Democracy STRUGGLES! / Scribl (ePub)

# Democracy?

* A tantalizing myth?

* A relentless scourge?

* Or a driving force in an ongoing and uncertain "*humanity project*"?

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##Slogans and oversimplifications are for cranks, pranksters, bullies, and tyrants.

Democracy should never be overly romanticized. To do so is to trivialize it. For each of democracy's momentous victories, there are countless minor setbacks and *frequent* catastrophic defeats. So much of democracy's work is thankless, tedious, and frustrating. And the idea of ***inevitable progress*** may be nothing other than a cruelly back slashing double-edged myth.

Democracy only thrives when it is scrutinized critically.

"*The price of freedom is ...*"

Still, there is something in the human spirit that resists domination and exploitation. The question is whether this *something* is stronger than the will to dominate and exploit--and whether it is stronger than despair.

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##The enemies of democracy are many.

Mostly they can be summed up in the impulse to dominate and exploit. But democracy is also threatened by *our own* complacency and whatever tendency we have toward despair.

" ... *eternal vigilance*!"

Democracy is the exercise of self-control of a people over itself. In one hopeful view, democracy is a force working to advance human civilization. It works both in tandem with and in opposition to the necessity to concentrate great wealth for purposes of investment and display.

It works both in tandem and in opposition to the necessity of countering irresponsible or abusive wealth and power.

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##The history of human civilization may be understood as a project by which our species is domesticating itself.

* Are we breeding ourselves to become a sullen servile mass destined to be exploited by a tiny elite?

* Or are we painfully *culturing* self-improving communities based on hope, equality, freedom, and compassion?

* And what can we do, if anything, to influence our crucial fate?

Any answers lie not *just* in ourselves. They are in our histories, our cultures, our potentials, and our shared imaginings--with all their **terrors** and ***hopes***.

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**Democracy** and **"The Rule of Law"** are inseparable, if often antagonistic, collaborative forces in our cultural evolution -- *wherever* we are leading ourselves.