Most people don’t understand though, that’s the problem.
Most people have been taught or led to believe in the figure of saving heroes and leaders; we can stretch the reasoning a bit and argue it is an inheritance from religious systems. But that is not the concern here.
[…] A country is more complicated than an individual institution, and average citizens are not experts. In a way, what you’ve described is a form of representative democracy: hospitals run by doctors, not patients; schools run by teachers, not students or parents. Random citizens don’t know enough about medicine to run a hospital, so the doctors represent them.
Even patients had their say; they had the right to be heard and were. The same for schools and every other activity had participation from every part involved. There were meetings and gatherings to discuss concerns and people could and would be relieved of their duties or at least seriously constrained in their freedom of action if their stance was deemed inadequate.
I’m sure you’re informed enough to do the research to make rational policy decisions, and so am I. But I don’t think that paints an accurate picture of the general population. Sure, there’s plenty of common sense human rights policy, but there’s also plenty of complex nuanced bureaucratic policy.
I’m fairly certain of my ignorance. What I am able to is to ask questions and request further clarification on any subject, if I have the space for it. Which is not conceded under current day representative democracies. The system is predicated on pushing decision making and interference further and further away from the people and funneling it into bodies of more often than not non elected individuals.
The main issue though is time.
I agree. Everyone is so worried about it, yet is so often wasted.
Even in a world where everyone is well-informed on the problems and solutions, and also takes their civic duty seriously, it still takes forever to draft and pass policy in direct democracy.
More interventive and direct democracies must necessarily by navigated by long term goals. It’s the image of the jar full of rocks, pebbles and sand. It must not be a race to pile as much as possible on the table and drown out the attention.
In a world where everyone is knowledgeable, conscientious, and quick to consensus, direct democracy is the obvious answer. But I just don’t think we live in that world, at least not at scale.
I’m willing to chance we can “sit” and chat amiably for a bit and find a couple of subjects we can see eye to eye and build on each other point of view to reach consensus and solutions. Political parties, polititians and by extension politics, as they currently exist today, are not predicated on consensus but opposition.
The concern is that they don’t care. I used to believe in direct democracy, but then I started organizing meetups and worked in customer facing roles for 15+ years. The average person doesn’t think about policy and is easily swayed by charismatic con men.
There were meetings and gatherings to discuss concerns and people could and would be relieved of their duties or at least seriously constrained in their freedom of action if their stance was deemed inadequate
That’s still representative.
More interventive and direct democracies must necessarily by navigated by long term goals
Someone still needs to prioritize policies then
I’m willing to chance we can “sit” and chat amiably for a bit and find a couple of subjects we can see eye to eye and build on each other point of view to reach consensus and solutions.
Having actually done that in relatively small groups, reaching consensus is a lot more difficult and tedious than you suspect.
Most people have been taught or led to believe in the figure of saving heroes and leaders; we can stretch the reasoning a bit and argue it is an inheritance from religious systems. But that is not the concern here.
Even patients had their say; they had the right to be heard and were. The same for schools and every other activity had participation from every part involved. There were meetings and gatherings to discuss concerns and people could and would be relieved of their duties or at least seriously constrained in their freedom of action if their stance was deemed inadequate.
I’m fairly certain of my ignorance. What I am able to is to ask questions and request further clarification on any subject, if I have the space for it. Which is not conceded under current day representative democracies. The system is predicated on pushing decision making and interference further and further away from the people and funneling it into bodies of more often than not non elected individuals.
I agree. Everyone is so worried about it, yet is so often wasted.
More interventive and direct democracies must necessarily by navigated by long term goals. It’s the image of the jar full of rocks, pebbles and sand. It must not be a race to pile as much as possible on the table and drown out the attention.
I’m willing to chance we can “sit” and chat amiably for a bit and find a couple of subjects we can see eye to eye and build on each other point of view to reach consensus and solutions. Political parties, polititians and by extension politics, as they currently exist today, are not predicated on consensus but opposition.
The concern is that they don’t care. I used to believe in direct democracy, but then I started organizing meetups and worked in customer facing roles for 15+ years. The average person doesn’t think about policy and is easily swayed by charismatic con men.
That’s still representative.
Someone still needs to prioritize policies then
Having actually done that in relatively small groups, reaching consensus is a lot more difficult and tedious than you suspect.