humanizing democracy

There is more to freedom of speech than individuals having the right to express themselves without being persecuted. While personal freedom is important, the main point of freedom of speech is democracy's need for a diversity of perspectives. We especially need the viewpoints and the active participation of those who are systematically excluded because of their socio-economic status, their ethnic background, their race, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religious beliefs, their lack of religious beliefs, or their outside-the-mainstream political views or because their farsighted, visionary ideas are not yet widely understood and thus might seem to be "out in left field".

The challenge is not just about how to overcome the stupefying effects of the herd instinct; it is perhaps even more about how to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Most of our inability to hear distinct voices amidst the din of the crowd has to do with information overload. Democracy was far simpler when the criterion to be fully enfranchised was being a property-owning, educated white male. And actually, it is questionable whether the governmental design we inherited from the brilliant but hardly representative group of individuals who originally pioneered the basic idea of democracy is adequate to meet the needs of a fully representative democracy.

We have three options. First, we can just carry on with what we've been doing and thereby continue getting the results we've been getting. Second, we can create work-arounds whereby an activated citizenry can overcome the limitations of our current governance model. Or third, we can go back to the drawing board and invent democracy 2.0. In a perfect world, option three would be best, but obviously, we don't live in a perfect world. And actually, in order to get to option three, we would have to go through option two in order to institute the necessary reforms. Our work is cut out for us.