Amerika

Some kind of presidential debate is happening. It seems unbelievable that half of the country would even consider Joe Biden; his stuff looks good on the surface but does not work. Then again, almost no one is thinking of what is real. They are thinking of how things look: symbol, peer pressure, signal, and rationalization.

A sensible person would sigh and realize that the nature of democracy involves promises made from podiums that are then translated through a vast bureaucracy into what is left. This apportions funds. All involves optics alone; if things look good, elections will be won and therefore, government jobs will be safe from top to bottom.

No system has been created with greater inertia than Late Stage Democracy.

Worse yet is that the voters still have not figured out that they have the power to influence this process. They look at what is on offer, dislike most of it, and pick whatever seems to give something to them right now. It may make them feel superior to others. It may give them money. It may give them false hope.

In any case, the vote wins every time, and since there is no unity toward any kind of vision for what the future should be, elections are fought over “issues” instead of, as they should be, a single issue: what should the future look like.

Even more disturbing, groups of people reflect not a single consciousness but individual demands amplified by the group. Individuals are good at details, like avoiding other cars on the road or picking the best price of bananas. When facing a need to unite details into a coherent vision, you get as many opinions as you have voters.

This process comes from two things. First, people vote based on optics, including their personal optics. Their political opinions reflect what they think makes them look good to their social group and coworkers. They may use them to attract mates. They are completely unserious and incompetent at what the express.

Second, voters treat government like a concierge. In their view, they pay it money, so it should do things for them personally. They want it to make problems go away. They want it to protect them from themselves. And they want the perception of personal attention from an impersonal, process-laden bureaucracy.

In the minds of the voters, government is a type of butler. It answers to their every demand. However, it does not have a plan of its own except to serve. They forget that everyone in government wants a concierge, too, and they want it to pay them a fat salary to do nothing that involves the risk of getting fired.

When we look critically at democracy, we see the blind leading the blind, but the blind leaders know that this is a game of image and deception, while the voters simply deceive themselves with the greed of individuals amplified by a group.

Until we identify democracy for what it really is, we have no choice. In the case of this election, we are voting against an agenda that clearly destroys us, but only half of us have gotten something like that message, and the rest are just gesturing, signaling, symbolizing, and rationalizing what makes them look good for a few moments at the pub.

Tags: democracy, late stage democracy