Re: Hardening narratives with increased external consequence
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The point is democracy only works (in the interest of the people) when certain preconditions are met.
Some points I've personally noticed lacking from my own experiences of voting in the UK:
* the electorate is well informed, capable of critical thought (here the predominant narrative and manufactured consent comes into play)
* candidates represent the views of the voters (Party politics results in candidates representing the narratives of the parties, in a system with inherent structural bias towards the main political parties this results conformity, and over time they converge around the predominant narrative.)
* manifesto promises are kept (Are they ever?)
* media is relatively unbiased, or at least diverse, not owned and controlled billionaire oligarchs (Murdoch et al), or an offical state broadcaster that protects/repesents official state interests (BBC - since the Hutton Inquiry)
* the outcome electoral system should reflect the views of the people. (Is a government formed representing the votes of 10,703,654 out of 49,116,522 potential voters democratic?)
To be clear; I'm not opposed to Democracy, I just don't think many (if any) countries actually are really democratic.
Some points I've personally noticed lacking from my own experiences of voting in the UK:
* the electorate is well informed, capable of critical thought (here the predominant narrative and manufactured consent comes into play)
* candidates represent the views of the voters (Party politics results in candidates representing the narratives of the parties, in a system with inherent structural bias towards the main political parties this results conformity, and over time they converge around the predominant narrative.)
* manifesto promises are kept (Are they ever?)
* media is relatively unbiased, or at least diverse, not owned and controlled billionaire oligarchs (Murdoch et al), or an offical state broadcaster that protects/repesents official state interests (BBC - since the Hutton Inquiry)
* the outcome electoral system should reflect the views of the people. (Is a government formed representing the votes of 10,703,654 out of 49,116,522 potential voters democratic?)
To be clear; I'm not opposed to Democracy, I just don't think many (if any) countries actually are really democratic.