracy. We never had one. Just like we never had a communist society. We tried, but until now we failed. And despite that we labeled wrongly the failed attempts which became canonical examples, twisting the definition. I'm not sure it's a bad thing : I doubt humanity is ready for democracy. We can't bother reading a "confirm/cancel" prompt, let alone all the political programs on election month. Maybe we need to try something as a transition instead of jumping around and pretending we are already were we need to be.

demo => the people, krato => the power. The problem is not the system here. It's the fact people are not willing to use the power they have. They don't vote with their money, act like citizen, organize their life so that it reflects the way they wants things to be. Having children is a political statement. Watching TV is a political statement. Getting in shape. Eating at mac Donald. Leaving in the city. Working in a bank. Taking a loan. Having a car. Dressing up. Embracing religion. Every decision of life has consequences on the system. This is the power people have. They seldom use it for a lot of good and bad reasons. Indeed, if you make a default choice, something you don't think about, or something you refuse to bother with, you give up your power. Often they will say "there is nothing we can do" or "it's x's fault". But the reality is, it's impossible NOT to change the world. You just change it locally, at your scale, all the time. A democracy can only work if the majority of the people are trying to make it work. If they just live in it, any system will decay, no matter how fair and benevolent it is. A system is just a canvas. There are better than others, but eventually democracy is how we are using it. Actually having democracy implies thinking less about freedoms and more about responsibilities, and how to all share them. Few people want to do that. You can't blame us, it's hard, exhausting and scary. It's easier to expect the system to be fair, to have "people that know" being responsible, and to be far away from the consequences of failure. Voting a few times in X years is not democracy. Delegating power to a minority is not people having power. It's quite the contrary. If people accepted real power, we would have much more numerous, regular and direct access to the management of our society. Note that I'm not saying I'm unhappy in our current systems. It's been very generous with me, I enjoy a good life with many benefits, more than most on earth, more than even most of my neighbors. It's just not a democracy. We never had one. Just like we never had a communist society. We tried, but until now we failed. And despite that we labeled wrongly the failed attempts which became canonical examples, twisting the definition. I'm not sure it's a bad thing : I doubt humanity is ready for democracy. We can't bother reading a "confirm/cancel" prompt, let alone all the political programs on election month. Maybe we need to try something as a transition instead of jumping around and pretending we are already were we need to be.