Why democracy?

#3

Friends of Democracy,

A bit of theory today.

Standing up for democracy seems somehow self-evident. It is considered the best form of society. But why? What's so great about democracy?

In short, because democracy is the only form of government in which people determine the rules of human coexistence for themselves.

Understood this way, democracy is not a construct of a particular society, time or region such as the democracy of the ancient Greeks. People who support democracy are not imperialistic or colonizing. Democracy, in this simple definition, is nothing more and nothing less than a form of government to which all people have agreed.

Theoretically, at least. In practice, people are born into democracies, into institutions and rules that are difficult for individuals to evade. But democracy finds ways that people can regularly have a say in these rules so that they can change them.

This is the difference to all other forms of government, in which certain groups permanently rule over other groups. And in which the individual is subject to the interests of others. Such a life tends to be unfree. But people want to live in freedom. They want to be autonomous, follow their interests, be able to realize themselves. Democracy makes such a life possible.

That's why it's worth fighting for democracy.

See you, 

Johannes Eber

“Democracy is a small, hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences.” —James B. Conant