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ok look. we have a problem with "democracy" as it's practiced now.
BUT MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT VERY GOOD DEMOCRACY.
MAYBE THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK, BUT THAT OUR SYSTEMS ARE NOT DEMOCRATIC ENOUGH.
BUT MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT VERY GOOD DEMOCRACY.
MAYBE THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK, BUT THAT OUR SYSTEMS ARE NOT DEMOCRATIC ENOUGH.
from the article: "Democracy is hard work." ✅
"And as society’s “elites”—experts and public figures who help those around them navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with self-rule—have increasingly been sidelined" WAIT JUST A MINUTE politico.com/magazine/story…
"And as society’s “elites”—experts and public figures who help those around them navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with self-rule—have increasingly been sidelined" WAIT JUST A MINUTE politico.com/magazine/story…
who is being sidelined now? are we talking about the 24/7 high-paid pundits? the NYT columnists? the party machines? quote continues: "citizens have proved ill equipped cognitively and emotionally to run a well-functioning democracy." HOW TF DO WE KNOW THAT?
first of all, show me a single IRL example of a well-functioning democracy larger than an ancient city-state. secondly, "cognitively and emotionally"? What? (I think I need to read the original paper because this makes no sense but it could be the gloss)
"The last half of the 20th century was the golden age of democracy. In 1945, according to one survey, there were just 12 democracies in the entire world. By the end of the century there were 87." democracies though? real democracies? most if not all are democracy-adjacent AT BEST
"Right-wing populist politicians have taken power or threatened to in Poland, Hungary, France, Britain, Italy, Brazil and the United States." Now I am not suggesting populism is good or even healthy for democracy. But these populists were all elected, so
to the extent those systems were democratic to begin with, they still are. Just because the party you like doesn't win, doesn't mean it's not a democracy. Can those parties weaken democracy? sure. but their election doesn't contravene democracy. More importantly, most of those
systems were NOT very democratic: electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, bicamerality, cap on house of rep stifling representation, etc. How do we know those parties didn't win BECAUSE we are less than democratic, rather than bc 🎶democracy🎶 is flawed?
"His theory is that over the next few decades, the number of large Western-style democracies around the globe will continue to shrink, and those that remain will become shells of themselves." THEY ARE ALREADY SHELLS OF WHAT THEY CLAIM TO BE.
And yes, WE ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BE PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS. Because the most dangerous thing about democracy (of many) are the people/systems that use the term & trappings to obscure governments that are not democratic. But that doesn't mean democracy itself doesn't work.
I agree democracy is hard work, work that we are not currently doing. But I say the work comes in constantly reinventing and adapting our systems to become more democratic and representative and accountable, not in requiring every individual voter to be a paragon of civics. 
Countries and localities are experimenting right now with technologies -some digital, some social- that remove layers of representation for more direct engagement; make voting easier; allow people to concentrate on issues they care about and delegate their vote for others.
Will these technologies (again, not all digital tech!) work? None will work perfectly BECAUSE NOTHING DOES. But many will improve what we have now. And people are coming up with new ones all the time *cough* microdemocracy *cough*
"Citing reams of psychological research, findings that by now have become more or less familiar, Rosenberg makes his case that human beings don’t think straight. Biases of various kinds skew our brains at the most fundamental level." yes. but we also know ways to mitigate this.
not perfectly. I am not suggesting any perfect solutions. but we know that education and information can be done better than they're done here and now. and the reasons they are not being done better is largely because that suits people in power.
we have decades of evidence about how smart regulation can mitigate the potency of unethical commercial advertising. Why can't we do the same for politics? Wy can't we require certain information to be available and accessible and clear for all? We have some examples:
shortening the campaign period and capping spending, as many countries do, would make a difference. we already have laws regulating political advertising, they're just not very good.
Similarly, we know that media literacy training can help people resist advertising; we can do similar programs for politics - and some countries already are: cnn.com/interactive/20…
"The Founding Fathers were sufficiently worried that they left only one half of one branch of the federal government in the hands of the people." MAYBE THIS IS THE PROBLEM. Yes, we have gotten more democratic in many ways since then - and less democratic in others.
maybe we should try an actual democracy before we announce the demise of the genre. maybe that democracy should include public education and public information as part of its system, rather than an add-on as if "democracy" alone makes everything perfect & everything else is icing
I really have to go write some awesome fiction now, but I finally got to the end of the article and here's the kicker: "if Rosenberg is right, democracy will remain under threat no matter who is in power." Yes. democracy IS always under threat. Did you expect it to be safe?
did you expect that once we declare ourselves a democracy, no one is going to try to subvert it or manipulate it? did you expect, as "some" clearly expected, that history would end and nothing further would change? Insta-utopia?
Nope. We, the people, have to keep working.
Nope. We, the people, have to keep working.
We have to keep working to improve our governance systems, because if we don't, they're going to get co-opted or at best outdated, which makes them easier to co-opt. We have to keep making democracy better, because the world changes, like it or not.
We have to stop imagining that the US Constitution - or the governing document of any country, no matter how recent - is the pinnacle of political evolution. Democracy doesn't run by itself. We need to work at making it better, and by better I mean more democratic.
Update: I am looking at the original paper, available for download or to read online here academia.edu/38564962/Democ… The subtitle is "The Rise of the Incompetent Citizen" and I would like to know when exactly a majority of citizens were considered competent????
Even a plurality of citizens? (yes the subtitle is as far as I have gotten so far)
