Every person living in a democratic country can probably relate to being discontented with their democracy. The politicians aren’t listening. No one’s solving the problems. Everybody is just in their ideological camps. No one talks about things that matter to regular voters.
Yada yada yada yada. All true. All false also, but all true.
If you allow for an open society, your society will have to listen to all kinds of people. Your society opens itself up to all kinds of influences. Your politicians, if they come from experienced circles—circles experienced with politics—they will listen probably more to experts, lobbyists, and other influencers than maybe yours truly or you.
If your politicians come from the fringes, from the people actually, they will come with some unorthodox ideas, can be easily swayed by some strange circles, and will eventually also fall into the same trap that establishment politicians are in.
You see this all the time.
If you yourself were to run for politics, you would be caught in the same problem.
But you can speak up, can do YouTube blogs or whatever—whoever reads anything anymore. You can do all kinds of things. Sometimes people will listen. You can vote. You can get yourself involved in local politics. You have that option.
Or you can just whine and complain as everybody else seems to be doing.
So does this invalidate democracy? Sometimes we can get so fed up with the system we’re living in that it helps to look at the alternative, because everybody seems to think there’s a better way.
Well, I see the attractiveness of utopian solutions sometimes. I, for as long as I can think—even this East German got to eventually view Star Trek on the big screen and on the television screen. And as a years-long Star Trek watcher and fan, of course, I believe that there is some utopian solution somewhere. Yeah, whatever post-scarcity world the Federation is living in. Of course, that looks interesting.
But here in the real world, what are the alternatives to democracy? And that’s where the rubber hits the road.
You still have some monarchies around—and I mean real monarchies, not just monarchy in name only with a democracy firmly in control.
The Emirates are monarchies. Okay, small population. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy. Where’s the innovation? Where are big trends happening that set the stage for history? Where’s the freedom of speech? Where’s freedom of expression?
Should these things matter to you? Because we all like to complain in a democracy. So, can we complain in Saudi Arabia publicly? Can we go out onto the street and say some things? I’d be careful to do so. I’d be careful.
If you go beyond strict monarchies to whatever oligarchic dictatorship you have in Iran, well, you don’t have to speculate. And by the way, with Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi would like to remind us that we need not speculate about Saudi Arabia either. All the people displaced by the NEOM project. Well, Iran, we don’t have to speculate at all because we’ve seen what happens to protesters.
But what about China? Communist China. No need to speculate either.
If you don’t have a democracy with rule of law, separation of powers, liberal freedoms, then there is often no mild form of autocracy that could be tolerable to you.
I challenge you. Name me examples. And I don’t mean imperfect democracies that still somehow let you speak up. Countries in which you can go out on the street, say whatever you want about your leadership, and go home and not have to worry too much. Countries in which you can be going to a pride parade, celebrating your sexual or gender identity. Yeah, you’ll have some haters, but no one will come and stone you or do other things.
Yeah, please. I’m waiting. Whatever you may have as examples.
There are no perfect democracies, but even an imperfect democracy will let you live your life much better than any dictatorship.
And when it comes to dictatorships, even the mildest form of it is always going to feel the seduction to turn on the screws. Putin’s Russia is such an example. People there had some rights. They had some freedoms until he step by step took them away.
East Germany, my home country, which thankfully doesn’t exist anymore, started out like that, claimed to be democratic until they figured out that people didn’t want what they were offering. And so step by step, a wall was built, liberties destroyed, and the dictatorship got tighter and tighter and more tightly wound. And that’s what it was.
So if you need an argument to make you feel better about democracy, look at all the alternatives. Look at what preceded democracy.
If you’re saying the United States was a democracy in 1776 allegedly, but look at how failed and imperfect. Yes. 1776 is how long ago? And look what happened over the run of time. This democracy improved itself through its people over time. Self-improvement through criticism.
Don’t toy with the idea to be so dissatisfied with your democracy that a dictatorship becomes palatable. Not even in theory. You won’t like it. You will not like it and you may not survive it, and your kids will not like your decision.
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
Erratic Attempts 