Democracy - a two way failing?
Democracy is, on the whole, an inappropriate system for 21st century politics. I will explain why, using an example I conceived whilst watching the latest episode of X Factor.
Let us propose for a moment that this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature is being decided, through some colossal error on the part of the administration, by a group of judges that cannot read. They have simply never bothered to learn - and despite their miraculous opportunity to partake in such a prestigious award ceremony, they are not about to any time soon. Yet, no prize can be awarded until they have come to an agreement on which author’s work is worthy of such a decoration. They will, perhaps to the dejection of many, determine the outcome.
There are a number of ways they could go about this. For a start, they could look at the authors themselves; are they neat and tidy, or do they look a little rough around the edges? Are they well-dressed, or are they going for a ‘bag lady’ chic tonight? Slightly more discursively, these incompetent judges could look to the way the authors presented their work. Did they speak well? Did they sound convinced that they ought to win the Nobel Prize? Finally, they could attempt to judge the competition by the reputation of the author, checking various sources for past scandals and dirty secrets.
Common sense tells us that this is presposterous; the Nobel Prize ought to be awarded to the best work of literature, after all! These superficial observations could, and probably would, given the eclectic tastes of some authors, lead to a wholly inappropriate choice. The judges are simply not qualified to make an educated decision in this situation.
I should posit that the electorate of most democracies are no different.
Suppose we replace ‘judges’ with ‘voters’, ‘author’ with ‘politician’, ‘literature’ with ‘policy’ - and ‘ability to read’ with ‘ability to understand their respective political system’. The analogy reveals itself to be a worrying parallel to our current political climate. Voters are akin to the blind judges in the sense that they, on the whole, have at best a rudimentary knowledge of how their political system operates, whether this be the conventional intricacies of the British Houses of Parliament, the checks and balances present within the U.S Congress or the legislative function of the Japanese ‘Diet’. The majority certainly do not have enough knowledge to accurately select a politician who is able to enact positive change in the state; it is unreasonable to suggest that they ought to, as the majority of the workings of, say, the British House of Lords are entirely irrelevant to the average British subject’s working life.
This ignorance, though it is understandable, maintains to be a problem. Just like the illiterate judges, one can observe the electorate instating politicians for their ability to speak confidently, as we British have seen with Tony Blair in ‘97 and are currently experiencing ex adverso with the ‘flash’ camera antics of David Cameron, or even for such superficial reasons as the aforementioned dress sense - as with the unfortunate result for Michael Foot and his ‘donkey jacket’ fiasco in the early ’80s. As for scandals… well, take your pick; the sensationalist media need only a few grimy secrets to ruin a politician’s approval rating. John Prescott’s continued abuse at the hands of the newspapers is fair evidence of that.
The sting in the tail here is that none of this essentially matters. Policy is more important than personality. It doesn’t matter how verbose and charismatic a politician is; if the policy is impractical, it is impractical. Ambitious, radical ideas are all well and good, naturally, but if the support is not there, it is dead weight as far as the House of Commons is concerned. The Liberal Democrats, the ‘Real Alternative’ are a regrettably notorious example of this. The abolition of student top-up fees, a policy made clear on their manifesto in 2005, is a noble idea, but actually one that hurts the demographic it attempts to support: students. In every state devoid of fee-paying universities, the quality of higher education is lower; this is because the money paid by students helps them to be competitive (offer the best service possible for the price) and able to expand at a rate according to their quality - unlike the Liberal Democrat utopia in which the government keeps all universities at equal standing. Whilst this would, granted, revive the lower echelon of education, it would also ruin the upper counterpart. If one caters for the worst, one alienates the finest; this is the nature of welfare. Though the abolition of top-up fees, prima facie, appears to benefit students, it would actually leave them with academically weak degrees that would mean less than they do now. Yet, this does not stop students, even those at the highest levels of University education, voting for the Liberal Democrats!
The analogy becomes frighteningly accurate. A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but a lack of it is by far the greater of two evils. Why?
Let us return to the example of the judges, but from a different point of view. Assume you are a candidate in the literature award, desperate to win the prize - but you are painfully aware of the illiterate panel. You face a dilemma: do you devote your time and attention to writing a masterpiece that is worthy of the prize, or tailor your image, countenance, oratory and personality to the competition and hand over any old rubbish? The latter carries with it a greater chance of winning, but the former actually makes you worthy of repute within your profession. A difficult choice, one should think.
Modern politicians seem to have already made their minds up - the ones that win elections, anyway. They have opted for the politically cheap latter; why else would Tony Blair appear on the Catherine Tate show? Why else would Gordon Brown discuss his love of the ‘Arctic Monkeys’ in an interview? Why else would David Cameron devote precious time and resources to maintaining a Facebook account? These publicity stunts are as politically viable as lewd jokes are a respectable form of humour, but they keep going on. Party manifestos are not nearly as important to the public as the highlights of Prime Minister’s Question Time on the news - so why bother with them! The majority of the electorate probably do not understand what an Act of Parliament is, anyway.
The British political scene seems to be locked in a vicious cycle that, by general ignorance, is irreperable. The public, because of their lack of knowledge of the fundamental system that governs their country, are vastly unqualified to make a choice, and thus the political parties lower themselves to this childish level to gain support. Decent policy is increasingly buried in meaningless rhetoric and overshadowed by image.
For this reason, democracy is a bilateral failure.
I’ll muse upon a solution.
