Upgrade Democracy
Written in response to Sticking the pin onto the tail of democracy by Perry Walker, TalkShop published on the RSA blog 12.2.21
Early twenty-first century humans are participants in an enormous shift in social relations mediated by technology. Our politically-divisive times coincide with increasing connectivity with which we can come together or get our POV aired.
5G and AI offer limitless possibilities of technological and social pluralism, yet we seem stuck in echo chambers, unable to activate the web to its democratic potential.
The political potential of our hyper-communication mediated by technology is evidenced in its role in both inciting a breakdown of entrenched hierarchies in a parish council, and the fact that every political uprising over the last twenty years has had its social media platform-of-choice. This clearly shows how technology already facilitates action in favour of a progressive politics.
The flip-side is where the increassing toxicity of white-male design decisions on news feed algorithms, and institutional spying on individuals’ social media posts work together to create a seedy politics of populism and demagoguery.
This is a technological issue in the broadest sense. Foucault talks of technology being ‘techniques that allow individuals to effect by their own means a certain number of operations on their own bodies, minds, souls, and lifestyle, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, and quality of life.’ Is that not also a function of democracy? Foucault understands government as technology. Imagine a democracy that was flexible, iterative, user-centred, and evolving at the same rate as the latest software upgrade for your iPhone?
