Democracy as a word finds its linguistic origins in fifth-century Greece. As a concept, however, the term immortalizes an eternal human longing.
We are easily influenced at birth and during the formative years, but these influences can wane as we experience maturity and life’s realities. We naturally evolve within, and many want different realities than those they have inherited.
Human organization has led to a consistent pattern of domination at every level, and the spirit of all of us wants to be free of it. Individual power is a natural place for a creature receiving intellect and choice to gravitate to. To some degree, freedom is the longing of every one of us at every stage of life.
However, along comes the necessity and options for management of affairs and resources, and we awaken to find ourselves subjected to the wills and whims of the most domineering and successful organizers. This human domination is then imposed on us as a desirable influence and a natural right of the organizing elite. Such poppycock is sold and delivered on the wings of religious and political ideologies and entities, as the natural right of authoritative power in general, and embedded through the essential rites of culture. Sometimes it will even be promoted as the delivered fulfillment of our own longings, with subjection to the entity expressed as an inherited responsibility.
Democracy, as we know it, fits neatly into this bundle. A popular and powerful version seemingly allows for the power players to get their way and for the people to get their way, too! Why, only under this umbrella do the people seemingly get to influence the selection of their dictators and aristocrats! It is sad to have to acknowledge this, but sometimes even here, it is “we the people” who prove to be the manipulated dupes.
But the idea of people’s collective power is certainly worth constantly striving for, particularly when goodness is the sought-after gain. Yes, it is worth all the struggles and sacrifices made to achieve, evolve, or improve any measure of democratic reality.