The Limits of Democracy
The idealism facing reality
At the time of writing, half of Europe is underwater, and the rain just keeps pouring. This comes after a scorching summer that pushed the human experience and the biosphere to its limits. It’s November, and daily temperatures barely dropped below 20°C here in Central Europe. Many fruit trees still hold onto their green leaves, and some are even blooming, thinking it’s already spring.
Yet, what most of our elected officials do is what they’ve done for the past couple of hundred years or so — scheming and plotting against each other in the search for more power. They form secret coalitions and simultaneously shame each other in public, or vice versa. They do whatever’s necessary to cater to their tribe of voters, who are often busy quarreling on online forums to the point of being blind to the reality in which we live. And, of course, they unilaterally support Israel.
But at the same time, there are people who hold this world together, though barely. People like the chiefs of firefighters (and their staff), who work around the clock to keep people safe from incoming deluges, or people like hospital workers who tend to the wounded and hurt. None of them was elected; all of them came to their positions after hearing an inner calling and then working their way up the ranks through competence and effort.
