Focusing on Democracy and Its History

It feels right now like democracy is dying and people are worshipping the idea of returning to authoritarianism. And that is not just something that is in my head: a bunch of information is coming out about how democracy is backsliding with the rise of populism and as autocracies are starting to rise in influence. It feels like democracy is getting close to being on its last legs and the idea of freedom being good or desirable is starting to fade from the minds of a lot of people as more are being convinced that dictatorships are cool and fun!

It does not help that there seem to be a lot of psychopaths who want to enslave the rest of humanity with autocracy - and calling some of those people psychopaths is not me just being rude to people with different values. There is a group called Qanon - a group that endorses authoritarian ideas related to things like fascism in North America and the restoration of the Soviet Union in Russia. On top of that, according to science, psychopathic traits or having a lack of empathy is a stronger indicator for someone believing in what QAnon believes than being left-wing or right-wing in political orientation.

So now we have plenty of people who lack compassion who want to control everybody else's lives and are slowly convincing everyone else within the United States of America and other parts of the world that the key to humanity's prosperity is them controlling everyone else's lives and making the rest of mankind their bitch. It feels like there is anyone writing anything to back up the corner of democracy and promote the idea that democracy has had a long-lasting, beneficial part of the history of humanity. However, that might be where my writings here on Vocal might be able to come in.

This year, I want to focus on writing more articles related to democracy and the history of democratic institutions to make people hopeful when it comes to democracy being a good ideology to continue to have. There is so much that democracy has been responsible for in cultures around the world and in different points of history that people have not been taught in history, creating this negative image that with the exception of Ancient Greece and - questionably - ancient Rome, democracy is a doomed experiment that only exists to be replaced by SUPERIOR TOTALITARIANISM AND THEOCRACY AND AUTOCRACY and that image needs to be smashed with the truth!

Hopefully, I can spend time writing about different democratic societies and libertarian civilizations that lasted for at least a generation and made great strides for humanity to show how much more has been given to humanity as a whole compared to what most people are shown in the average history class. That is what I want to do for 2024 in terms of my writing!

Citations:

- Andersen, David (July 2019). "Comparative Democratization and Democratic Backsliding: The Case for a Historical-Institutional Approach". Comparative Politics. 51 (4): 645–663. doi:10.5129/001041519X15647434970117. JSTOR 26663952. S2CID 201373568.

- Conner CT. QAnon, authoritarianism, and conspiracy within American alternative spiritual spaces. Front Sociol. 2023 Jun 21;8:1136333. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2023.1136333. PMID: 37425022; PMCID: PMC10325789.

- Ellwood, Beth. (2022) Anti-social personality traits are stronger predictors of QAnon conspiracy beliefs than left-right orientations. https://www.psypost.org/2022/12/anti-social-personality-traits-are-stronger-predictors-of-qanon-conspiracy-beliefs-than-left-right-orientations-64552

- Enders, A., Klofstad, C., Stoler, J., & Uscinski, J. E. (2023). How Anti-Social Personality Traits and Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in Election Fraud, QAnon, and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation. American Politics Research, 51(2), 247-259. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221139434

- Light, Felix (November 30, 2020). "QAnon Gains Traction in Russia". The Moscow Times.