Our democracies are far from true democracies | the democracy letters

Our democracies are far away from being democratic. They are built on the loss of individual power through representation, control obedience and not on the agency of everyone. That comes at costs.

"Tell the Iroquois about obedience to the king, and he laughs; for he cannot reconcile the concept of submission with the dignity of man." ^¹

From the point of dignity and self-responsibility, our democracies are far from true democracies. They are not built on paradigms like agency, autonomy, self-responsibility, and accountability. Instead, they are built on different mechanisms, especially the ones of majority, representation, obedience, and control. All of them lead to a loss of individual power and self-efficacy. In fact, agency and autonomy threaten common political structures, whether dictatorships or democracies. They are contrary to how most institutions and societal structures are built.