Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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fear of democracy is rooted in an fear of the public, often as above stemming in equal measure from ignorance and elitism, the worst possible combination. fear of the public in all its etymological senses, to wit:
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[< Anglo-Norman publik, pupplik, Anglo-Norman and Middle French public, publiq, publique, Middle French publice, publicque, puplique, French public, {dag}publique (adjective) of or relating to the people as a whole (first half of the 13th cent. in Old French), official (end of the 13th cent. or earlier in Anglo-Norman in instrument publik official document), authorized by, serving, or representing the community (end of the 13th cent. or earlier in Anglo-Norman in publique notaire public notary, persoine publique incumbent of a public office), generally known (first half of the 14th cent.), open or available to all members of the community generally (late 14th cent. in lieux publiques and places publiques public places), open to general observation or view, carried out without concealment (c1400), (noun) the community or its members collectively (1391; 1320 in Old French in en public in a public place, publicly, openly), state, nation (1559), audience, spectators collectively (1751) and their etymon classical Latin p{umac}blicus of or belonging to the people as a whole, common to all, universal, of or affecting everyone in the state, communal, authorized, provided, or maintained by the state, available to or enjoyed by all members of a community, in post-classical Latin also conspicuous, clear (4th cent.), of or relating to the nations generally, international (1541 in the passage translated in quot. 1548 at sense A. 2c), alteration (after p{umac}bes, in the senses ‘adult men’, ‘male population’: see PUBES n.) of poplicus < poplus (later populus) PEOPLE n. + -icus -IC suffix. With use as noun cf. also classical Latin p{umac}blicum public interest, use as noun of neuter of p{umac}blicus. Cf. also classical Latin r{emac}s p{umac}blica REPUBLIC n. Cf. Old Occitan, Occitan public (c1170 as adjective and noun, the latter as publico, in sense ‘public treasury’), Catalan públic (13th cent. as adjective and noun; 1150 as adjective in form {dag}púlvego; cf. post-classical Latin pulbichus, pulvichus, both 10th cent. in Catalan sources), Spanish público (late 12th cent. as adjective; 10th cent. as adjective in form pupligo; a1250 as noun), Portuguese público (late 13th cent. as adjective in form {dag}pulvego, early 18th cent. as noun), Italian pubblico (first half of the 13th cent. as adjective in form {dag}publico, first half of the 18th cent. as noun).
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it is fear of the people, fear of transparency, fear of equality, fear of power-sharing, fear of responsibility, fear of consequences for your actions, fear of information-----of having it, of having to think about it weigh it evaluate it act on it---fear of democracy is fear of debate---fear of democracy is fear of uncertainty, it is fear of being adult: it is wanting a paterfamilias who will think and decide for you, it is wanting an Infantile relation to the Law so that you can Think like an Infant in terms of your own immediate needs and their gratification and fuck everybody and everything else. fear of democracy is about wanting artificial hierarchies between social orders so long as you benefit from them (and only so long as you benefit from them are they natural and when you do not benefit from them they are suddenly unnatural)--fear of democracy is about wanting someone Else to have responsibility so that you can shrink your world, it is about wanting someone Else to have information so you don't need to worry about it, gather it, think about it act on it decide about it; it is wanting power to be Elsewhere so that you don't have any; it is about wanting Decisions to be made Elsewhere in Secret by those who have information and responsibility so that you can bother yourself with neither.
fear of democracy is about fear of education. fear of democracy is rooted in an ignorance of history that is only imaginable in an intellectual backwater the size of america. fear of democracy is rampant amongst those who claim to preserve it, to export it, to defend it, those who send other people's children to die for "democracy" in wars far away, so other people's children are sent to die in wars far away for a political system that it seems americans do not have and do not want.
i am feeling particularly anarchist this evening.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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