The Democratic Experiment is Finished
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The Democratic Experiment is Finished
‘We in the West have lived with this thing called ‘democracy’ for a good few centuries now. It has been an important experiment, but one which has, in the end, succeeded in swallowing its own tail rather than leading society to a better place. Now its time is up and we have the task of putting something genuinely better in its place.
The most well known definition of democracy – but by no means the first – is enshrined in the Gettysburg Address of November 1863. It proclaims democracy as ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ which – maybe for good reason – laid a strong emphasis on ‘people’.
But here also lay its weakness; people (it turned out) had other ambitions that this form of self rule was ill equipped to address. Nor did they particularly want to be responsible for deciding and managing the intricacies of the experiment that they had signed-up to. ‘The majority’, that is.’
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