“Democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others that have been tried.”
Since WW2, this Winston Churchill quote has shaped our psyche around democracy. After all, democracy defeated fascism, thus validating the superiority of our favorite system. It has been politically incorrect to suggest another kind of government.
So we Westerners hang on to our superior system. If necessary, we will grow our nails into the edge of the cliff to help us hang on better.
We feel good when we cling so hard. We will say, “We are not like the Nazis. We are not like communists. We are smarter. We are more liberal in our thinking. We like new ideas. We will listen and seriously consider them.”
That’s not how I see it
I have been working on an alternative democracy since 1997. Since 2019, I have engaged with about 5,000 people on Medium about this new democracy. And this rather large focus group has unitedly deemed my ideas are not worthy of an investigation, let alone a serious discussion.
Are my ideas really that bad? Or has the Churchill quote flipped all democracy neurons to never go in my direction?
The Turning Point
In 1982, Dr. Fritjof Capra wrote a popular book that ended up on many thinkers’ bookshelves. This book explained how theories that explain certain things reasonably well are eventually replaced by better theories. All sciences have had several cycles of new theories replacing dominant theories.
Sigmund Freud is regarded as the father of psychoanalysis. He took psychology to a higher level and made it more useful to the world. He was a “rock star” in academia, speaking at many conferences and gathering many followers of his ways. Today, nearly all of his theories and techniques have been abandoned — in favor of better theories and techniques. But without Freud’s work, today’s psychology would not be in a position to discredit that work. He made it possible for his field to make a bigger jump than he could imagine.
In the late 19th century, the “plum pudding” model of the atom was popular to explain how electricity worked. The theory was useful enough to build telegraphs, batteries, and generators, and explain nuclear decay. The model had positive and negative charges uniformly distributed in the atom.
Then, in 1911, Ernest Rutherford conducted his famous gold foil experiment. The model of the atom abruptly changed from a pudding to a dense nucleus of fixed positive charges surrounding by fast moving negative charges. Thirty-four years later, the world built a nuclear bomb, something the pudding model could never have led us to. The plum pudding model worked well for a while. Then it was replaced by the Rutherford model.
Capra takes us through science after humanity after science, explaining this same pattern of a reasonably good model of understanding being replaced by a better model. This pattern repeats and repeats. Towards the end of this long book, Capra predicts how today’s economic theories will eventually fall to a hydrogen economy.
Yet when it comes to democracy, Capra is strangely quiet. Almost as if there is no replacement for Western democracy — ever.
So why does Capra report that all other fields of scientific and humanistic study got periodic updates, but democracy itself is above any such transition?
Did the Churchill quote leave an indelible mark on Capra’s psyche?
Or maybe it was the timing of his book. It was published in 1982, still in the time of the Cold War. It’s not hard to imagine the publishers saying, “No, we cannot mention Western democracy being replaced. Our enemies will display that idea as a weakness. The political leaders and media critics will trash such an idea. There will be no readers for that talk.”
But we have moved beyond the Cold War — since 1989. We can now talk about revamping democracy. But my life example of my alternative democracy says we still cannot.
No more smart people
While I don’t read much from political scientists, I read the book below to see where today’s political scientists are at:
Book Review: Open Democracy
Let’s just say there is no Freudian jump here. There is no Rutherford jump here.
The world’s political scientists are stuck on a model that is not working well anymore.
Despite the USA’s obvious failings in democracy, it seems the USA is forever stuck on their antiquated, vague Constitution. The recognized thinkers of today’s politics also seem unwilling to look in other directions. Not one innovator among any of them.
Yikes!
Conclusion
Mr. Churchill, you have doomed us to a state of mediocrity with no possibility of progression. Yet this same system you so revere is regressing. The evidence: Dr. Capra, his publishers, the political scientists, and the general public cannot see past your quote.
You have convinced millions and millions of people not to look in another direction. Not even the more open-minded Medium readers.
Well done, Winston. A great piece of social engineering, I would say.
Published on Medium 2024
Book Review: The Magicians of the Gods
