“A wide range of institutions, including democracy….are starting to show signs of acute stress or outright failure. …. In this dangerous historical moment, we need to urgently heed Plato’s warning and re-imagine our social institutions so that they can better contain and address sources of toxicity and instead empower progressive change if impending catastrophes are to be faced and avoided.”
Maintaining our success requires our system of democracy to change and adapt. Democracy is not and never has been a static concept. Over hundreds of years, democracy as a concept has become more ‘democratic’, more inclusive – offering citizens greater voice and greater levels of equality. In an Australian context, the extension of the right to vote to women and to First Nations peoples, as well compulsory voting and the secret ballot are just a few of the most recent significant changes. However, since World War 2 democratic reform in Australia has stagnated. In recent years we haven’t been improving how inclusive our institutions are, despite our society changing rapidly.
Our democracies are facing challenges from multiple fronts, from the implications of rapidly changing technologies, the proliferation of mis and disinformation, echo chambers, diminished trust in institutions, divided communities and rising inequality.
New information technologies are changing our world at a pace we have never seen before, and whilst on one hand they appear to give another avenue for ‘voice’ and another opportunity to improve ‘inclusivity’ – they are having unintended and perhaps unexpected impacts globally. These challenges are reducing the opportunity for us to develop the ‘shared stories’ that shape our civilisation. Instead, we exist in silos, only hearing, or perhaps trusting, those in our tribe. This is driving diminished trust in institutions, a general disillusionment with government and an increasingly divided and contemptuous community.
“If you have a moderated discussion with diverse others, you open up to people from different socio-demographic backgrounds and different points of view, you learn to listen to them as well as speak to them. If the discussions are in-depth enough, people will depolarize.”