{"id":11064,"date":"2020-09-11T07:30:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T12:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=11064"},"modified":"2021-06-13T21:38:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T02:38:27","slug":"thought-exercise-democracy-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/09\/11\/thought-exercise-democracy-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Thought exercise (democracy & reality)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

See how far you follow my line of thinking here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) Democracy (institutional<\/a> and not just majoritarian\/representational) is better than the alternatives. Let’s live with it (and defend it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Democracy as practiced in the U.S. today is partial, compromised, and somewhat muzzled, but still better than the alternatives. Let’s fix it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) Democracy, no matter how partial or complete, is not sufficient when it is leading<\/a> us all off a cliff<\/a>. At that point direct action<\/a> becomes necessary. So are we heading off a cliff yet<\/a>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

(4) How close<\/a> is the cliff edge? What’s the most effective<\/a> way of stopping<\/a> this train from going over it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(5) What’s our plan for afterwards? Will it be any better than… the cliff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Excusez-moi… excuser-moi…<\/em> (says the poor bloke trying to avoid the cliff)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See how far you follow my line of thinking here: (1) Democracy (institutional and not just majoritarian\/representational) is better than the alternatives. Let’s live with it (and defend it). (2) Democracy as practiced in the U.S. today is partial, compromised, and somewhat muzzled, but still better than the alternatives. Let’s fix it up. (3) Democracy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[660440],"tags":[281,628591,454932],"class_list":["post-11064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-manifestos-and-auguries","tag-democracy","tag-tipping-points","tag-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2Ss","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7359,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/02\/22\/ukraine-the-threat-of-direct-democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":11064,"position":0},"title":"Ukraine & the threat of direct democracy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Power to the millions, not to the millionaires\" (#Leftmaidan) \u00a0 Three forms of democracy vie with each other in Ukraine today. The first of these is what we might call authoritarian democracy. This is a hybrid of democracy and authoritarian rule, in which partially developed democratic institutions can be relatively\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"download (6)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/download-6-275x137.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9066,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/12\/06\/reassembling-democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":11064,"position":1},"title":"Reassembling democracy?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the abstract I've just sent in for the keynote I'll be giving at the Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource conference in Oslo in February: Reassembling A Broken World: Toward Practices of Anthropocenic Mindfulness If democracy is to be reassembled, with the aid of ritualized practices, how is it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirit matter"","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5298,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/09\/13\/democracy-of-objects\/","url_meta":{"origin":11064,"position":2},"title":"Democracy of Objects","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Levi Bryant's The Democracy of Objects is finally available and readable on-line, courtesy of a wonderfully innovative relationship between Open Humanities Press and the University of Michigan Library's Scholarly Publishing Office. The book is part of OHP's New Metaphysics Series, edited by Graham Harman and Bruno Latour. As regular readers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1166,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/19\/two-democracies-planet-compost\/","url_meta":{"origin":11064,"position":3},"title":"two democracies… (& planet compost)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The responses to the final COP-15 \"deal\" from the environmental and social justice communities seem, at this point, to be largely negative. It's a start, some acknowledge, but it's pretty late to be starting, and it's really pretty vacuous -- a lost opportunity. My last post tried to put a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"tumblr_ktgfafCyYp1qzhl9eo1_500.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/12\/tumblr_ktgfafCyYp1qzhl9eo1_500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2682,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/25\/here-there-or-democracy-is-coming-sort-of\/","url_meta":{"origin":11064,"position":4},"title":"Here & there (or democracy is coming, sort of)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"To the USA, perhaps... But mostly neither here nor there... There's an interesting flare-up occurring over Moammar Gaddafi's son Saif's Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, involving respected political theorists David Held and Benjamin Barber, among others. (See Eric Schliesser for more.) The issues it raises are as old\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/zpz3jjdVdnQ\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9730,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/09\/17\/illiberalism-the-utopian-deficit\/","url_meta":{"origin":11064,"position":5},"title":"“Illiberalism” & the utopian deficit","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"An off-the-cuff essay, written not for any particular occasion, but just to get it out of me. It's probably mostly common knowledge (among people on the green left), just maybe not well articulated yet, and too easily forgotten. Politically, we're all playing a little catch-up these days. 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