Musings on democracy

Just `thinking out loud` | http://livejournal.com/update.bml

First, a definition: I use the word “democratic” to refer to any government system that attempts to rule according to the will of the people (Greek demo, people + krátos, rule). This could be a direct democracy where every citizen gets to vote on political decisions, or it could be a representational democracy (with a proportional representation system, not the electoral college system of the US), or it could be something different that still comprises a best effort at representing the collective rule of the people. Please bear this in mind when you point out my mistakes and/or inconsistencies below; I'm not necessarily talking about your government, nor is it restricted to any single form of organisation.

Second, I think that there's no better general governmental philosophy than democracy, because any other philosophy necessarily consists in concentrating power in some subset of the population, and humans being the fallible creatures that we are, I believe that any such minority will unfortunately be prone to corruption in the long run. (An all-too-obvious example are the various “communist” regimes that have arisen and occasionally fallen around the world.)

The task of any democratic government system is to enact the will of the people. Typically, there is no better way to do this than to follow the majority opinion. This can be a terrible thing, it seems, because (I'm sure you'll agree) the majority is often wrong. I think so, I'm sure you think so, I expect most people think so. Unfortunately, this is extremely subjective, and while I may be utterly convinced that my views are correct and humanitarian (I really do think so), it's impossible to ethically legislate this sort of viewpoint.

The problem with this sort of government—where the majority opinion is respected—is that the majority will tend to get increased traction and political inertia. The almost inescapable consequence is that minority opinions are marginalised. If we make the (rather drastic) assumption that the ethical thing to do is to respect the contemporary majority view, then this works momentarily, but since opinions and ideas about politics, ethics, et cetera change it is virtually inevitable that this system will become outdated and fail to reflect the majority opinion further down the road. It is therefore necessary to a political system that seeks to represent the majority that it must protect the political clout of minority groups in order to function in the long run. And I don't mean ethnic minority groups. I mean radical political dissenters, like Saudi Arabians who believe that women are just as good as men, Texans who believe that it's not unethical to fail to own a gun, American abortionists, Swedish anti-abortionists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan.

In other words, both people we agree with and people whose very existance we find offensive.

Maybe you're waiting for a point here that will draw the above to a neat conclusion, but unfortunately I don't have one; this is something I've been thinking about for the last couple of weeks. My only conclusions so far are

• Democracy is hard.
• A “true” democracy (by my definition) would require an unalterable constitution that provides protection for political minorities, but everything else would need to be mutable. (It need not be easy. For example, while my knowledge of the political machine back home is very vague and shady, I do know that any change to the Swedish constitution needs to be passed twice—once, then again after the next national election.)
• I'm not sure if there are any countries that are truly democratic.
• A functional democracy must have anti-democratic elements in order to remain democratic in the long run; that is, democracy—as here defined—contains a necessary self-contradiction.
• I'm not sure if a democracy can ever be truly ethical if (in order to remain democratic) it must protect the opinions (and right to express them) of evil people, such as racists and suppressors of freedoms, be they of speech or religion or any other thing.

Please note that there's nothing in the above that necessitates allowing evil deeds—such a philosophy may demand that we let rapists, racists, and Jack Chick speak their minds and attempt to vote and democratically legislate their way, but it does not demand that we allow them to rape, lynch, or obliterate all adherents of other religions.

Now, the real problem with all the above: Protecting political minorities is not nearly as simple as saying “even though you're female / racist / black / white / gay / transsexual / vegetarian / tall / whatever, you still have a right to vote”. It's much easier than that to marginalise—witness the problems of economically disadvantaged groups, who lack the education and financial clout to organise political movements to improve their situation. Or consider a country where homosexuality is entirely outlawed—who will dare to stand up and fight for gay rights? True, given my above definition he can still vote, but if that vote has to come from prison … I'm sure you can see the problem.

On this particular note of vagary, I will (fail to) conclude this little spewing forth of thought. Discussion is encouraged and appreciated.