Is the basic premise of democracy workable? The
United States has been conducting a two hundred year experiment to find that
out. And the results are coming in. Let the “marketplace” function freely and
let the people chose according to their own inclinations.
The freedom of the marketplace has given rise to a
drive to “provide people with what they want” -- which has become an intense
competition by food packagers to increase sweets and fats in the American diet
until obesity is epidemic.
Similarly, freedom of the marketplace has moved the
chief source of the people’s information, the media, to compete in giving the
people what they want – that is sensationalistic coverage of insignificant but
lurid events, and to all but abandon distributing the sort of information that
a responsible electorate needs to function rationally.
But these ills, and the many other parallel
problems, could not have happened if our educational system had not failed in
creating and maintaining an intellectual climate in our population that was
capable of perceiving what is genuinely important and for the good from what is
merely entertaining and immediately gratifying.
And the results have been coming in. Since the
Clinton administration duly elected presidents, from the Democratic Party, have
faced an electorate dazzled by manufactured scandals manipulated by a
sensationalistic press.
Even more significantly, in the election process truth
has vanished in a haze of tawdry and fantastic accusations embraced by a
significant percentage of the population. In our electorate, the mental ability
to test the plausibleness of what the media presents has been lost.
Even the desire for responsibility has been lost in
a national mental laziness that is accustomed to being fed “what the people want.”
Even the virtuous and seemingly responsible portion
of the population is reduced to knee-jerk response to manipulation.
We, whose birthright was the great experiment in
democracy, have sold our greatest hopes for a daily diet of sweets and thrilling
stories. We have lost those qualities of rational judgment and the persistent
demand for what is truly in our best interests -- qualities that the founders
of our government thought were sufficiently immutable in human nature to make
democracy possible. And it is the free market, catering to our whims with
focused competitive tenacity, that has done this to us.
But the competitive
market of capitalism could not have done this had not our educational system
failed us first.
I still believe that democracy and capitalism can
work, but only where an educational system sternly maintains its responsibility
to produce a wise electorate and consumer public. Our system has produced a
self-indulgent populace.
My fear is that this condition is irreversible: that
the possibilities -- the hope of democracy and freedom that this nation made
its foundation -- will be discredited for all time.
book website: www.simon-de-montfort.com
personal website: www.katherineashe.com
Katherine Ashe is the author of the four volume Montfort novelized series
http://www.amazon.com/Katherine-Ashe/e/B004OTWHNQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1398361940&sr=1-2-ent
book website: www.simon-de-montfort.com
personal website: www.katherineashe.com
Katherine Ashe is the author of the four volume Montfort novelized series
http://www.amazon.com/Katherine-Ashe/e/B004OTWHNQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1398361940&sr=1-2-ent
