While it is most likely true that most citizens of democratic countries don’t think about democracy (the way we don’t think about running water until the pipes break), there has always been a large minority (perhaps) that does. In Canada we maintain that we have long been shortchanged by our mainstream media including our CBC who steadfastly refuse to cover democracy except when norms are threatened in other countries. Who clearly believe we are too dim to care about it.
We would reply that if it is not the job of a free press to inform citizens of the value of democracy, what do we even have the press for?
If feels like the worst form of elitism for those with the platform granted journalism in a free and democratic society to continually pat us on the head and tell us democracy is too tough for us to understand.
At the same time they force feed us arcane points of professional sports, never worrying whether we care about it or not.
Your excellent article arrived at a good time. My corner of Ontario is the Niagara Region, where democracy has never been in what I'd call a healthy state, because nobody cares about it. Like Canadians everywhere, we seem to be too busy to participate in democracy, but that doesn't mean we don't bitch about our governments, at every level. Here, in Niagara, we have four levels to complain about, since we have a Regional government and twelve municipalities. Suddenly, democracy is big news, because we're threatened with losing some: Ford has appointed a Chair of Region who is bringing us the word from Queen's Park - amalgamation - via a devious ploy. Our mayors have been given 12 days in which to let Minister Flack know whether they want amalgamation of the region into a single-tier municipality, or want the region to be split into four municipalities, via some combination of the original twelve. Well, in my 42 years living here, I have never seen a strong reaction to a question of governance -- residents are furious that amalgamation -- which many have called for for decades -- is being forced on them by this obviously false choice. Emergency council meetings are being called. Articles and opinion pieces pop up on an hourly basis. Everyone has an opinion, and some even have facts and figures, although the Chair of Region is not one of them. He doesn't need data, he says. As for public consultations, the province will have those -- after the decision is taken. He says this blithely. He has the power to make this happen, he says, and Ford hurriedly responds by claiming he won't force amalgamation on us. Nobody believes him. Because, while amalgamation is being hyped as the only way to reduce taxes and increase efficiency of service delivery, people have started to recognize that the real issue is democracy. Whether or not we even know who sits on our municipal council, we value the fact that we have local representation that's close at hand. We know who to call when a pothole appears on our street. When we get word that a high-rise development has been approved, cutting off a portion of next our favourite park, groups of us get together and delegate to Council. That we stand to lose elected representation makes us angry -- and it makes us nervous. Yikes! Is this what so many of us voted for when we cast our ballots for the PCs? We're not going to take this removal of democracy lying down! As a long-time frustrated believer in deliberative and participative democracy, I confess I'm both amused, and also thrilled. I can't believe we're all talking about this seemingly abstract concept that has suddenly become a real thing, not just an idea. Who knows? If we can keep on talking and discussing and reaching out to each other with ideas and observations, we might just have a chance to explore this democracy thing, find out what it's made of, and learn how to bring it home.
I am not sure I buy the core argument. First, I must admit priors: Habermas definition of the Enlightenment and reason, and an expansive view of what democracy is. While at the macro level "vote, pay taxes, obey the law" may be the bare minimum, at the micro level democracy works from the ground up: the community centre board, the neighbourhood associations, the myriad of charities and organizations with singular or narrowly scoped mandates (environment, homelessness, addictions, you name it).
As I believe I mentioned before, we cannot ignore the fact that we live in an increasingly complex world, requiring a high degree of robust debate of ideas and a bias towards, in the words of Habermas, "communicative rationality". However entering politics is so toxic that the best and brightest choose to go elsewhere.
Instead of deep conversations and discussions, we are fed simple answers, single lines, and 30-second videos. "Axe the Tax" comes to mind. Part of it is the technological influence of the platforms we use, the medium is the message, the lack of regulation, and the confusion of free, unfettered markets with a rationally regulated, yet free economy. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "we make it all about the economy, and it is making us stupid".
Liberal democracy is morphing into a plebiscitarian autocracy (hello, Alberta!). To me, that is the root cause of the erosion of civic engagement at the political level.
The enormous concentration of wealth ie power is another dimension when added to cruelty bad things happen.
You reminded me that after the US left Afghanistan, the Taliban moved into the vacuum . It meant people got their garbage picked up and kids off to school.
We are too busy for a decentralized participatory democracy. We are too busy trying to get by, trying to get ahead, trying to get more even when we have more than enough. We have become better at keeping busy with less and time for careful inclusive thinking-reflection. The space between stimulus and response gets filled with never ending stimulus rather than used as the space - the freedom to exercise our greatest freedom-time to stop being busy to deliberate. Stopping to think deeply escapes us in our pace of consumerism of things and stimulus. We are geared to be reactionary and that indeed makes us too dumb for democracy.
This has been hinted at and elaborated upon by the wise for a long, long time. I cited Ivan Illich and Ef. Schumacker... when I first wrote the above paragraph in my political science and philosophy essays in the 1980s...
Erich Fromm’s 1941 Escape From Freedom was all about us escaping the use our greatest freedom- the space between stimulus and response to be reactionary consumers and give way to corporate totalitarianism.
Everybody is on the internet-social media-substacks scrolling and posting- saying so much with so little to say. Better if they stopped to read what had been said before by people who gave great reflection before they wrote before they published. Ivan Illich in the 1970s had answers to corporatism (Tools of Conviviality) so did E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful and of course Ralph Nader North America's greatest civics activist had answers in the 1960s as he does today.
And with PM Carney's support of the US and Israel starting a war with Iran are we following the democracy path outcome of Walter Donovan or did he choose wisely.
While it is most likely true that most citizens of democratic countries don’t think about democracy (the way we don’t think about running water until the pipes break), there has always been a large minority (perhaps) that does. In Canada we maintain that we have long been shortchanged by our mainstream media including our CBC who steadfastly refuse to cover democracy except when norms are threatened in other countries. Who clearly believe we are too dim to care about it.
We would reply that if it is not the job of a free press to inform citizens of the value of democracy, what do we even have the press for?
If feels like the worst form of elitism for those with the platform granted journalism in a free and democratic society to continually pat us on the head and tell us democracy is too tough for us to understand.
At the same time they force feed us arcane points of professional sports, never worrying whether we care about it or not.
Your excellent article arrived at a good time. My corner of Ontario is the Niagara Region, where democracy has never been in what I'd call a healthy state, because nobody cares about it. Like Canadians everywhere, we seem to be too busy to participate in democracy, but that doesn't mean we don't bitch about our governments, at every level. Here, in Niagara, we have four levels to complain about, since we have a Regional government and twelve municipalities. Suddenly, democracy is big news, because we're threatened with losing some: Ford has appointed a Chair of Region who is bringing us the word from Queen's Park - amalgamation - via a devious ploy. Our mayors have been given 12 days in which to let Minister Flack know whether they want amalgamation of the region into a single-tier municipality, or want the region to be split into four municipalities, via some combination of the original twelve. Well, in my 42 years living here, I have never seen a strong reaction to a question of governance -- residents are furious that amalgamation -- which many have called for for decades -- is being forced on them by this obviously false choice. Emergency council meetings are being called. Articles and opinion pieces pop up on an hourly basis. Everyone has an opinion, and some even have facts and figures, although the Chair of Region is not one of them. He doesn't need data, he says. As for public consultations, the province will have those -- after the decision is taken. He says this blithely. He has the power to make this happen, he says, and Ford hurriedly responds by claiming he won't force amalgamation on us. Nobody believes him. Because, while amalgamation is being hyped as the only way to reduce taxes and increase efficiency of service delivery, people have started to recognize that the real issue is democracy. Whether or not we even know who sits on our municipal council, we value the fact that we have local representation that's close at hand. We know who to call when a pothole appears on our street. When we get word that a high-rise development has been approved, cutting off a portion of next our favourite park, groups of us get together and delegate to Council. That we stand to lose elected representation makes us angry -- and it makes us nervous. Yikes! Is this what so many of us voted for when we cast our ballots for the PCs? We're not going to take this removal of democracy lying down! As a long-time frustrated believer in deliberative and participative democracy, I confess I'm both amused, and also thrilled. I can't believe we're all talking about this seemingly abstract concept that has suddenly become a real thing, not just an idea. Who knows? If we can keep on talking and discussing and reaching out to each other with ideas and observations, we might just have a chance to explore this democracy thing, find out what it's made of, and learn how to bring it home.
I am not sure I buy the core argument. First, I must admit priors: Habermas definition of the Enlightenment and reason, and an expansive view of what democracy is. While at the macro level "vote, pay taxes, obey the law" may be the bare minimum, at the micro level democracy works from the ground up: the community centre board, the neighbourhood associations, the myriad of charities and organizations with singular or narrowly scoped mandates (environment, homelessness, addictions, you name it).
As I believe I mentioned before, we cannot ignore the fact that we live in an increasingly complex world, requiring a high degree of robust debate of ideas and a bias towards, in the words of Habermas, "communicative rationality". However entering politics is so toxic that the best and brightest choose to go elsewhere.
Instead of deep conversations and discussions, we are fed simple answers, single lines, and 30-second videos. "Axe the Tax" comes to mind. Part of it is the technological influence of the platforms we use, the medium is the message, the lack of regulation, and the confusion of free, unfettered markets with a rationally regulated, yet free economy. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, "we make it all about the economy, and it is making us stupid".
Liberal democracy is morphing into a plebiscitarian autocracy (hello, Alberta!). To me, that is the root cause of the erosion of civic engagement at the political level.
But What do I know? Not much.
The enormous concentration of wealth ie power is another dimension when added to cruelty bad things happen.
You reminded me that after the US left Afghanistan, the Taliban moved into the vacuum . It meant people got their garbage picked up and kids off to school.
Socialism or barbarian, 'twas ever thus
C.B Macpherson's Possessive Individualism was beyond the general understanding of the general public.
We are too busy for a decentralized participatory democracy. We are too busy trying to get by, trying to get ahead, trying to get more even when we have more than enough. We have become better at keeping busy with less and time for careful inclusive thinking-reflection. The space between stimulus and response gets filled with never ending stimulus rather than used as the space - the freedom to exercise our greatest freedom-time to stop being busy to deliberate. Stopping to think deeply escapes us in our pace of consumerism of things and stimulus. We are geared to be reactionary and that indeed makes us too dumb for democracy.
.
This has been hinted at and elaborated upon by the wise for a long, long time. I cited Ivan Illich and Ef. Schumacker... when I first wrote the above paragraph in my political science and philosophy essays in the 1980s...
Erich Fromm’s 1941 Escape From Freedom was all about us escaping the use our greatest freedom- the space between stimulus and response to be reactionary consumers and give way to corporate totalitarianism.
But now a handful of billionaires are making money on reducing the time between stimulus and response
Everybody is on the internet-social media-substacks scrolling and posting- saying so much with so little to say. Better if they stopped to read what had been said before by people who gave great reflection before they wrote before they published. Ivan Illich in the 1970s had answers to corporatism (Tools of Conviviality) so did E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful and of course Ralph Nader North America's greatest civics activist had answers in the 1960s as he does today.
Indeed!
And with PM Carney's support of the US and Israel starting a war with Iran are we following the democracy path outcome of Walter Donovan or did he choose wisely.