Democracy is a ticket to experiment. This is the essence of everything good and correct – experimentation. As a scientist, you experiment with different options until you arrive at what you think is a satisfactory outcome, and when new evidence presents itself you are happy to change your mind. As a builder, you experiment with materials and keep changing models as new capabilities arise. You don’t get them all right all the time… but slowly you get more right than wrong. Elected governments are just such an allowance within democracies – an option for experimentation on economic and social policies.
There is, of course, a price to pay with experimentation! Failures can (and mostly do) carry a cost. Before scientists could figure out that germs caused infections and washing hands before treating wounds is better, countless lives were lost. Before apps have their nth version, they are buggy and glitchy. Before there was Abe Lincoln, we had slavery. In fact, the human species is in itself the result of billions of experiments that nature has conducted on self-replicating ‘life’ and we carry in our bodies the imperfections of those experiments while still being a marvel of the ratcheting success of improvements!
Democracy is a reflection of this natural state of governmental experimentation where a ‘people’ elect a leader or leaders to take the nation in a certain direction. When one experiment fails, the next leader is voted in. And it continues. Because an elected government has to remain in power over a sustained period of time to implement and see through policy experiments that they have promised the electorate, there is a time-limit or ‘term’ of a government or a leader.
While there can’t be any final outcomes to government experiments, there are always certain goals – like human equality, dignity, and economic prosperity that form guideposts to such experiments. Depending on what the constitution has in place for basic human rights, access to the judiciary, and access to law enforcement, minorities in a democracy might have it tough during a particular government’s term. There might even be recourse within constitutions to remove leaders for gross violations.
Most people who vote aren’t savvy, intelligent people who can see all angles and make rational poll decisions. They are swayed by rhetoric, peer pressure, and lies. This can be felt indirectly through votes in a government election or more directly via referendums as with Brexit! Lazy minds find the position of least resistance and remain there – unwilling to change even when the worst evidence proves them wrong… like one who strums away at a guitar with an unmoving finger on one fret/string! But the true song is sung when the notes change – some sharp, some minor, some flat. Essentially, democracy is playing its song across the globe so to speak. It might sound discordant, but that’s indeed the harmony of a true democracy played out over time!
Personally, I feel there is a ongoing struggle we are living through. There is knowledge spreading across the globe, slowly but surely, that is challenging the churlish fundamentalist among us. And this particular demographic, funded and supported by its elite, is performing a desperate death-avoiding dance. I see this phenomenon across the globe! I see right-wing populism rise everywhere – solipsistic Trumps, self-interested Boris Johnsons, corrupt Bolsanaros, religion-headed Modis, thug-y Putins, and so on across most continents. And they all appeal to the lazy fundamentalists who are afraid of losing old ways of living in segregated, tribal, patriarchal societies.
Two factors need to play out as beacons of hope for our planet – critical thinking and youth involvement in government. Through scientific education comes emancipation from everything that has kept 50% of the globe sidelined and through young people’s engagement will come the future of our planet as governments experiment with more gains than losses – in the long run.
My 2 cents 