An interesting way of expressing how it feels to be governed by "the other half"- the opposite political colour. The majority religious parish. Health and Saftey. Brussels and Strasbourg. The intellectual or the brute.
This concept of democracy actually as a means of mass dictatorship, oligarchy of the lowest common denominator, tyranny by the lower classes is brought to me by the danish author Kierkegaard. He writes in the context of the French revolution and post napoleonic denmark, a monarchial ally of napoleon until his descent from power after 1812.
His view is a prevailing christian neo conservative one: that the church and monarch allow more freedom and justice for the righteous, pious individual than the movement to democracy. This is of course from the point of view of old Trinity: the capatilist, monarchist and ecumenical establishment. Worse, Keirkegaard was that most ill type of proponent of all things fascist and conservative- he was from a nouveau riche family. Having climbed out from the great unwashed, there is no worse a snob and nazi than the newly baptised of the bourgiouse.
How is this relevant today?
Firstly we can take the bourgious social climbers as the first part of an important schism in the UK: England has become ruled by a large and influential minority, with an americanised philosophy that the provision by the state in family life should be minimalised, or rather that you should not look to the state with any sense of trust in running what little states do now: health and education, with "welfare" being a metademocratic issue for those on subsistance while there is in effect no safety net for injury or unemployment over age 50.
The current unholy coalition is hell bent on a strategy of "divide and conquer" when it concerns these two last bastions health and education, on the basis that we cannot afford the nhs as it is run today ,it needs to be managed locally and as a markey in order to function and that education can be an instrument of tory politics by schools becoming increasingly independent of the state.
As with most conservatives with large or small 'C' they do not want to understand a different view point and life experience than their own over priviledged upbringing and pampered career path. Also they are coming with that solution proposal and then looking for problems to fix, and that has been the case since 1979 and the subsequent over beaurocratisation of both health and education. The NHS after thatcher years left with more managers than beds. Teachers left with more hours unpaid administration than paid teaching infront of classes.
The schism has lead to a major division in that Scotland now votes on independence, having already diverged on a different route. There in is of course a great divide with just under half the population going to be against independence.
Back to the concept: democracy has two or three possibilities for being experienced or percieved as mass-dicatatorship. Firstly as above in the UK , a large minority or even the majority get a government they dont want (in part due to the seat based electoral system ) or a new country border they dont want ,or the exit from the EU in 2015 voting they dont want. The other area is that democracy becomes highjacked by the rich, who realised long ago that it is dictatorshiip by the masses from their perspective. This has happened totally of course in the usa, where they just want to forget that the masses actually can vote for change they dont want.
Secondly as in the USA, there is a federal meta-democracy driven in the uk by the judiciary, the unions and the EU. This centres on human rights and health and safety and fair-trade/movement of goods, capital and people. This can be of course interpreted as the march of the beaurocrat from the social democratic seeds post war on both sides of the atlantic. Incessant and dangerous to many, the courts over turn state rulings and enforce a highest common demonimator on issues which national politicians would like to be seen to have actual power over, even if infact they would bow to juris prudence, given constitutions and the declaration of human rights.
Truly the UK is also en route if not in full swing with the same oligarchical and faceless judicial oriented post democratic status we see in the USA. Scotland is a sore thumb for the rich as is Norway because as an independent state they may well just do better for the average punter and the unwashed silent minority under left wing governance with a more transparent and immediate democracy.
