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I don't know if flowering is the right word, that might be too rosy of a picture (sorry, bad pun). I don't mean to attach a value judgement to direct democracy

I don't know if flowering is the right word, that might be too rosy of a picture (sorry, bad pun). I don't mean to attach a value judgement to direct democracy. If you asked me to, I'd agree that it's something thats doomed to fail. I just find it ironic that an elite media institution makes the argument that something that ostensibly lets every person (all of the 'demos') voice their opinion is undermining "democracy". I find it hard to explain the amusement that I get from this scenario... it's sort of like a double entendre. If you use the original literal meaning of the word democracy, the headline seems like an obvious contradiction (letting all the people speak is undermining rule by the people!). If you translate democracy to "our specific form of democracy" or just "our current system" then the effect goes away. Of course a lot of this relies on social media being some perfect public forum, which it obviously isn't. I just saw some comedy to the situation is all.

thomassmith65 4y ago
I see some truth to that, but I tend to focus on all the possible versions of the internet we could have designed, probably some would be dystopic, and others utopic. I also can see the irony in democracy falling to democracy, but, at the risk of sounding preachy, we should remember that the most infamous dictatorships of the 20th Century sprang from democratic elections.
- ifyoubuildit 4y ago
  Democracy leading to non-democracy isn't the irony i was talking about. The irony is in an institution that has enormous power in our system complaining that giving the little people a chance to speak up is somehow undermining the ability of those little people to self-govern. Edit: In other words, social media may not be perfectly representative of the people's will, but it's almost certainly more so than what comes out of something like the atlantic. On top of that, you could argue that social media diminishes the power of an institution like the atlantic. That is the irony.

thomassmith65 4y ago

I see some truth to that, but I tend to focus on all the possible versions of the internet we could have designed, probably some would be dystopic, and others utopic. I also can see the irony in democracy falling to democracy, but, at the risk of sounding preachy, we should remember that the most infamous dictatorships of the 20th Century sprang from democratic elections.

ifyoubuildit 4y ago
Democracy leading to non-democracy isn't the irony i was talking about. The irony is in an institution that has enormous power in our system complaining that giving the little people a chance to speak up is somehow undermining the ability of those little people to self-govern. Edit: In other words, social media may not be perfectly representative of the people's will, but it's almost certainly more so than what comes out of something like the atlantic. On top of that, you could argue that social media diminishes the power of an institution like the atlantic. That is the irony.