Democracy is defined by mass participation and communal dialogue at a local and also practical level; it is direct, equal and inclusive. There is no democracy without love, economic redistribution and non-hierarchical social relations; university professors and political economy specialists seem to overlook these most basic and important of principles. Representative democracy is subject to corporate influence, media manipulation and monopolisation by the dominant socio-economic class. It is a supplanted version that bears little resemblance to the hallmarks of a real democracy, which requires direct dialogue within a popular assembly. We are deluded by the idea of democratic pluralism when in reality there is none, nor do we grasp the reality that modern politics is nothing more than an arena designed to keep the human ego occupied and the mind outer-directed. We are too busy reading newspapers forming narcissistic and second-hand opinions to engage in healthy deconstructive and cathartic processes. Most countries operate a two party system and election-day choice is usually reduced to a shade of grey. Always, the two main parties agree on the same fundamental free market ideology, and its pseudo notion of fulfilment. Parties are separated only by vapid trivialities and trite differences that serve to act as a distraction from the real issues and social conflicts. Alternatives to the current socio-economic order are never discussed, like communal co-operatives or worker-management projects. Nor is real education about the inner world of human consciousness ever proposed or implemented. Liberal democracy is presented to us as the end of history, what Fukuyama and others like him call capitalism’s logical conclusion.
