What is Democracy?

Gandhi and Walt Whitman Both Knew

Note: I am making a documentary film this year entitled “How to Save Democracy,” and have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the making of it. You can learn more about the campaign and contribute here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/how-to-save-democracy/x/1658357#/

To understand the issues facing democracy in the U.S. and elsewhere, which I pointed out in my prior essay, How to Save Democracy, I thought it would be good to take a deep dive into understanding what democracy is, and also examine what two illustrious men, Walt Whitman and Mohandas Gandhi, had to say about it.

So, what exactly is democracy? Even to this day, it is still an evolving and developing form. The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the Greek city-state of Athens, led by Cleisthenes, who established what is generally held as the first democracy in 507 BCE; Cleisthenes is referred to as “the father of Athenian democracy.”

The Athenian philosopher Plato contrasted democracy, the system of “rule by the governed,” with the alternative systems of monarchy (rule by one individual), oligarchy (rule of the wealthy) and timocracy (rule by an elite class valuing honor as opposed to wealth).

Although democracy has its formal origins in Ancient Greece, democratic practices have been evident in earlier societies including Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and India. Other cultures and geographical regions since Greece, such as Ancient Rome, Europe, and North and South America, have significantly contributed to the evolution of democracy. The concept of representative democracy arose largely from ideas and institutions that developed during the European Middle Ages and the Age of Enlightenment and in the American and French Revolutions.

While there is no universally accepted definition of democracy, equality and freedom have both been identified as important characteristics of democracy since ancient times. These principles are reflected in all citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative processes. For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no unreasonable restrictions can apply to anyone seeking to become a representative, and the freedom of its citizens is secured by legitimized rights and liberties, which are generally protected by a constitution.

At its core, democracy signifies the right of people to be free, in order for them to evolve towards their greatest potential in tandem with promoting the greater good. This understanding sees democracy as not only a political system but as an ideal, an aspiration, intimately connected to and dependent upon a picture of what it is to be human—of what it is a human should be to be fully human.

In this definition, the goal of a democratic society is to help every person realize, to the best of their abilities, their aspirations, dreams, and goals. There is a certain amount of self-reliance that is needed for a person to realize their abilities, and a certain amount of help from the community. Both individual and community play an important role in the development of an individual and their ability to be the best they can be, and as always, it is set within the context of the greater good for all.

Walt Whitman once said of democracy,

We have frequently printed the word Democracy. Yet I cannot too often repeat, that it is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened… It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted. It is, in some sort, younger brother of another great and often used word, Nature, whose history also waits unwritten.

What did Whitman mean by this? Democracy is an ideal, a concept that is still in its ideological infancy. The essence of democracy is to help a person aspire to their greatest potential while helping to promulgate the greater good, and that we all are interconnected in this mission.

To achieve this purest interpretation of democracy, it takes an enlightened perspective, one that integrates self-interest with the best interests of community, society, and the world.

Gandhi said of democracy: “The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires a change of heart.”

Democracy should be love in action, in which we all work together to better humanity. Whitman compared democracy to nature, saying they were related, and also pointed out how nature’s history is also unwritten.

The tendency is to fight and conquer nature, to see it as the enemy. But nature is something we need to learn to live in harmony with. You can’t fight nature, because nature will fight back. Nature is like water; it can’t be easily stopped or dammed up because it needs to flow, to be free, to find its way. Humans and nature have a symbiotic relationship: in order to succeed, each needs the other.

We can’t destroy nature in the name of control and manipulation, as if nature was put on earth for our subjugation, manipulation, perversion, and domination. If anything, humans were put on this earth for nature’s domination. But nature has always been willing to work collaboratively with humans. Sadly, humans haven’t been willing to return the favor in kind.

Such is the same with democracy. Democracy can’t be restrained, nor tethered. It needs to be free—that is the essence of democracy. Humans need to work collaboratively with democracy: help each other be free, help each other aspire to their greatest potential, help each other benefit the greatest good, so that all can succeed. We shouldn’t look to subjugate, manipulate or dominate anyone. To do that entails the propagation of lies and distortions.

We don’t need that. It’s toxic and harmful, and suppresses the greater aspirations and dreams of people by stirring up their fears and anxieties, and pits one group of people against another. This kind of behavior is usually predicated on greed and fear, and, at the cost of promoting the greater good, it promotes the good of only specific groups. We have so much in common with one another, yet we are pushed in a direction that causes us to focus on our baser instincts, which are the wedge issues that drive us apart.

We need people who have a vision of a better way, and can inspire others to go in that direction. We can’t solve our problems using the same tactics, words, and actions that have created our problems. As Albert Einstein said, “Problems can never be solved from the level of thinking that created them.”

And as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

The ideas of the founders of the United States were borne out of the Age of Enlightenment, an era in which humans shook off the constraints of religious dogma and superstitious thinking to value reason, logic, and the higher cognitive powers of the intellect.

Out of this era came new perspectives in science, culture, economics, philosophy, and politics. Monarchies were toppled, and the separation of church and state was instituted. By doing this, democracy was allowed to flourish, a democracy that was not beholden to any one religion, and especially was not ruled by any religious dogma.

The beginnings of democracy in the modern era took hold in the 18th century, first with the American Revolution. This led to a sea change around the world, by demonstrating that government could be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Democracy was truly an offspring of an enlightened worldview.

Now, this ideal called democracy is being manipulated, distorted, and perverted to a most severe degree; in the U.S., democracy is teetering as it finds itself being transformed into an oligarchy and potential autocracy. In order to find a way back towards this ideal, to bring democracy back into balance, it will take a new enlightened worldview.

This enlightened worldview would fulfill the understanding written into the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal and have the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Of course, we must rephrase that to all people (not just men, and especially not just white men) are created equal, but otherwise this radical notion that we are all born equal and have the equal potential and aspiration to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is something that has to be the starting point for a new and enlightened democracy. This is what Gandhi meant by saying democracy requires a change of heart.