> Democracy is about access

No, not really. I know what you are trying to say, and I fully agree. We need to stop using "democracy" or "democratizing".

Democracy, in it's purest form, is about mob rule --majority rule, if you want to say it in a softer/kinder way. "Democratizing" means giving a mob control of the thing, it does not mean making it accessible to all at all.

▲ iLemming a day ago | parent | next [-]

Democracy is not about mob rule, it's about a dialog. Sure, sometimes it becomes heated argumentation and noise, but it's not so much about "ruling". Lincoln in his union address in 1860 said: "I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas."

"Democratization" in a sense is about making things accessible for discussions. "Dictatorship" is the opposing term - things get "dictated" by a single entity - person, political force or a corporation.

▲ robomartin a day ago | parent [-]

> Democracy is not about mob rule, it's about a dialog.

No my friend, Democracy is majority rule, which easily turns into a ruling mob. It has nothing whatsoever to do with dialog.

Also, your quote of Lincoln's address is taken completely out of context. He was talking about his opposition of the ideas of a faction of Democrats who were in favor of slavery and his support of the majority of Republicans who believed slavery was a moral, social, and political evil.

In other words, take the time to at least do some research before you try to use quotes in support of a failed conclusion.

Did you read the Greeks in school? Probably not. I recommend Plato's Republic. Both he and Socrates talked about the flaws of direct/pure democracy that would usually make it degenerate into mob rule.

In Republic Plato developed a hierarchy:

  Aristocracy: Rule by the wise (my comment: a fantasy)
  Timocracy: Rule by the honorable (my comment: another fantasy)
  Oligarchy: Rule by the rich (my comment: a reality in many societies)
  Democracy: Rule by the masses (my comment: glad we don't have this)
  Tyranny: Rule by a despot (my comment: plenty of examples of this in history)

It took until the late 1700's for the idea of a representative democracy to actually take hold, with Alexander Hamilton being credited with the terminology.

So, "democratizing" means letting the masses have their way. It does not mean making things accessible to everyone, which is the hilariously or tragically ignorant way in which Silicon Valley tries to use the term. You see startups all the time say "we are democratizing <X>". Just how stupid are these people? They are saying we are going to let the mob have access and benefit from <X> not making it available to everyone.

In the context of Plato’s political philosophy the modern, casual use of the word "democratizing" completely ignores the historical and philosophical baggage of the root word democracy.

The irony is that modern society uses "democratize" as an undisputed positive term (meaning liberation and fairness), while the very philosophers who birthed western political thought used "democracy" as a warning label for instability and lawlessness.

A better term for what startups want to say would be "commoditizing": turning a specialized, elite resource into a public good or a widely available commodity; not "democratizing", which is an ignorant use of a term that means almost exactly the opposite.

I guess classical education has not been a part of schooling for quite some time. As a kid I did not necessarily enjoy reading the Great Books. As an adult, I can see how much damage has been caused by the abandonment of such valuable teachings.

▲

card_zero 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Pantisocracy: rule by socks and panties.

▲

rustystump a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Classics are still there, at least they were for me. Then again, i didnt have the pleasure of experiencing American public education.

As much as i do agree, overtime language does eventually change but it can happen over our dead bodies

	▲	iLemming a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> language does eventually change Exactly, words do not carry their root's connotations as a permanent tax. 'idiot' used to mean "a layman, someone not holding office or lacking skill', or "a person not interested in politics"; 'nice' comes from Latin 'nescius', which meant "ignorant"; 'cretin' meant "Christian". Democracy is not mob rule, and the Greeks agreed. They had a separate word for mob rule: 'ochlocracy'. Having two words means the Greeks did not treat them as identical. Plato and Aristotle argued democracy tends toward it, but they still have not treated it for a definition. Bringing Plato here is kind of weird: The Republic is an anti-democratic aristocrat's argument, written by a man whose teacher was executed by an Athenian jury. Plato was born into the Athenian elite. His mother's family gave Athens tyrants whose regime killed something like 2000 citizens in less than a year. Plato initially was invited to join, he considered it, and pulled back when he saw what they did. He was part of anti-democratic coup. Citing him here for the word definition, is like citing Marx for the only definition of 'capitalism' - not exactly inaccurate, and might be even exactly correct, yet the context and connotation still matters - Plato took neutral-to-positive word and gave it a hostile reading, while Marx haven't even talked about 'capitalism' (he had "kapitalistische produktionsweise"), the actual term as we know it was popularized later. 'democracy' aside, "make accessible to all" is a long-established dictionary sense of 'democratize', it was never a Silicon Valley invention. And you're right - "representative democracy" only took hold in the late 1700s. The term's meaning moved after Plato. If democracy could shift from Plato's warning label to a thing Hamilton endorsed, 'democratize' could shift too. I implore you, good sire (@robomartin), to unsaddle your high horse and let the language take its course - if people and times decide to give words different meaning, it most likely will happen anyway.
	▲	robomartin a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

▲ spankibalt 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Democracy, in it's purest form, is about mob rule --majority rule, if you want to say it in a softer/kinder way.

You're just parroting an old urban myth.

The terminus technicus for mob rule is ochlocracy [1]; democracy, per se, includes minority protections (i. e. if it doesn't then it isn't a democracy to begin with).

1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_rule]

▲

charcircuit 20 hours ago | parent [-]

>democracy, per se, includes minority protections (i. e. if it doesn't then it isn't a democracy to begin with).

Democracy has nothing to do with minority protections. I don't understand you can say it per se includes minority protections. Democracy includes whatever enough people think it should include. If people don't want such protections then there is no need for them.

If a democratic society does not want to live side by side violent murderers and thugs they can agree on ways to deal with that minority group like killing them or imprisoning them.

▲

spankibalt 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> Democracy has nothing to do with minority protections. [...] Democracy includes whatever enough people [italized by me] think it should include. If people don't want such protections then there is no need for them.

You just proved my point by demonstrating your utter ignorance of the topic: Your three sentences encapsulate the textbook definition of ochlocracy (or laocracy), i. e. mob rule. Which, as already outlined, is not democracy.

I suggest you read some authoritative and up-to-date texts on democracy before embarassing yourself again.

▲

charcircuit 19 hours ago | parent [-]

>Your three sentences encapsulate the textbook definition of ochlocracy (or laocracy)

The textbook definition of ochlocracy is a small group of people taking justice into their own hands. That is not what I described in my post where I explained how they can come up with rules and processes and how to deal with things as opposed to having a mob deal with it.

▲

spankibalt 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> The textbook definition of ochlocracy is a small group of people taking justice into their own hands.

No, that's not the textbook definition.

That exchange has sadly run its course for me for I have no interest in reading tedious counterfactual clichés, especially not ones outside the scope of the thread's actual topic. One can only hope you embark on that suggested reading journey to better understand the emergence and evolution of (modern) democracy.

Good luck!

	▲	charcircuit 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No thank you. I will not be reading about what I already understand. If you want to believe a different set of definitions feel free, but you will find that you are overcomplicating simple concepts.