on democratic politics
This class of political managers have managed to shift important questions about the direction societies take away from the public realm, largely by pretending these questions don’t exist. Instead they appear peripherally, sometimes through art or literature and even less often through music.
We don’t just see this disengagement in the decline of voter turnout, it’s all around us. It’s why people can’t make the connection between noble or civic pursuits and private interests.
What would a real representative democratic politics produce?
Consider this seductive hypothesis: An insulatated class of political elites has somehow stunted or otherwise denied our natural proclivity for political engagement. We are a democratic species at heart, yes!, but we now find ourselves in a peculiar position where we are both disenfranchised and alienated.
Such a hypothesis goes a long way towards explaining increasing civic disenagement and declining voter turnout. It also safeguards the endearing notion that democratic politics is somehow integral to the natural human condition.
I refuse to be seduced by such easy explanations. I would suggest that democratic involvement is somehow anathema to human beings—that we do not like to excercise power and, if given the choice, would far prefer to have as little involvement as possible in the whole sordid world of politics. Voting every four years? I suppose we can find the stomach for it. But a townhall meeting every Monday night? Forget it.
The pressing issues of the day were transferred to politicians precisely because we would rather not have to deal with them ourselves. We voluntarily removed ourselves from the political forum because, quite frankly, it is far more enjoyable to play XBOX and watch television. It just is. And no amount of democratic theorizing is going to change this. The proponents of direct democracy are a minority crowd, and it doesn’t behoove them to falsely universalize their own chosen preferences and then declare those same preferences to be some sort of human imperative.
Now I consider myself something of a socialist, although I have completely broken ideological ranks with most of my leftist acquitances, whose politics are best described as childlike. I continue to advocate broader democratic involvement yet at the same time I remain fully aware that very few people are actually interested in assuming the responsbilities that are associated with being politically involved. And while I will also continue to advocate for each citizen to be given a louder voice in the political realm, I shudder to think of what these people might say…
