Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A small distinction...

Some people seem confused about this. Here's a quick example:

This is what democracy looks like:

This is a fire:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/20/fire-arrests-and-a-rolling-stone-quebec-student-protests-get-international-attention/

Now you know!

1 comment:

Cornelius said...

Depends what you mean by "democracy." That latter, a protest, is an example of participatory democracy, while the former is an example of representative democracy.

Representative democracy is useful, but for a democracy to function efficiently requires elements of both. If all you do is vote, then you are effectively confining policies to a narrow spectrum that may not reflect public opinion. Direct action and protest act as a countervailing power against this, and indeed many gains (civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, etc.) would not have been possible without participatory forms of democracy.