OPINIONISTA: Inclusion versus exclusion – democracy and national identity in the future By Saliem Fakir
Democracy in the good Greek sense of the word meant direct election of representatives onto the system of political governance. The first pilot was said to be in Athens probably around 600BC or so. But, the idea may have been cooked up long before. The records are sketchy on this account.
Today we understand democracy as a more inclusive practice and the proposition here is that we may be returning to the age of exclusion. Exclusion of the unwanted should not be dismissed simply because we do not see it coming or believe our old patterns of thinking as a good judge of the future. Perhaps we are moving out of the age of the post-modern to the age of proto-tradition. There was no better symbol of this than the recent debate between Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson. Not that the debate could be regarded as worth your seeing and hearing – it was dismal in so far as content went.
Those seeking to change the rules and turn their back on inclusivity invigorate their questions with not what we should become as one people, but who are “we” and who are “they”. Exclusionary practices have been around for a long time even in places of fertile cosmopolitanism and long histories of democracy.
Others are watching and want to follow. AI companies in liberal democracies are even aiding and abetting the Chinese dragon as profit trumps human rights and democratic virtues.
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