It’s the openness of democracy that produces its obscurity of meaning its opacity (hidden element)
Why?
Because the excess of surface activity makes it hard to know what’s really going on.
Where as Authoritarian regimes, which run on secrecy, are not difficult to read: their secrecy is visible for all to see. They rule by open secret. The rulers of present-day China or Russia try to hide a lot about their activities, but you’d have to be very blinkered not to notice how much is being hidden.
American democracy, by contrast, is mysterious because it is never clear just how much is being hidden (this is one reason conspiracy theories continue to flourish there). In a vibrant democracy the dissent, the noise, the anger, the incompetence are all readily apparent, yet out of this, over time, come stability and progress. It is hard to fathom. There is nothing cyclical about it. The active and the passive co-exist at every moment, frenetic activity going along with blind faith. The blitzkrieg is on the surface that is why we cannot see its workings.
Why?
Because the excess of surface activity makes it hard to know what’s really going on.
Where as Authoritarian regimes, which run on secrecy, are not difficult to read: their secrecy is visible for all to see. They rule by open secret. The rulers of present-day China or Russia try to hide a lot about their activities, but you’d have to be very blinkered not to notice how much is being hidden.
American democracy, by contrast, is mysterious because it is never clear just how much is being hidden (this is one reason conspiracy theories continue to flourish there). In a vibrant democracy the dissent, the noise, the anger, the incompetence are all readily apparent, yet out of this, over time, come stability and progress. It is hard to fathom. There is nothing cyclical about it. The active and the passive co-exist at every moment, frenetic activity going along with blind faith. The blitzkrieg is on the surface that is why we cannot see its workings.
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