To agree or not agree

That is the question. Much is made of the idea of “democracy” these days. An arrangement where people agree to be ruled by the will of the majority for the sake of the common good. And compensate, within reason, those that are adversely affected by decisions, like loss of land compensation for land use decisions, for example.

For the last 100 years or so we in the west have been playing the “democracy game”, pretending that we live by those lofty rules, respect them and act accordingly in public life.

Our democracy model is supposed to be based on that of the ancient Greeks, where citizens took turns, by way of elections, to run civil society. What is not talked about very much is that Greek ‘civilized’ society was based on slaves, captured in wars and traded as commodities.

While some of our ‘slaves’ (low cost labour) have an opportunity to vote, they are relatively easily manipulated to enable the existing power backroom groups to get what they want, at the expense of those voters.

But now things are beginning to unravel for those that so ardently advocate for ‘democracy’ and this process has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic with the medical and media establishments parting ways with the population at large.

An increasing number of people are now simply refusing to cooperate with the powers that be, because they see them as being self serving ideologues. Political divisions are deepening and the underlying agreements necessary for a functioning ‘democracy’ are evaporating.

Where does it all go? Time to hit the restart button?