Tag: Democracy

Democracy in Danger

Here’s a proposition. We are more adjusted to day-to-day fibs than we have been in the whole of history. The art of telling stories and telling lies has merged. Conflicts and tensions have fuelled a deluge of misinformation. It’s easy to put aside the clams of a flat Earth supporter but who’s to know about a major event that has just happened unless capable fact checking is immediately deployed? The liar’s advantage is an unfortunate reality. Bad New travels fast but corrections travel slowly.

Here’s some examples. Hardly a day goes by without a junk e-mail in my mailbox. These junk e-mails tell blatant lies as a means of deception. Either pulling heartstrings or threatening vicious measures. Absurd fake News is easy to spot but subtle – could be true or is that real – doubts can hang in the air.

We have got accustomed to bombardment of advertising that promises a glamourous perfume will enhance our lives immeasurably. Cars that will propel us into a technicolour future. Shop banners that proclaim being obviously better than other. Gambling opportunities that are only about winning.

An unspoken assumption exists. That is that our education, however elementary, provides each one of us with a sufficiency of cynicism to see through overblown promises. An ability to look a con artist in the eye and see through their smoke and mirrors. An in-built discriminating nature.

In fact, most people are quite insulted if it is suggested that they don’t have these superpowers. It’s an afront to say that someone has been led by the nose and scammed. Most of us are embarrassed if it happens, and we discover it. I mean extremely embarrassed. Then pure human pride can kick in and a period of denial is almost inevitable.

Has this atmosphere where truth and shams fight for attention put democracy in danger?

The origins of democracy weren’t about universal suffrage. Everybody being involved. Voting was reserved for citizens who held that status as a privilege. Today, we have come to think of democracy as every single person on a level playing field. This is idealism, but it’s a beautiful model.

Just as in ancient Rome, legislators exaggerate, manipulated information, build dubious alliances, and tell porkies to advance their positions. Some of this is the warp and weft of politics. It’s reasonable to say that we have evolved a discriminating nature. Only that discrimination is rather fragile.

The speed and volume of media communication grows with no seeming limit. Technology has enabled this advance. However, I’m wary of blaming technology for a proliferation of misinformation. That’s to deny that there’s an intent behind deception.

It’s going to be useless to have a highbrow intellectual discussion about Artificial Intelligence (AI) if the outcome is no change. We may as well blame the fibre optic cable that pump data around the world. Even with AI there is human intent behind the technology. These are behavioural matters.  

Yes, democracy is in danger, but the solutions are in our hands. We need not become victims.

Election

US President Donald Trump a second time around. Now, there’s a thought to concentrate minds.

It was our summer holiday in 2015. Doesn’t seem all that long ago. In July, we took a British Airways flight out of London Heathrow to Boston[1]. Picked up a car and drove. This may have been my last flight on a jumbo, a Boeing 747-400 before COVID struck and pensioned them off[2].

It was a terrific adventure as we had about 10 days to explore New England and the Hudson Valley. Sue and I had done a similar trip before but this time we had a well-thought-out itinerary that took us to new places. A couple of nights here and a couple of nights there, as we drove through the beautiful countryside in the sunshine.

This is not a travelog. A part of the story of the trip is of arriving at a motel after a long day, switching on a scruffy TV and watching practically whatever comes on first. On this road trip, often, the News was first. The News had a focus on the selection process for Republican candidates for the coming Presidential race. That’s the November 2016 United States presidential election.

The News was really like a scene from The Usual Suspects[3]. A line of suited and booted candidates vying for position, looking uncomfortable and one strange turbulent outlier. It was as if an alien had landed at a bank clerks’ convention. Commentators were going out of their way to say that the outlier didn’t have what it took to win a grown-up race. Of course, you know who I’m taking about.

As we went from motel to motel it became apparent from the viewing that we snatched that the Republican selection was not a normal one. The orthodox candidates had no idea how to deal with a bawdy cocky Donald Trump. The idea that Trump might serve as the 45th president of the United States was way off the chart. This media personality, come self-proclaimed successful businessman was hammering away at the mild-mannered dull opposition somewhat like a man with a chainsaw might attack a chicken coop. Still commentators derided the idea that he might win.

Let’s just say we have all learnt a lot since mid-2015. There are few people who can claim to have predicted what was to happen for the next 8-years. That is with 2017 to 2021, with Trump installed as the most powerful man on Earth. It sends shivers down my spine thinking about it. That said, the golf courses of world probably gained a lot and social media has never looked back.

The habit of spewing out constant streams of falsehoods and odious propaganda worked first-time around. Aided and abetted by shadowy media forces and with loads of funding the real estate man won. Surprisingly, all of this is alive and kicking in 2023. Ready for the same outcome.

Millions of people believed Trump, and guess what, they still do. By urging his supporters to march on Capitol Hill, when the last election result was being certified, he showed what he might do next. An insurgency, the like of which the United States hasn’t ever seen. The Usual Suspects maybe two movies in one. 2016 and 2024 maybe two elections with one outcome. It doesn’t seem like the law, however it’s interpreted, will prevent him standing for public office.

[1] BOS Boston United States, Logan International

[2] https://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/18590175.boeing-747-jumbo-jet-graveyard-gloucestershire/

[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814

B. P.

A forensic dissection of the recent past is highlighting how major decisions are made in the corridors of power. It’s not nice to hear but it is good to hear. Transparency is a benefit of democracy. What we see is not pretty. There’s that saying about politics and making sausages being much the same. We desire results but are shocked if we study how sausages are made.

We easily get trapped in the noisy interchange between personalities. Newspaper headlines draw on our fascination of who said what and when. The more embarrassing the chatter the bolder the headline. The questions how and why are not given as much attention.

Even sampling a little of the reports of the compilation of evidence there’s a trend emerging. Much of this has to do with the way administrators, politicians, and scientist (practitioners and the theoretical) understand each other or don’t.

The classic divided between the Bachelor of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (BA) and the Bachelor of Sciences (BSc) is firmly embedded in our society. The divide between Oxbridge and the rest can look like a deep gorge. The divide between those who are instinctive hustlers and gamblers, and analytical reasoning calculators is uncomfortable.

Putting the above to one side, what shines through the submissions of the UK COVID inquiry is an embedded lag between events and a reaction to events. Knowledge with hindsight is wonderful. Time and time again after big events, files are taken down from a dusty shelf and on their pages is a register of risks. Within that the register is a discussion of risk of an event that has just become history. This week we heard a former Prime Minister almost admit that the COVID pandemic wasn’t taken as seriously as it should have been until it nearly killed him.

What does this say about our propensity to plan or take plans seriously? What does it say about becoming overcome or steamrollered by events? What can we do better to be prepared in future?

Lessons learned are fundamental to improving any way of working. It’s a feedback mechanism. Taking what can be derived from a crisis, catastrophe or momentous event and writing it down. Using that to make strong recommendations. Then tracking changes and moving forward to what should be a better prepared state. 

We know we don’t have to wait for bad events to happen before we prepare. Our human imagination provides us with an effective means of anticipation. Tragic in the case of COVID is the ignorance of warnings that previous events had provided. The lesson from SARS[1] were know.

Maybe this is the Cub Scout coming out in me. Yes, that was part of my early upbringing in the village of Somerset. The motto of the British Scout movement[2] has a lot going for it: “Be Prepared”. Much of what goes with that motto is anachronistic, but the essence is immensely valuable.

[1] https://www.who.int/health-topics/severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome#tab=tab_1

[2] https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2017/05/08/be-prepared-scout-motto-origin/