The Argument Of Terms To Describe The Nature Of Democracy

There are an innumerable amount of terms to describe the nature of democracy, and this paper will aim to bring forth yet another one. Each term has its own different definition attached to it, ranging from the original, participatory form that did not have any notion of a hierarchy, to the more modern liberal democracy that instead relies on this notion of a hierarchy. Democracy is the movement that never stands still; it sails on the ship that is progressiveness. Progress is what has allowed democracy to be shaped and molded so often, and this is largely the reason as to why it has so many different terms that attempt to describe it. The issue with each of these descriptors, however, is that they are only valid until another term is considered …show more content…
It is not always possible to vote out a government every time a population disagrees with it. It is in these times of disagreement where it is up to the people to step up in protest. It becomes further justified when a government is not only incompetent, but when it actively oppresses its people from exercising their rights. This is where revolutionary thinkers like Karl Marx and Slavoj Zizek are important. Marx, for example, believed that the best way to re-balance society was through the ballot box. That is, until a government denies the people the political expression they are entitled to through modern democracy, this includes free speech, free assembly, and freedom of the press. It is then the job of the people to demand change through nonviolent revolution. For this to work, there needs to be enough anger, and enough people who are willing to stand up for change. To draw from Zizek’s work, these movements are like “rage banks”, and the people need to invest enough “rage capital” in order for it to succeed. If a movement does not have enough people who are angry enough to demand change, then it there is not a large enough problem for something to be done about it. An example of how this works was put on display recently here in Mount Allison where students gathered to protest a change in the budget that would see them paying for correspondence courses taken throughout the school year. The students saw what the administration was doing and decided that this change was not progress, but rather that it would see their school regress towards something they did not agree with. The demonstration was nonviolent in nature, and managed to garner enough of this rage capital in order to succeed in having the senate review its decision. This is how real democracy works, and this is the nature of progressive