The Democratic Drive

From Counting Sheep to Counting Ballots

I laid awake last night with my ears plugged into my handy mp3 player, thinking about life, love, the universe, string theory, music, and democracy - these are the sheep in the skull of the Red State Ranger. Or at least they were last night. What a wonder the invention of the mp3 player is. Hundreds of CDs all fit inside a little case the size of a pack of cards or cigarettes. They hold so much music that without a second thought I was able to add even my old bargain-bin classical CDs - just $2 each - that I got back when CDs were the newest thing. And as if having the music of the aristocracy available for a small pittance weren't enough evidence of progress, what used to takes "stacks of wax," shelves of tapes or books of CDs now all neatly fits into your pocket, giving you a portable soundtrack for your life.

But this isn't an advertisement for the newest iPod; it's something much less consequential, and something that will most likely not earn as much. It's a reflection on the continuing democratization of society.

Look all around you. You'll see evidence of a truly democratic life. Not only can one carry his own personal soundtrack around in his pocket, he can share it with others in an attempt to persuade them of the superiority of his ideals - in this case, his taste in music. You, dear reader, are but a few clicks from finding information on nearly every musical artist, and also a few clicks from hearing samples of nearly every song and album, as well. Not only do you have unfettered access to these libraries, all musicians also have access to being in (or creating) such libraries. That is democratic access.

But the trend isn't limited to music, nor even to modern life and the internet. With the invention of the affordable car, peoples' travel plans were no longer subject to train schedules and stops. With the advent of network radio and television news, people were no longer subject to learning about their world only through their local newspaper. Those trends continue, as you are also but a few clicks away from being your own travel agent or news editor. This is not to say that the "old" ways are obsolete ways of life, it is far from it. This is merely an attempt to emphasize the exponential increase of man's ability to create his own world.

My old college philosophy professor said that "Every system is perfectly designed to effect the result it does." I'd like to humbly add a corollary to this bit of wisdom: "Every system is a perfect result of the sum of its components and inputs." With these two givens, what can the democratizing trends tell us about humanity? Well, to start, our "system" is perfectly designed to result in an exponential increase in democracy. But what is this system? It is society. In other words, The sum of the desires and intent of humanity nets a massive increase in overall personal democracy.

Chesterton once wrote a parable in which a boy leaves home to seek and slay a massive giant. After months and years on his journey, he finds nothing. In his deepest moment of despair, ruing the day he embarked on such a foolish errand, he turns his face homeward, only to discover that he now sees that the home he left was built upon the long-overgrown corpse of the giant all along.

It would appear that we've come to the end of such a journey here. After reflecting on the inherent democracy in mp3 players, we went on a roundabout quest to discover that it is evidence of a larger human drive for democratic life. But it would appear that we've missed our giant from the beginning.

Tomorrow, Iraq will hold its first free elections in over half a century. Those who hate this possibility have threatened those "caught voting" with death. Yet, in a country so apparently riddled with undemocratic violence, polls show that up to 80% still plan to vote. Most of these people have never known anything but tyranny, and their educations were largely controlled by tyranny. Nevertheless, up to 80% of the entire population will quite literally risk their lives for something they've never known, nor scarcely been taught. These brave souls may not yet fully grasp what it means, but they know it's something like democracy. And they know that democracy is something like personal independence. And, whether it's in headphones or the voting booth, personal independence remains the fundamental drive of the human spirit.