- Jan 2023
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humansandnature.org humansandnature.org
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democracy today is held captive by nation states that are, in turn, held captive by money, business, and banking interests—and a wholly owned corporate media that, far from informing the public, participate in misleading it.
!- nation states : all practice a corrupted form of democracy - captured by money, business, banking interests, corporate-owned media - supreme court supports corporations - Citizens United treats corporations as persons, - Buckly vs Valeo treats money as speech - These cases corrupt democracy by giving money constitutional legitimacy - faux charitable lobbies like Americal Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) buys off lawmakers to act on behalf of corporations - democracy is trapped within national sovereignty and cannot respond across borders to global challenges like climate change - very ineffective global cooperation/response
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In our real world of corrupted, minimalist democracy, we privilege individual, special-interest thinking and ask citizens to do no more than express their private preferences. We confound opinion and knowledge and sometimes even seem to think that by denying expert science we honor “democratic” thinking (as if shared ignorance and democracy were the same thing). In this corrupted version of democracy, “now” trumps “later,” today takes precedence over tomorrow, and no one takes responsibility for that greater democracy about which Edmund Burke spoke—the democracy that encompasses not only the interests of the living, but the interests of those who are gone and those as yet unborn. Generational thinking can only be cultivated in a setting of prudent deliberation; contrarily, our short-term present-mindedness shrinks the temporal zone.
!- claim : we live in a corrupted and minimalist democracy with the consequence that we lack generational thinking - privilege individiual, special-interesting thinking - only ask citizens to express their private preferences - confound opinion and knowledge - we even deny expert science, believing it is tantamout to democratic thinking !- claim : within this minimalist, corrupted version of democracy, present thinking trumps future thinking - we do not apply generational thinking aka Edmund Burke - Burke's idea of generational thinking conceptualizes an ideal democracy that encompasses past, present and future generations - generational thinking requires a space of prudent deliberation rather than present-mind thinking only
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