Building a Democracy of Ideas

Article Summary

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

The quality of democracy in most countries is poor. Countries tend to be controlled by those people who have the most stake in the community.
They set up structures to keep political control of the community in their own hands. They usually claim to favour "strong democratic government".
Democratic process failure, in the USA, has allowed policy to become completely dominated by the business community. That has been disastrous for the USA.
Politicians call a two party system "the source of strong government" but what they mean, is the sort of government they can easily control and dominate.
There is a story that wealth, free markets and free people go together.
In fact those with financial power have always used that power to buy political power and privilege for themselves.
In the USA, the excessive power of the financial world purchased the obedience of BOTH main political parties and the news media.
The lack of balance that led to regulatory failure, criminal neglect of duty, willful misstatement of value, excessive debt, and eventually to financial collapse.
Your own ideas don't come prepackaged, you choose what you know.
As your experience grows, and as you add even more ideas to your understanding the quality of your thinking should improve.
If your community is politically open to new ideas and the community will be rich with ideas about how to build a sustainable future.
A rich culture of ideas is the bedrock of successful communities.
Political truth or religious truth, which is a denial of the best available knowledge in the culture, is a destructive force.
When people choose to be "blind" to scientific knowledge, or deny the dignity of other people and their views, discussion becomes impossible.
Free markets for instance have been beyond criticism for most of the last 30 years. Was that just the power of propaganda in our lives?
We are incapable of examining our beliefs until we've experienced their untruth. Waldo Salt wrote, "To search for TRUTH you must first have lost it."
In 2008 and 2009 we've witnessed in the USA and New Zealand (I'm sure in every country) efforts to construct a "political truth" to support some ideological fairytale.
That game is being played over bonuses, pension funds, accident compensation, the prison service and health care.
There are problems, but the "solutions" being offered are the same "solutions" the same people were offering 20 years ago. Doesn't that tell you something?
I'm also disappointed to see how willing people are to take sides - to form tribal groups - rather than to seek understanding and knowledge of the truth.
Since online person to person contact is so easy today, we can become a broader person, understanding of who we are and of what the world is really like.
Since you construct your own mind, you have to develop your own knowledge of the world. You choose what you know.
If you wish to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, you need to personally engage with other people.
That requires that you at least try to understand how they view the world.
There is a great deal of work to do on ourselves before we can speak to each other as equals.

If you need the original article it's here.