Democracy

To me, democracy has never been a solution for any city's problem. It is only a form of government, which is driven by the will of its people. Whether it ends up doing good for the people is not guaranteed.

My dad agrees that democracy may not be the solution, but at least the people will be responsible for the consequences and therefore there is no one in the government or in power to blame. In addition, he also argues that with a limited term of the government, the people can use their votes to say no to the government and elect other people to take over when the current term completes.

In theory his arguments should be logical, but there are actually some assumptions to his standpoints, which may not exist in reality indeed.

First, people who can really take the responsibility for what they've chosen for are actually the minority in the society. Instead, there are more of us with a tendency to blame on others, be it the government, the society, the co-workers or even the family, for what we decided. We may ignore that the decision was made ourselves; or sometimes even simply have forgotten that we were the decision maker. This decision can be as simple as an example that people criticize the younger generation for their defects, but these people are those who raise the younger generation. Another instance is that the younger generation blames the society for not giving them an opportunity to succeed, but they ignore the fact that the society has no responsibility for giving them this opportunity. They have forgotten that they have to grab the opportunity themselves or create it themselves. In countries where their economies are deeply hit by debt crisis, people blame the government for cutting jobs and expenditure as their life is affected; but this is the government they have chosen and they are just tasting the fruits which they planted a decade before.

We have to face the truth that it is almost our natural instinct that we hardly admit our mistakes. We find excuses for our mistakes and try all means to cover them. When we have democracy, we elect a leader to head the government. When the city develops not as good as we expect, we replace this leader with someone else through democratic election. However, during this process, how many people have actually thought it through?

How many people truly know the city's situation comprehensively enough to know what is needed for the city and make the so-called "right" decision?

How many people know what is needed for a leader to do for the city and how much trust do they actually place on the leader they have chosen?

While we are asking what is needed for the city, is this equivalent to people's desire? If they are not equivalent and because of democracy, what is needed is compromised to people's desire, will people take the responsibility of their decision if the consequence is unexpectedly unbearable? Who in Japan in the 1980s had imagined there would be a 20 year depression and yet the depression still haunts the country today?

I am not sure if the people in the democratic countries have ever thought about these questions; neither am I certain if these people love or hate this system. What I am trying to point out here is that, we've been talking democracy over the years, but I remain doubtful about whether people have truly thought through what democracy is and what it brings to us. It does not mean I am against this system, though I am not a supporter of this system either. This is just like what we were taught when we were young - we should put everything into consideration before we make and go ahead with a decision.

As mentioned earlier, people who can really take the responsibility for what they've decided are actually the minority in the society.

"There are two possible views as to the proper functioning of democracy. According to one view, the opinions of the majority should prevail absolutely in all fields. According to the other view, wherever a common decision is not necessary, different opinions should be represented, as near as possible, in proportion to their numerical frequency. The results of these two views in practice are very different. According to the former view, when the majority has decided in favor of some opinion, no others must be allowed to be expressed, or if expressed at all must be confined to obscure and uninfluential channels. According to the other view, minority opinions should be given the same opportunities for expression as are given to majority opinions, but only in a lesser degree."

"Collective wisdom, alas, is no adequate substitute for the intelligence of individuals. Individuals who opposed received opinions have been the source of all progress, both moral and intellectual. They have been unpopular, as was natural. Socrates, Christ, and Galileo all equally incurred the censure of the orthodox."

Freedom and the Colleges (1940), Why I Am Not a Christian (1957), Bertrand Russell