Remember those “Problems of Democracy” books in high school? I don’t think many of the textbooks are called that anymore, but they were the standard social studies books of the 1960s and 1970s.
I was just talking with a friend today about the title: “Problems of Democracy.” The name was a reminder to us students that democracy doesn’t immediately solve all problems, but that it constantly is targeting them.
Let’s hope today’s social studies books aren’t renamed “Issues of Democracy.” Euphemisms and ambiguous words drive me nuts. They are the language of weasels too timid to stand for something. If you won’t admit there are problems, if you call them “issues” instead, you won’t feel the urgency to solve them.
Endless debate. The idea of “Problems of Democracy” is that free, representative government isn’t itself the end to every social ill. Democracy is the tool, the great system that guides free minds to corrections and cures. Dictatorships don’t publish books called “Problems of Dictatorship,” because dictators have to pretend there is nothing wrong with their closed, unaccountable regimes. Democracies don’t work like that.
“Problems of Democracy” is a concept the world’s new democracies will have to learn quickly. They can’t celebrate their first free election and go to sleep. Democracy seeks peace, but it must not be calm. Democracy demands alert minds because democracy is an endless argument.
As we learned in high school, democracy is always looking for the next problem to solve.
Frank Warner
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