I like democracy
I admit that I'm used to it. It's the only political system I've ever lived with. I've followed politics as an interested spectator for a long time. I've seen the pendulum swing back and forth couple of times. That's a feature, not a bug.
Once I was camping on Newcastle Island near here with a young woman. For some reason we went for a walk in the dark and got lost. We returned safely to our tent eventually but we invented a way of keeping on the path in the dark. We held hands and if she started walking into the rough she'd come towards me and visa versa.
Democracy is like that - it veers between 'left' and 'right'. (Whatever those words mean) But the oscillating path seems to me to be more and more progressive.
I think of democracy as being a sort of natural selection. Natural selection is progressive process where things get better and better at coping with the hazards and opportunities of an environment without intelligent guidance. Societies are much like species - a democratic society has no mind because it's made up of competing minds that neutralize each other. This allows the society to be flexible in the face of changing circumstances.
For a long time society had kings and queens and various dictators that provided a sort of pseudomind. In the long run people got tired of the oppression and poverty and society evolved towards democracy.
A key element of democracy is to decide issues by taking a vote. I'd guess that voting predates democracy by quite a bit. I imagine that kings had many advisers and that they would take votes to see which option most of the advisers supported. But democracy requires much more than just voting. People have to accept the outcome of elections. As recent history shows, there needs to be a structure within which the vote occurs so that people trust the outcome of the vote is being accurately reported.
Democracy needs the rule of law to flourish. Democracy needs a non-violent culture to flourish.
Democracy needs a well educated population to flourish. Lots of issues are complicated and various solutions can be proposed by different people. We need to trust each other to have our facts straight and to be reasonable so that we can have a productive debate about points of disagreement. Otherwise we are back to 'might is right' and we know that doesn't work.
I woke up at 4am on Nov 4 and checked the news about the election in the USA. I was surprised at the size of the Democratic victory. Relieved too: the size of the victory, given the GOP gerrymandering, left no room for whining about voting fraud.
Having said that, it's dismaying these days to see that so many people manifestly dislike democracy.
What do you think?
I open the floor
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.