In the previous post we adopted a stance "cynical" to conclude that democracy, understood as a certain state of affairs in which the "people" exercising "power" in a human society, there has been ever and, in fact, never exist in literal terms. However, although this view pessimistic is very necessary to take away illusions that get us nowhere, this does not mean that the notion of democracy does not serve us all. If so, all would like to live under the Franco regime in our (imperfect) current system and I doubt many people will be able to sustain that kind of fantasy. An excess of cynicism we can produce an indigestible mental pie. Of course, we may reject entirely the validity of the "concept" of "democracy." However, if you really want to make an intelligible discourse about social life, would have to invent some other "nice word", which inevitably end up "corrupted" in a similar way as has happened with "democracy." Then let's stay with the word "whole life" and see what we can get out of it that is of value. If democracy tells us the real thing, but not literally true, we deconcluir that democracy is a myth. All the myths are true, in the sense of "authentic" but none of them is if we understand it literally . Remember the myth of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to eternally carry a heavy rock to the top of a hill, when it reaches the top, the rock falls down and must start again from the beginning till the end of time . Poor Sisyphus no "there", but his story is an image that "does see" a hard truth expressible in a less poetic, but we could summarize the experience that we often our efforts are futile and useless. To take a trivial example, I myself continually embody this myth on the rare occasions when I order my office desk, the little eventually returns to form around the shambles. The myth becomes reality in its successive incarnations historical and at the same time, these real situations is where we draw the symbols and stories of our shared imagination, and explain the meaning (or meaninglessness) of everything we do.
"Democracy" is the myth of the Government of the People. This is a story that we can roll back to an idealized past or imagined (the Golden Age, the Good Old Days, the Greek polis) or a future impossible in literal terms (the New Jerusalem, communist society, anarchism, the United of Heaven). Meanwhile, still incarnate continuously in our present, every time we are capable of doing to people and to control or put at bay the Power ... Or perhaps this is just a tall tale that keeps the powerful fiddle while still sending? Then too, but Politeness does not courageous.
Myths can be the "opium of the people, but this must be first opium, and are able to poison the spirit is because we speak poetically of an" authentic "experience. Dive into the myth implies dive into the depths of our own "soul", personal or collective, for better or for worse. The journey can be rewarding or self-destructive. It depends. Some say that the Fund Pandora contained all the evils of land and other goods containing all, no way to know the truth, except by opening the box. The fact that the myth leads us depends on our own layout and the way in which we integrate into it. Everyone
segregate rationalizations about our lives that we serve as mechanisms of defense against an often hostile reality. Sometimes it works fantastically. But other times, depending on the situation, they become a burden that hinders our happiness. At the collective level of human societies something similar happens. All societies secrete a self-congratulatory speech that produces a daily certainty and allows minimal social cohesion. However, this "ideology" often becomes a burden for the transformation of society in order to overcome its own dysfunctions and contradictions. "Our democracy is the least bad of the possible systems and have to settle for what is, without looking for something else", "democracy is going to vote," we must obey the laws because we have done, " our leaders represent us because we voted. " Myths and images of democracy that exist in our society can "lull", killing what in us is "people" or "person" (and later we will play with the individual and collective) and making "mob" or "mass."
But it is also a fact that all the myths about democracy have provided a necessary impetus for the transformation of societies towards overcoming its contradictions in very different historical moments and in front of very different powers. Of course, the expected paradise never comes at all: in the new societies emerging new contradictions that make timely return to the use of the myth of democracy for the story to take its course.
Moreover, this role "positive" the myth of democracy does not only apply to the epic of the great social transformations, but which can also occur in the midst of reality drab everyday, giving sense to the little things we do, our little fights, the way we communicate in public life.
However, this notion of democracy as a myth "may still be too abstract to be operational. It helps us understand why we need to believe in democracy but not "exist" if we understand it as perfect realization of a "status quo" idealized, but does not give us the key when you dive into the myth helps us and hurts us when beyond that it is good that we literally it, because it lulls us or us to build societies monstrous tours by the fanatical belief in a utopia. In any case, something in the above description of the positive aspects of the myth that we may help serve, serving as a starting point for the notion of democracy that we propose in the following entry: democracy as a process.
Note: events: As everyone knows, we have been dead for nothing Don Marcelino Camacho, consistent person there ever was in the struggle for democracy and freedom. Rest in peace and Marx have in his beard.
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