Pillars of Destruction #2: Democracy
By: Floris Koot
Tags: People, Politics, Social Change, Political Revolution, Democracy

Do you really live in a democracy when protestors think their actions don’t matter at all?

Pillars of Destruction #2: Democracy

Why this Barbaric Outdated System Needs to be Renewed, Fast!

“How bad is it, doctor?” My reaction: “This patient is a goner, but we may save the children.”

Time for ideas that haven’t been tried yet! cc by Democracy Chronicles

Democracy. Criticize it and people say, “What do you want? It’s has it’s flaws, but it’s the best we have.” Is it? Is this the best we can do? I pose that we seriously need to consider: What comes after democracy? What’s next?

Introduction

I fear most of us, will need, at the least, another 200 years before they can look back at this, by then historic, system and know how truly barbaric it was; how seriously flawed. Many western democracies currently have been highjacked by corporate players and their money or threatened by populists who play easy emotions rather than discuss deeper real world issues, like the ongoing collapse of our eco systems, climate change, growing poverty and ‘Trumpian leaders’ not helping with any of those.

If you won’t read all of it, just check how many weaknesses there are, and know, there are people who consciously (seek to) exploit them all.

Then we have a fun game called ‘Sick Democracy’ to play at home with friends. Warning: You may lose some friends because of it.

Then we’ll propose some alternative paths, concrete step and fun ideas towards creating something better.

“When a Politician uses a Spin Doctor, he says to you, the voter: “I will manipulate the truth to get you to vote for me.” In short, I don’t really serve you nor truth.”

12 Fundamental Flaws of Democracy (+4 new ones)

Our current form of democracy blinds voters, corrupts candidates and is in general a barbaric and flawed ideology that even hurts the countries it is supposed to uplift. I divided these then into the three main bloody arguments against main stream democracy! And that’s even before adding the latest misuses brought by modern times.

I. Democracy is a Barbaric Concept!

#1 Democracy is ritual warfare.

Yes. It’s a ritual. Basically it’s generals meeting on the battlefield. They debate to seem bigger, better, stronger than the others, with better promises. Then the soldiers take sides. The general who gets the biggest army behind him wins the day. And this ritual battle is repeated every 2, 4 or 6 years. And when you consider it a battle, playing dirty becomes okay and a danger for demoracy itself.

Why do we assume the winner of a ritual battle, who can best others in a debate, or is best at making other candidates look worse, is someone who can include all ‘losers’ and unite the whole to progress as a collective?

#2 The ones that decide who and what you vote for set the standard.

We all remember the American, best of two evils, choice between either Hillary or Trump. But even in the primaries most candidates were more of the same, except perhaps Bernie Sanders, who was cheated and people like Jill Stein, who got ignored. The power to select* what candidates you can choose from is damaging any real choice. Edit: news about such corruption unveiled. These people also set the rules. Like if you don’t get a day, let alone an hour off work to go and vote, making it so that many poor in the USA can’t vote. This gives the upper classes unfair advantage, in a country where everyone was born… equal?

*) There’s even a historic book that claims to show how the old elite stayed in power in the time that most kingdoms turned into democratic republics.

Note: choosing the best of two evils even adds perils of its own. (edit 2018)

Why do we accept that voting for a pre-selected few is a real choice? Do we have enough clarity on who pre-selects or sponsors the candidates with what motives? What if we want to select awesome people who are not on the list? How do we get everyone get a fair (chance to) vote?

#3 Debate and ideology kill possible solutions.

Democracy loves debates. I call debates a solution killer. In debate there must be a winner and the other side has to be fought against. The bias (read ideology) of a party blinds it to real solutions their ideology doesn’t embrace. The proof that the ‘trickle down’ ideology doesn’t work is very clear, yet ideology and (financial) interests too often forbid accepting reality checks. We even strive for getting a great ‘deal’ before allowing the other side to implement a watered down version of their solution. #sad.

What if we allowed for way more dialogue, in which shared visions can arise? What if we allowed our leaders to slowly design real world solutions based upon real world wisdom and realities, beyond bias and ideology?

#4 Voting fallacy & rules.

People tend to vote for parties and or candidates that have a better chance to be elected, not for the one they’d really want. They fear their vote is lost when they spend it on a less popular personal choice. And there are countries with counting systems where this is more or less that case. So a huge portion of voters already compromise when they vote. And this gives large parties in power a huge, at times even unfair, advantage over newcomers. People must be deeply fed up, before newcomers can really challenge the establishment.

What if voting without compromise was promoted or celebrated? What if people really wondered why they water the wine, before they vote? Does it make the establishment more lazy and corrupt, when challenging them is harder? What if you voted for issues not politicians?

II. It Leads to Corrupt(ed) Candidates

#5 People who want to be elected, are not the best candidates*.

Some people really want to make a difference. But the idea that ‘you having power is the best solution’ is not a good idea. Most politicians also have huge ego’s, psychopathic tendencies, long for power, long for attention and glory. They see it as a contest, a business or a step supporting their personal interests. Somehow such people often lose sight of the real needs of the average people. If when the start with noble intentions, often keeping their position becomes more important to them, then staying true.

*) In Ancient Greece, you were selected to lead through a lottery! Indeed. All voters where also candidate for important positions. Thus mostly a commoner, one of the 99% we’d say nowadays, would win. Thus self serving members of a small elite had way less means to use offices of power to strengthen their position. And commoners would seek to build personal ‘gravitas’ just in case they ever where selected.

Might it be, the right one to select is somebody who is very conscious of the damage he or she might inflict through wrong choices? Somebody who rather tries to be wise than appear to be ‘a strong leader’ who promises to be ‘the answer’; somebody who prefers consideration before blaring rally cries. And why don’t we prepare our children with gravitas? How come preparing children to work for a company seems enough ‘life’ preparation?

#6 The Plague of Career Politicians

We like to have leaders who know what we are doing, but occupying a government seat for too long changes them. Power corrupts. Too many intimate relationships with main lobbyists, main business leaders infects their understanding of reality. And this often leads to a worrying disconnect with the actual reality of voters. Many people don’t understand the careful framed non-committal language career politicians excel at. And on top of that, too often, they end up putting more energy into holding on to a position then in really serving the people. And we the people, trust their experience and studied smile and vote for them as long as they don’t rip us off too badly.

Could we have yearly tests to fact check how in touch politicians really are? Could we bring them in general way more in touch with normal people and way less in touch with trained lobbies? If a politician doesn’t dare to mingle with common folk, we must assume he’s not working for, let alone listening to them.

#7 Shopping list voting corrupts candidates.

Too many candidates lose track of the needs for the whole system. When candidates play to what gets them more votes, the people forget what’s most healthy for the whole. We think it is normal when certain candidates seem to please big chunks of the population to gather a majority behind them. Yet in the pleasing they avoid addressing real issues, for fear of losing votes. No wonder issues like climate change and the efforts we should put into it are lower on the list than tax reduction. Even worse, they start to play our emotions (“Fear Illegal Immigrants!”) or bribing us with tax reduction promises, to mold you into thinking they are your best answer.

Why do candidates totally focus on our fears and longings? Whether they choose to play us emotionally, or mold themselves to please us, ‘being real about real issues’ (even when they use such phrases) gets thrown under the bus. How can we all make long term fundamental issues go over shallow anxieties?

This stands as much today as in the time of slavery. cc by DonkeyHotey

#8 Risk of Winner takes All.

From Mussolini forward we have seen dictators rise through democratic means. Often in countries new to ‘democracy’ we often see a winner takes all culture arise. Power seeking winners often change the rules once they’ve taken the seat. In most recent years we all saw Putin, Erdogan and many others expand their powers. Moreover many also intimidated opponents, sidetracked them, had critics imprisoned, tortured or disappear. Democracy isn’t asshole proof.

What system can protect itself against men using the rules against the system itself? What system can help people to protect them against their urge to vote a ‘strong leader’ in, when the pressure is high?

(2019 edit) And then money in politics is a whole evil on its own, especially in the USA. It makes evil legal. And Socrates arguments too, which leads to voter fallacies.

III. Democracy thrives on Voter Fallacies

#9 Democracy is a poor man’s religion.

Every 2,4,6 years you may pray to some flawed ‘Gods’ (mostly men as capricious as the Greek Gods, far removed from anything really divine). These Gods all claim to hear your prayers and promise that if you vote for them, your prayers will be answered. Well, it’s the easiest praying in the world, just color a box or press a button. And mostly after praying you go home and complain when your flawed God doesn’t deliver. Meanwhile you forget you are as much a God as the one you voted for, and have all the same powers. Yet, as long as you hope your prayers might be answered, you don’t act yourself.

Why do we select a few, in the hope they will deliver, what we could help make happen ourselves? Why don’t we open our eyes to the fact that voting is like praying with hopes someone else will grant our wishes? How can we stay involved after voting, and act ourselves, when the government fails us, or candidates turn out to mostly have made false promises? How can we take more control over our own lives? For now implementing direct democracy in some neighborhoods over budgetting seems like a hopefull experiment.

#10 People confuse power and status with trustworthiness.

To assume that men who are great at taking care of themselves will also take care of you, when they promise so, is a stupid & dangerous misconception. Our biology or social conditioning admires success and power and voting for men having lots of it is a dangerous trap. In reality such men, like Berlusconi and Trump, mostly use their victory to take even better care of themselves.

Why do we even consider self serving leaders as a promising choice? We all know people who give a lot, who support others too much and forget themselves a bit. Might it be such people would actually also be better for the people as a whole? Might it be we should be able to forward candidates as the people and not let parties do that for us?

#11 Voting according assumed self interest isn’t in your best interest.

During campaigning people compare parties to how much of their personal shopping list might be granted by them. Yet voting for lower taxes or for somebody pleasing your part of the population, might not be what you really need. Currently both false and true promises ignore the decaying of our eco-systems, let alone building stronger bigger dykes just in case of bigger storms. Our bodies rather react to a clear and present danger than to a seemingly abstract threat. And unscrupulous politicians play those triggers rather than help you face reality.

How do you know that the people warning you of a danger they’ll protect you for aren’t the danger? How do you know your self interest is best served by those whose promises come closest to your wishes? Why do we keep on voting for our shopping list? Why do we forget the health of the whole system as soon as someone promises to grant you some personal wishes?

#12 Democracy is a restrictive box.

With pre-selected candidates playing to your emotions, showing of their strength, neglecting issues that might harm their number of votes; with candidates debating but never really listening, never accepting great points of other parties, avoiding essential issues if they cost votes, democracy is an outdated model. Yet the whole establishment running the shows protects it, as if it’s the foundation of civilization not to be discussed. And this lack of real innovation and discussion, with so many points easy to list, as I do here, is killing the ideal of democracy.

Where public investigation testing the quality of (y)our current democracy? Who wonders loud enough who dares to question the fairness and quality of their own form of government? And what would help open te box to better and more ideas for a better form of government, at the least democracy 2.0. How to make people wonder beyond the restrictive fallacy of “It’s the best we have.”?

This protest attacks democracy! An attack both made by these protestors and by those who use this image to make you fear all of Islam. The dominant sign in front might have been photoshopped. cc by Dying Regime

#edit: more bad news: Noam Chomsky adds the damage Neo-liberalism does to democracy. And here he explains how the whole frame about it, has been manipulated from the start. Also saying: think for yourself as a autonomous authentic human being, think outside the box, matrix if you like. No wonder all debates within the box ‘democracy is good’ somehow never are fulfilling. Here a clear TEDx talk by Larry Lessig, making it very clear too.

IV. Four more Modern Abuses

#13 Globalization

With global corporations having spending power bigger than many countries, new problems arise. Many countries seem (forced?) to give advantages to global corporations over local enterprise. Starbucks doesn’t pay taxes in the Netherlands, while it doesn’t offer more, let alone better paid jobs, than local joints, in the same locations they now occupy, might have. While their use of private prison workers, or Monsanto GMO coffee’s don’t really sound attractive to give them even such an advantage. So what happened behind closed doors? What more decisions do governments take that don’t show up in the public eye, because they have unethical aspects. These big corporations with better access to government officials have such an advantage when to use all the weaknesses above and below to their own benefits. Because profits way too often outmatch ethics.

How essential is a thriving economy, and bending over to corporate interests, compared to real freedom, local entrepreneurship and access of normal people to their government? How to regulate misuse of corporate power? What fallacies makes us believe we shouldn’t disrupt their businesses? And what would really happen if we did?

#14 Modern marketing/propaganda

Parties want to win, thus they hire marketeers to sell their message. Marketing makes them seem less interested in what you want, as in selling you what they want. “Give us the power and we’ll give you…” And even when they listen, or shape their program points based upon an public inquiry, the intention becomes: what will help us get more power in government, not in really caring. Learn this, when a politician has a spin-doctor, he’s actually saying: “I am willing to mold my words and reframe reality any which way to win your vote.” And all too soon smart framing can become lies and no one know what to believe anymore (see video;) ) When the truth is manipulated, more and more people will take decisions based on false information, which, then when real issues appear, like environmental break down, or massive increase in cancer due to our industries (which no one likes to talk about) they can’t be solved, because the truth, let alone alternatives view points, aren’t available (enough). :(

Both hilarious and shocking example of(the lack of) ‘Free Speech’ of the news in America, warning against Fake News. The pro-Trump Sinclair Media Group is pushing these kind of messages onto all their stations.

Informing the public with what they need to know, or what certain parties are all about is essential. Yet how can we reduce the power of players manipulating what you hear, reducing air times of opponents, and playing potential voters on subconscious levels in order to win, quite possibly at your cost? And why don’t we all see that professionals selling parties and politicians corrupt the playing field in order to get results?

Money in Politics. cc by DonkeyHotey

#15 Corruption

As we saw with career politicians, being too approachable to upper class lobbyists, often former colleagues makes them open for bribes. Such financial bribes are forbidden in many countries. In such cases things like sweet functions in big corporations are offered as a follow up for after their political careers. Which offers these corporations even more easy access due to these political experts, who no doubt have also many friends left in politics. Often enough, also opportunists sliding their way into upcoming parties, with too few legitimate qualified candidates, have a habit to see a political role as a means to personal profiteering. And that’s not even mentioning legalized bribing as is custom in the USA.

Where to begin with this? Can we get money out of politics? Can we make consequences for lying politicians much higher, let alone scrutiny much fiercer when corruption seems to be at hand? How to keep the system protected against people out to misuse, corrupt either the system and or people within it?

Outsider Influence cc by Pedro Ribeiro Simões

#16 Rigging

Many countries have trouble to keep really honest elections. Votes may get lost, certain voters banned (blacklisting, closing polling stations), we know the drill. You can forbid exit polls thus hide irregularities. The USA adds Gerrymandering and superdelegates as tricks on top of that, let alone meddling in own or other countries, with modern technology. Not even mentioning all other aspects making it hard for the poor to go out and vote. Tech, from photoshopping to big data abuse, seems to have made meddling way easier. It started with electric voting machines that can’t be controlled. Now we find marketing that is pure manipulation, using peoples private information on facebook to influence them in subtle and not so subtle ways. Cambridge Analytica is just the first, or the first that got caught in the act.

How to prevent all democracies stay away from this, or end these crimes when they happen? How to bring more awareness to how essential honest elections are for democracy, even compared to ‘winning’? How to activate everyone involved to fight rigging and catch and expose riggers?

And the smarter the tech gets, the worse democracies will become. Already organizations have been targeting audience just to sway voters through all kinds of modern tricks, most people, and laws, aren’t prepared for.

The farce of democracy leads to both leftish attacks and right wing rise. Interestingly bye bye could also become to mean, hello something better.

The Challenge to move beyond Democracy.

With the Netherlands 10th on the Democracy Index (lots of disguised lobby corruption, outside influencers and settled politicians preventing innovation) and the USA still 21st, even including Gerrymandering, Blacklisting, Voting Computer ‘Malfunctions’, ‘lost’ votes and rigged marketing by Cambridge Analytics (read the Billionaire Mercer) and other parties, things look bleak.

So here we are in a system where possibly corrupted candidates may lie to play the frames of people to gain votes, after which the loyal voters can go back to sleep and those who ‘won’ can do as they like, within restrictions put onto them,… if there are any. Let’s investigate the beyond, after we played this little essential game, to help you long for what might come next. :) We seem to have come to the end days of democracy. It seems to get played more and more by an elite. It’s has become a truly barbaric farce. Too many people become too apathetic to vote, because they don’t believe it matters anymore. And voting alone is not enough to repair the flaws in the system. We need something new entirely.

EXTRA: Here is a link to David Von Reybrouck in the Guardian offering a overlapping or similar tale. And we leave with the question: Is the USA still a democracy or an Oligarchy (as the university of Princeton claims)or Plutocracy? Check these forms of government you feel which your country is closest to. And if you want to dig deeper into this struggle of people vs elite, go here.

“Sick Democracy”, the Game.

Invite any group of players to play, as long it’s more than two. Put in the middle of the table a pile of (game)money. Each turn a player may make a proposal to divide an pre-established part of the money; all depending on the currency you play with. It could be anything from five ‘nuts’ to a $1000 per person. ;) . Players may never repeat a proposal that has been played before.

In my turn I may propose something like: “Anyone with blue jeans on, gains 100.” This proposal is framed to have me in the majority, because I noticed most players wear blue jeans. Thus the more you are part of the majority, the more you win. After discussions about proposals you may edit a proposal, like add to the jeans proposal “And anyone with black jeans gets a 50.” when you feel this way you win the vote, or don’t anger losers towards revenge when it’s their turn.

When half the money pile in the middle is gone, also rule proposals may be made. “Everyone who has more than a 1000 must give some money to those that have less.” if you want to show a ‘human’ face, but not challenge the system. Or go very sick: “From now on, only people with blue jeans may vote. Other players still may make proposals in their turn.” You will understand that at some point, even through democratic process, the game has become rigged. Dangers of prejudice against minorities are huge. Only humanity can keep the losing side in. For the winning players it will become in their interest to keep the losing side playing, to win even more money in the long run. For this some risks have to be taken, because open revolt would of course spoil the game for all, mostly the current winners. That too makes the game sick.

NB: And you can understand that a group of people born and raised in the late game, may consider this late game as ‘the way things are’. And protestors can be seen as spoilsports, where perhaps some rules need address that issue. Oh my.

So, What Comes After Democracy?

Around 2004 I already posed the same question. When a friend and I tried to offer a weekend about it at a school for Philosophy, most people wondering about this question kept asking us things like: “Are you proposing also a vote against?” “Have you thought about everyone getting 10 votes?” We told them: “No, not different voting! Something new altogether!” We got blank stares. The weekend didn’t happen. It felt to us, that the capacity to think beyond the box of democracy altogether was still very low at that time. I hope and fear, given all the current corruptions, we’ve moved on since then. Are we ready to re-invent the best way we govern ourselves as a people? Whether that is your town, country or the whole world I leave up to you.

Asking this question led us to discover many alternative systems already being tried out in different settings, shapes and states of development. Methods like Socratic Dialogue, Deep Democracy, Enlightened Conversations, Circle Meetings, Open Space Technology all enriched the way we could organize meetings and make decisions within organizations and communities. Below you’ll also find a lot of alternative models such as Sociocracy and Holacracy. For now I don’t want to state what new approach is best. I do hope you get involved and start asking questions where it matters.

Some Ideas To Get Started

One Very Bad Idea to Avoid: National Referenda

It seems a great step: referenda. Especially populist right and left wing parties love calling for them. And what do they lead to? People being played on their emotions and anxieties. All the irregularities happening around Brexit tell us, that smart marketing and manipulation had more influence than consideration and fact checking. So more referenda might mean more emotion, means easier being played, means misuse of citizens as voting fodder. Turning issues into simple ‘yes or no’ is often already a manipulative framing. Huge long term decision making needs national dialogue with a huge diversity of opinions, slowly developing into an shared sense of direction. Especially diversity of opinions and considerations are essential for mature decision making.

Challenge it: Experiment, push for change.

Where and when you can, speak out against the eroding ‘normal’. Help make it not normal that those with a lot of (ambition for) power get to rule, decide over all those that prefer a gentler normal. Just consider how few a people make the war in Syria worse and how many don’t want it or have been kept out all considerations. Thus also where and when you can experiment with alternatives, try out things in your organization, network, meetings, family.

Or as to be seen in this short clip, start over, or perhaps better go back to the roots. In this Mexican town, you will be chosen as representative, by others. You can’t put yourself forward, which as we have seen leads to trouble.

Challenge it: Right to Challenge.

This already is introduced and implemented in a few countries, like England and the Netherlands. If you think you can offer something better and cheaper than you government does, you may challenge them and they have, at the least, to research your suggestion. If it is accepted you may also be the one to execute it.

Better Democracy: More Participation

More Democracy: One friend said to the question, “What comes after democracy?” “More democracy”, meaning more participation, involvement of all people. How to involve citizens more to all processes of democracy? How to make meetings between sides more part of the process? When the Parkland students (survivors of the school shooting in Florida) met a senator and an NRA spokeswoman in a town hall, the disconnect between these ‘professionals’ and ordinary people became very clear. They tried selling a fixed answer to people who wanted an open discussion. It’s a tragedy when civil servants don’t feel as servants of the public anymore. The answer to that disconnect is not to avoid such meetings, but demand more of them!

Increased Participation: Citizen Movements

In the Netherlands there are cities with citizen movements seeking to improve their own city. These movements engage in taking care of community gardens, discussing traffic issues, or seek to actively make improvements to their city. And city governments seek to learn how to facilitate such involvements rather than see them as threat. Exactly what good governments should do, facilitate civilians needs and wishes.

Better Democracy: More bridges to overcome disconnect.

People who protest aren’t enemies of the state. They are citizens who speak out about an issue they’d love to see action taken on. If a politician can’t face such people, then he may have a disconnect. Thus how to build more bridges between the professionals and worried citizens?

Decrease the Gaps: Wisdom Council.

The distance between professionals and ‘ordinary’ citizens can be closed when a Wisdom Council can advice and feedback political proposals. In the Wisdom Council are chosen wise citizens of all ages, and of all minorities. On a global levels there are some wisdom councils, like the grandmothers, but power doesn’t tend to take wisdom serious, as it may interfere with their interests.

Decrease the Gaps: Burger Buddy.

Netherlands we also had for a while Burger Buddies, normal citizen buddies for politicians and high ranking civil servants. I remember when the first buddy came back from her first appointment with a city hall employee, she was still confused as to what that employee was actually doing. One buddy became famous when he toured a minister through his Dutch Moroccan neighbourhood. It made her change her ideas of her politics.

Different institute: 200 in a 3 day conference.

Why not have 3-day conference with 200 outstanding citizens chosen from a lottery, deciding among them who has the best leadership skills, highest moral values and integrity, and give them either a leading role, or a controlling balancing role, most governments give out to older experienced politicians who are basically more of the same, but a bit more nuanced.

Different Thinking: Integrity and Gravitas

I sometimes ask people, “Who do you hold in highest regard as leader in this world?” Among the most mentioned names are Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi. Men we don’t see in modern politics. Why don’t we educate budding politicians to be like them, rather than these administrative compromisers avoiding any real point of view. Why not have a ‘Gravitas & Integrity Top 500’ every year, instead of the Fortune or Power Top 500?

Different Vision: Wonder, Imagine & Dream

This is just a start. From here on, dream louder, envision new possibilities, ask questions that offer clear improvements. Dare to dream of something better. Support those who take action for more honest politics and politicians. Because in the end, a government for and by the people, needs active people who will take the matters into their own hands to keep it that way. And each time smart professionals found tricks to use the system to their advantage, the people must be ready to protest, or act against that.

Learn, research: What more is possible?

Higher forms of consciousness allow higher forms of government. cc by Kent Bye

10 alternatives are listed here. The article is slightly biased and not extensive, yet gives some ideas. This is another one, less alternatives and closer to the old model, but a bit better researched. You can even check some wacky (according to the writer) alternatives. Or perhaps just skip the election. Or take a deeper look at holacracy https://gerardchiva.com/2017/03/12/holacracy-from-feudalism-to-fractalism/ If you want an outdated extensive list, then this Wikipedia page is a start, yet somehow it neglects anything that would upset the current status of democracy too much. The fact that not even Sociocracy or Holocracy are mentioned is weird, until you read somewhere the CIA might re-edit a lot of stuff on Wikipedia.

And while we’re at it, let’s also renew Capitalism, see this post. Each idea will also have consequences for how we see or shape our governments. And with possible new technologies or even future disasters, we might end up in any of these places.

Link to Pillars of Destruction #1 Link to more articles like this one.