what is the most dangerous thing for political democracy?
Answers
A commonly known effect social media has on democracy is the "spread of false and/or misleading information". Disinformation and Misinformation is commonly, at scale, spread across social media by both state and private actors, mainly using bots.
Explanation:
It fascinates me that, while you and I live snarled in the barbs and infuriations of petty bureaucracy – arbitrary speeding fines, council refusals of backyard follies, strata-bodies’ vengeance feuds, the brute humiliations of the Centrelink crawl and the perpetual requirement to choose medical insurers, super funds and telcos without sufficient information to make that choice intelligent - the big guys breeze on.
Threats of criminal action? Oh I’m so dreadfully sorry, let me resign forthwith (on my multi-million pension). Tax? Pah. Tax is what the poor pay and the rich evade. Misleading Parliament? Child’s play between consenting cubby-mates.
Illustration: Simon LetchCREDIT:
Why, despite two centuries of democracy, are we still in this angrifying feudal pickle? Because, in a word, elections.
Elections are democracy’s worst and most dangerous aspect, an own goal exacerbated by the fact that this is counterintuitive. We think the election is the small guy’s secret weapon, our big win against tyranny, our chance to put the dopes and dunderheads out with the garbage and start over. Wrong. Elections are deeply undemocratic. So much so that, absent a miracle, they’ll be democracy’s downfall.
Why? Because of the unhealthy interplay of three core human traits – laziness, status and greed. The election should elicit our most noble. It should impel us to learn and discern, to see the big picture and vote accordingly, to organise our lives and our cities on lines of principle. Instead it brings out the very worst in both politicians and in voters.
The laziness is ours. Sure, you could call it time-poverty or burden-of work, but honestly, given that we’re the most leisured society of all time, this has plausibility issues. We can’t choose decent leaders because we don’t have time? Either way, we don’t do the homework we should.
Elections bring out the worst in votes and politicians.
Elections bring out the worst in votes and politicians.CREDIT:ANDREW MEARES
We obsess over our pollies’ private flaws and peccadilloes and call this politics when actually it’s just gossip. But when it comes to researching the backgrounds, affiliations and voting records that might deliver politicians, policies and projects we believe in nah, forget it. Even if we wanted to take the big picture view, we’d be ill equipped to do it.
The status yearning is theirs. We are, after all, mostly chimp DNA. Status drives almost everything we primates do. Walk into any room and your first, split-second act is to categorise everyone there into "above" or "below" you. True, the criteria are complex and contingent and the people, as you get to know them, often require reallocation. But this hierarchy establishment is immediate and instinctual.