Bird Droppings February 5, 2010
The paradox of democracy

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

An interesting statement, from a great anthropologist, Mead observed mankind in both civilized and very primitive states. I find this statement striking in our day and time. It is a statement that can be taken in so many different directions. A small group of powerful people can easily sway society. We see this daily in the politics and happening in industrialized society. We see it daily at the price signs of Quick Trip and other gasoline suppliers around the country. But through history ideas have always prevailed over the powerful.

“When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.” Eugene V. Debs

Debs was the founder of the American Railroad Union and American Socialist party. I am by no means a socialist yet this statement rings with truth. How many times have the majority been wrong in society. A handful of people stand up for a cause only to be squashed by a majority rule and then come to find those people were right. So often we get caught up in literally mob rule. The loudest most pervasive speaker gets the nod and people follow.

“The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.” William F. Buckley

The late William Buckley was the founder of The National Review, the lively and respected journal of conservative thought and opinion. A radical departure from Debs yet so close in thought. As I watch our current political drama unfold we see more people getting involved, an assertive citizenry, while coming from the other side of Buckley’s beliefs and views. We see evidence that the majority was wrong back a few years ago when we as a nation we were led to chose war to end terror.

“Nor is the people’s judgment always true: the most may err as grossly as the few.” John Dryden

“Everybody’s for democracy in principle. It’s only in practice that the thing gives rise to stiff objections.” Meg Greenfield

John Dryden came from a Puritan background to become one of England’s eminent poets and essayists and Meg Greenfield former managing editor of Newsweek was considered to be one of the most powerful people in Washington and here in slightly different words a woman of the twentieth century and a man of the eighteenth express very similar thoughts. We banter this word democracy about, what is it we are really trying to say as current already politicians are planning for the next election and future candidates for president try to gather political momentum not a popular vote. Politicians go to states where one vote could give 25 votes an interesting concept, I am being sarcastic yet in some situations and systems this is nearly true with our electorate system.

“The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population — the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it’s the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it’s the fools that form the overwhelming majority.” Henrik Ibsen

Ibsen is not a politician nor government official but a playwright from Norway. He saw life as it was lived and then translated to the stage. I get news on my computer daily about ignorance and fools who hear a comment or bend a word or as politicians say spin an idea to alter the definition and meaning. Ignorant people believe it. In my local paper an extremely right wing editorial is featured from Michael Reagan who feels his father should go down as the greatest president ever. At my favorite store in the world Barnes and Noble, a book by Anne Coulter labeled public school teachers as soldiers of Satan. Ignorant people do not have to be stupid. Recently a fellow teacher made a sarcastic remark to a female student who had been late to school because of a Gardasil vaccination at her doctors. The fact that her family has a history of cancer did not come up in the conversation.

“Chinks in America’s egalitarian armor are not hard to find. Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.” Florence King

“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions — it only guarantees equality of opportunity.” Irving Kristol

King a novelist and former History teacher and Kristol the “godfather” of modern neo-conservatism present an interesting concept. The contrast of an active democracy, paradoxes would be more like it.

“This is one of the paradoxes of the democratic movement — that it loves a crowd and fears the individuals who compose it — that the religion of humanity should have no faith in human beings.” Walter Lippmann

Lippmann a Harvard graduate and the ultimate liberal he opposed the Korean and Viet Nam wars and McCarthyism, writing and speaking in favor of socialism he edited the Harvard review and was a columnist for the New York Herald.

“A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.” Norman Mailer

“There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.” Ralph Nader

The ills of democracy are self fulfilling; it is the citizenry who fail it by becoming simply votes. Nader’s point of citizenship and activism is a key one for a democracy to be truly successful. Democracy requires action, involvement, and interaction, be that letters to congressman and senators or even running for office. It could be getting involved in community affairs or even in a political action such as a campaign or promotion.

“Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike.” Plato

“Freedom without obligation is anarchy. Freedom without obligation is democracy.” Earl Rainey

Listening to all the hype and smoke as the politicians banter about views of the same subject, arguing and consoling all in one sentence it is little different than a toy train huff and puffing around a circular track. Often appeasing this side and offending this other side. It is right versus left and left versus wrong. We go back and forth in and out and funny thing is nearly 3000 years ago Plato was dealing with the same issues. Perhaps as geneticist Dean Hamer has indicated in his book, “The God Gene” that we have a genetic make up, a gene for faith. Perhaps we also have a gene for politics for the craziness that it brings, but as we sit here comfortably and wonder about the words and issues please keep all in harms way and many times are not the voters who elect the officials, they are still out there, on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird