Silvia: It's the mythological figure,
half goat, half horse,
Astra: The woman by the goat, she's sawing something,
- Yes, I think she's sawing the social body,
The saw is the sign of division,
- It's a good metaphor, I think,
for our problems today,
The social body being sawed apart,
- Absolutely,
- For me, this project began with the question;
"What is democracy?"
And I quickly realized it's not something
that's ever actualized,
but always something that is in motion,
a kind of ideal we're reaching towards,
But in practice everywhere you look,
democracy is in trouble,
Progress can go into reverse,
and terrible things have happened
in the name of democracy,
- Yes, it's been so abused,
and so misapplied, you know,
compared to its original meaning,
which means the power of the people,
the government of the people,
But so many have fought for the realization
of a true democracy,
that in a way it's important
not to abandon the word,
- Right, but we also need to think hard
about what that word even means,
- Yes, - Mhmm,
- Exactly,
Astra: In my mind democracy does this remarkable thing
by inviting all of us to come together
and ask the Socratic question;
How should we live?
And yet the most prominent, ancient philosophers
were profoundly sceptical
of our ability to rule ourselves, right?
Woman: The fundamental question I think,
motivating the whole of ancient philosophy,
is the question of happiness,
What is it that makes a life worth living, okay?
A good life,
In Plato and Aristotle, the ground on which the answer
to this question is built is a city,
A good life is one guaranteed by a good city,
A bad life is one people lead in a bad city,
Now what makes a good city good,
and this is something that both Plato and Aristotle will say,
is justice,
A good city is a just city,
But even before they tried to define what justice is,
I think they will both hold that justice is good
because it ensures the unity of the city,
For Plato, the basic factors
which endanger the unit of a city are wealth,
and its counterpart, poverty,
Plato says in "The Republic," in Book Eight,
that rich people want to become richer,
This is the desire that motivates them,
So in becoming richer, they will take from others,
they will put the others in a situation of debt,
and it will make the others increasingly poorer,
So this will break the city into two cities,
we'll have the city of the rich, and the city of the poor,
And one part of the city will stand against
the other part of the city,
And this will initiate civil war,
What poor people will do eventually,
they will follow any demagogue
that will promise them
to overthrow the rich,
And this, for Plato, will eventually and inevitably
lead to tyranny,
He says that, you know, the passage is from democracy
to tyranny because of that,
This is why, in "The Republic",
he wants the rulers to be absolutely indigent,
having no property whatsoever,
because the rulers will rule the city
not because of ambition, or love of money,
or love of honours,
but because the city has brought them up,
So, they will have a moral and political obligation
towards the city,
So you see, this might be something
that would be relevant for us today,
because we live,,,
in a shattered,
dismembered society,
and this society has been dismembered
because of extreme economical inequality,
And what we're faced with
is the need to re-member
this dismembered society,
- Ten dollar t-shirts!
- "Women for Trump" t-shirt, ten dollars,
I've got hats too,
Donald Trump: This election will decide
whether we are ruled by a corrupt political class,
or whether we are ruled by the people,
We're going to be ruled by the people, folks,
Crowd: Yeah!
- Trump was probably the legal hand grenade
that we could've thrown-that we've thrown into the system,
People voted for Trump for different reasons,
The same people who voted for Obama in the Rust Belt,
voted for Trump,
Believe it, that's how it is,
The Democratic Party left the poor, blue-collar,
working man behind,
You can't just forget about poor white people,
you have to look out for them,
Trump, like in Detroit,
when he stood in front of the Ford Corporation and said,
if you take these jobs to Mexico,
I'm gonna put a tariff on it,
That appealed,
- We're Americans, and Donald Trump said,
I'm gonna put Americans first, you know,
People have different opinions of immigration laws,
If we don't have a border, we don't have a nation,
If we don't have strong borders and it affects our economy,
Americans do suffer,
If America is better,
then we can have more immigrants come in,
and we can-you know, they can make their lives better,
It's not that we wanna keep everyone out,
and that we don't want them to have opportunity,
it's that we need to be able to be successful ourselves,
Astra: But when I hear people chanting, "build a wall!"
I don't hear a lot of welcoming to--
- Illegal immigrants, Astra: Mhmm,
So democracy, what does it mean to you?
- When I think about something the word that inspires me
is not democracy, it's, you know, the phrase,
"The American Dream", And that ability to climb,
Astra: So Plato was writing at a time
that was very different from ours,
but it's, his challenge still holds,
Cornel: Yeah, it's not that different, actually,
I mean, you tell me when we,,, - Yeah, Keep going, Yeah,
- Yeah, No,
The fact that the founding texts
of the Western philosophical tradition,
"Plato's Republic"
provides the most powerful indictment
of not just democratic practices,
but the possibility of democracy,
And he argues that every democratic experiment,
every experiment in which those Sly Stone called,
"everyday people", attempt to govern themselves,
will result in tyranny,
because there is too much unruly passion,
and pervasive ignorance among the demos,
among everyday people,
See, I come from a people, a black people,
who have suffered in forms of being terrorized,
traumatized and stigmatized
in the name of majority rule,
So democracy cannot be simply majority rule,
If it was majority rule,
black folk could easily have remained enslaved to Jim Crow,
it was not democratic processes,
Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
was dictatorial, it was not democratic,
You see, Brown v, Board in 1954,
for school integration,
Came from a counter majoritarian institution
called a Supreme Court,
it didn't come from the majority,
If the majority of Americans were to vote in 1954
for school integration,
it never would've passed,
What's fascinating about my own tradition,
Martin Luther King Jr,,
and Fannie Lou Hamer, and the others,
the radical democrats coming from the chocolate side of town
coming from beneath American democracy,
coming from the enslaved, and the Jim Crow
and the Jane Crow,
is that we still held on to notions of democracy,
but they were democratic critiques of the truncated
democratic practices in America,
So we're still wrestling with Plato's challenge,
Plato's challenge will never go away,
because the fascist possibilities
of any democratic experiment are always there,
I don't care which part of the world you're talking about,
Astra: So is this where the magic happens?
- This where the magic happens,
Woman: There's one of our members down there now,
Say hello, children, Children: Hi!
- Hello, hello, - That's Representative Michaux,
from Durham County, and he sits--
show 'em where you sit, Representative Michaux,
- Over here,
- That's our actual House Member,
he's the longest serving House Member, too,
He's been here 40 years,
Anyone have a question you wanna ask?
It's a great opportunity to ask a member something,
Boy: What do you do in this building?
- I sit right there, and every time a vote comes up, I vote,
I help write laws, I help make laws, uh,
to how you operate, and how your school operates,
how the State operates,
And anything that happens,
you can blame it on them, not me,
This was the original Legislative Black Caucus,
this was the three of us,
the first three in the 20th Century,
That's Barack in his younger days,
And that's crazy Jesse and me,
And this is the only thing I've got with Martin and me,
A lot of folks will say the Klan now dresses up
in suits and vests,
which is basically true,
I look at, I look for instance at a,,,
I look at the Republican Caucus in this body,
It's all white,
I mean, they don't have a black face
in their Republican Caucus,
During slavery,
you had perfect classism there,
You had black folks who were slaves,
then you had the overseers who were white,
blue collar folks,
and then you had plantation owners,
The thing there was the plantation owners
kept the fear among the overseers
that black folks were gonna take over,
so the overseers did their worst
on the black folks
to keep them from coming in and taking their jobs,
and the white folks sittin' up at the top,
enjoying it all,
without any discomfort at all,
That's-that's-I mean,
the analogy to me is there,
You've got rich white folks sittin' up there,
middle class folks sittin' here,
you've got-let me back up,
I don't mean to be racist in any way,
You got rich folks sittin' up there,
you got middle class folks sittin' there,
and you got the rest of us sittin' down here,
And those in the middle are told by those at the top,
you better watch those at the bottom,
'cause they're comin' after you,
and we sittin' up there makin' all the money,
Martin had always told me, he said,
Mickey, you know, we talk about economics,
we talk about civil rights, we talk about it, he said,
but you know, none of this can be done
unless we have somebody in the seats of power
where the laws are made,
He said, politics is the way of life,
We need economic power, he said,
more desperately than any other group in American society,
but in order to get that,
we've got to become involved politically,
He said, "You'd do a good job,"
I said, "Martin, you're crazy,"
When I first got elected, we were coming out
of that period of Jim Crow,
when you had literacy laws involved,
you had poll taxes involved,
you had everything involved
to keep black folks from voting,
When I came into office things were beginning to improve,
and one of the things I took on was voting rights,
And then we started opening up same day registration,
out of precinct voting, early voting,
16, 17-year-old registration,
all of these things,
here again, politics played a role in it,
and-and my name was on most of all of that stuff
that was passed during that,
Now it's being taken away,
- This was the first election
without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act,
From the White House, to the Republican Legislature,
they keep telling the lie about voter fraud,
and not the truth about voter suppression,
Since 2010, we've had 22 States
that have passed voter suppression laws,
where you've had the highest turnout
of black and brown people,
And on election day,
there were 868 fewer polling places
in States with histories of discrimination,
And there were 158 less voting sites
in the black communities in North Carolina,
When people will cheat like that,
standing down is not an option!
- Yes!
William: But you also must hear me,
this is not just about a president,
We miss it if we think it is, Man: That's right!
- This is about an entire web of money,
and influence,
and white hegemony
that has been working to tie up the American democracy
from the very inception of this country,
And they've been working not from DC down,
but from school boards, and county commissioners,
and state legislatures up,
That is why they fear a crowd like this,
Even as the divide between the rich and the poor
is the widest in our nation's history,
our Electorate is growing more diverse every year,
And wealthy oligarchs
know that they cannot hold on to power
in truly democratic elections,
So what we are witnessing is an all-out assault,
foreign and domestic,
on the very heart of our democracy,
Woman: When I was in Charlotte during the Charlotte uprising,
we were in the street,
I had tear gas all over my arms, all over my neck,
And as we were trying to get safe,
and trying to slow down,
a car just halts, and a guy,
a white man, gets out of his car with a pistol,
Um, and he's just pointing it
at all of the protestors like,
at first he was silent and it was eerie,
because you don't know what he's gonna do,
He ended up getting back into the car,
but that moment, and feeling like, that type of violence,
for asking for the police to stop killing black people,
was a really-it was a game changer for me,
And my mindset that - me asking for my human rights
is offensive to a group of people in this country,
And it's so offensive that they would take my life,
And that me asking for my rights means
that I get to be brutalized by the police, um,,,
it means that I have to take medic training
as a 19-year-old college student,
I have to be able to protect myself against the state,
and I just left my mom's house two years ago, right?
Like, these are real things that are happening, um,,,
and like, it's a lot,
- What is your struggle compared
to the previous generation? Like how do you--
In this world where we flatter ourselves and tell ourselves
stories about the Civil Rights Movement,
and pat ourselves on the back?
- Yeah, I think my struggle is a little bit different
than it was in the 60's and the 50's,
Because you're dealing with like the covert racism,
and you're dealing with like,
uh, institutional racism, and mass incarceration,
So, we've still got the 60's issues, they're still there,
but now the state and the capitalists
have built all of these structures to keep us
from getting in, and they've locked the door,
fifty times over,
And we thought that getting the vote was the key,
We thought that,,,
going to school with these people,
we thought that that was key,
and we keep trying to figure out what these keys are,
and it's not opening the door,
It's not opening the door to liberation,
Black folks still aren't free, and we keep trying,
so like, what's next, right?
Do we keep asking? Do we keep voting?
Do we take what's ours? Like, what do we do?
Democracy, it doesn't feel like this in my head,
It doesn't feel like being scared for my life,
it doesn't feel like,,,
knowing I'm gonna be in debt in two years,
It doesn't feel like my family being incarcerated
for having a little bit of marijuana,
It doesn't-that's not what democracy feels like to me,
Effimia: This is the agora,
Agora means, "a get together,"
This particular agora, which is the Athenian Agora,
actually denotes the beginning of democracy,
This structure is a landmark of the Athenian democracy,
Cleisthenes, an aristocrat, in 508 B,C,,
made major reforms, or introduced major reforms
in the political life of Athens,
and a lot of historians, and everybody actually,
think that this is the birth moment of democracy,
So that's why it's so important, okay?
Would you like to hear what he did?
- Yes, - Oh, okay,
That's very complicated,
but I adore this moment of the Greek,
of Athenian life, okay?
Now, what happens is that before that,
just before Cleisthenes introduced his reforms,
there was a riot, I love this idea,
there was a riot of the citizens, okay?
You have a riot because it was a period
of the Athenian life where people still
had centres of power around wealthy aristocrats,
Instead of that,
Cleisthenes tried to create another notion,
the notion of belonging to your polis,
and not to the aristocratic family of your neighbourhood, okay?
And what he did is very, very interesting,
Let's suppose that this is Athens,
and that this zone here represents the coast,
this zone here represents the urban place,
and this is the countryside, okay,
So, the idea of Cleisthenes was to break down
and abolish completely
all the local centres of power,
which were created around a powerful aristocrat,
and the clientele around him, okay?
So, you have to redesign the political space,
He takes these zones, and he mixes up everybody
to create a new collectivity,
It's completely arbitrary,
but the new political space
is now based on this new division,
And you have people who've never seen each other before,
and they have to work together for a year,
This is a new community, okay,
it's a community of citizens, not a community of;
oh, Astra is my friend, and I love her very much,
and hm, hm, hm, you are my friend too,
and we will have our little interests,
and I'll support her, and she will support me,
No, you have to support somebody whom
you've never seen in your life,
and work together to support your polis,
To be an Athenian means that you are over and above
the individuals, okay? You are,,,
Oh! I'll have to find something more elegant,
an elegant way to say it,
Because this is so important,
because that brings us to how we should change
the way we think, and this is,,,
this is how I think things can progress
in all sort of areas in our lives,
We need to change the way we think,
and we need to start thinking that we belong
to other communities, other collectivities,
than the modern way of living brought us to believe,
Walter: I worked at a continence store,
the boss man was not that nice,
He made me work 15 hours,
I would go in at 6:00 o'clock in the morning
and get out at 10,,, at night,
Working like 15 hours,
and not getting paid for overtime,
I was working, I was making like 6-5 dollars an hour,
Astra: Let's begin with democracy,
because I personally even wrestled a bit
with making this the theme of the film,
Like, but I couldn't,,, I kept returning to democracy,
- That's great, - Right, so--
- Great, great, so you're almost a metaphor
for our problem, - Right,
- Which is, on the one hand,
democracy is this totally fluid
and stretchable notion today,
it can be appropriated by anybody for anything,
it has been appropriated for terrible purposes,
for Imperialism, for colonial conquest,
for um,,,
smashing unions,
for undoing affirmative action,
all kinds of things happen in the name of democracy
that you might object to, and that I might object to,
And it has many possible forms,
but then we think okay, so just let's get away from it,
let's have something else,
let's go to a different form
for understanding justice,
or for centering our own projects of freedom,
equality, emancipation,
just living, inclusion, and so forth, Sustainability,
And we keep coming back to it,
And I think we keep coming back to it for a simple reason,
it captures the idea of people governing themselves,
rather than being governed by something else,
And the etymology of the term "demos kratia"
simply gives you that in a nutshell,
it's "the people rule", and the alternative is,
we are ruled by a part,
we are ruled by an aristocracy,
we are ruled by a tyrant,
we are ruled by an oligarchy,
we are ruled by technocracy,
we're ruled by something other than ourselves,
And what we see today I think, is a strong temptation
to just turn the whole business of governing
over to technocrats, not just to corporations,
not just to the wealthy,
but to, essentially, human versions of algorithms,
Or algorithms themselves,
as opposed to the interested,
the passionate, the political,
let alone the popular,
And the idea is, you know,
there are just a few who really know,
put them together in a room, and let them run the world,
- Yeah, - I find that terrifying,
I think it is terrifying
because it imagines that it has no political interests,
but in fact it's totally shaped by a world that is now
itself largely governed by finance,
And so it has tremendous political interests,
- And it's also not democratic, because it's not self-rule,
it's the ruled by profit and loss,
by external metrics, - Absolutely,
It's not choosing and deliberating
about who we want to be,
what kind of people we want to be,
what we want to become,
how we want to conduct ourselves,
it's simply living according to what you've just described,
these very narrow norms of what is to be done,
which is what enhances value, what depreciates value,
What brand might succeed, what brand will fail you?
It's a very narrow universe of thought and of conduct,
and so you're absolutely right,
it doesn't have self-governance in it,
either in the individual, or in the collective sense,
Silvia: In the 13th Century,
in Siena and surrounding areas,
a banking system emerged,
So what this town represents
is really the beginning,
it's the first elements of a capitalist society,
In 1287, there was a revolt in Siena
that gave power to an oligarchy of merchants and bankers,
This is the room where they used to meet,
And then around 1330,
they commissioned the painting of this room,
And what we are looking at is
the legally of good government
and bad government, you know,
Good government on the central wall,
and on the right side
we have the affects of good government,
And on the left side,
we have the affects of bad governments,
This painting is supposed to celebrate the government,
and to, you know, legitimize it
as a just government,
as a government that's capable of guaranteeing
the prosperity of the town,
and it's a government that takes into account
the interests of all, - Mhmm,
- That, of course, is the claim,
- So it's propaganda for the oligarchs,
- Yeah, That's the image of themselves,
The central character is a very patriarchal figure,
He represents the common good,
and the good government sits among virtues,
peace, we have fortitude,
we have justice,
Temperance must know the limit, right?
So, for example, you're not supposed to flaunt your wealth,
because you can provoke, here, envy,
And envy generates discord,
And here's tyranny, right?
Tyranny is the concentration of power,
Tyranny is privilege, is abuse, is injustice,
Astra: Even in this painting from so long ago,
can we see modern day tyranny?
Silvia: Yes, there is a connection,
It's the greed, the, you know,
absence of an awareness,
and acceptance of limits, yeah,
It's the beginning of a long, historical process
where the rule of money has extended itself
to every corner of the world,
Astra: I have been trying to distil this into one question,
and the question is, who rules?
- Who rules? Well,,,
if we see democracy as the rule of the people,
certainly it's not the rule of the people,
We have deified the market,
As if it is some entity unto itself,
We have given up power basically,
as societies, as citizens,
We have undermined our own democracy by saying,
we give the power to who?
To the markets,
When I was elected in 2009,
I had to deal with a crisis
where we had a deficit of 16%,
a debt that had doubled,
So I had a choice: either we go bankrupt,
or we decide to ask for loans from our partners
in the European Union, and the IMF,
We have very important challenges ahead of us,
amongst them of course are the decisions
we are making in Greece,
We are committed to make the major changes,
Markets were pounding us,
and we were pressured by our lenders
to make massive cuts,
George: Standing up to the markets would've been great,
but in a small country like Greece, I mean,
we don't have that power to be able to withstand
these huge um,,, forces,
Zoe: The narrative has been
that Greeks have been living beyond their means,
that they have overspended public money,
and now it's time to pay the bill,
This is a lie,
The creditors pretend to lend money to Greece,
but this money never comes to the Greek state,
Actually, 92% of the money
supposedly given to Greece
is going back to the creditors,
They even like to call this a bailout program,
pretending that they save the Greek society,
while they're really saving themselves and their banks,
- Yes, mama,
Effinia: Can you hear me well? - Yeah,
- One thing we've been wanting to talk to people about is
how the economic crisis
is affecting you generation?
Woman: I'm 23,
so from 2009,
where the global economic crisis started, I was 16,
For me, all the most important stuff was the occupation
of the Squares in 2011,
RBD was a public assembly,
and it was for me a great experiment
of an entire democracy,
People from all kinds of different backgrounds
came and they discussed, and they self-organized
in very impressive numbers,
Everyone thought that it was time for change,
And Syriza was a political result of that,
Aspasia: We thought that the Party
had owed its loyalty to the people,
and would be an instrument to voice
the interests of the people,
and we thought that after all these years of fighting,
that we achieved that, in a way,
And oh, we were, oh, we were so naive,
Zoe: The referendum was a historical moment
for the Greek people,
The people were given a say for their lives,
for their dignity,
for their future, for their destiny,
Zoe: The people were far more courageous
than their leadership,
and they by a 62% vote said no
to the blackmails addressed to them,
This was a sovereign, democratic decision
that nobody had the right to violate,
Zoe: And yet, eight days later,
the country's creditors and the country's government,
reached a so-called agreement
to implement the very measures
that had been rejected by the people,
What happened was a betrayal,
It's very important for societies to realize
that it's time to fight against this kind of new tyranny,
Which is attacking the people and democracy
through economic and banking means,
- It's been a struggle to try to like, live here in Denmark,
and also know how many things are going on back home,
and how much people are suffering,
and if I would be needed there, to help,
All of my classmates are leaving,
No one, almost no one is staying,
We need to like, have a chance at this life,
It's very difficult for me to leave Greece,
and that's, I think,
a big like ethical dilemma for me,
That,,, if not us, then who will change?
I think,,,
Are you crying?
Effinia: Yes, of course I'm crying,
I hope politically that one day
I will be able to come, to come back,
that the political situation will,,, will better,
and the European situation will better,
so I will be able to come back and help,
help the place that I know so much about,
and I love so much about, and I have pained so much for,
Silvia: These are the mens of power in the town,
Now all these men are men of money,
are men of property,
They are the one who inhabit those beautiful houses
with the big towers,
You tried to build your tower as tall as possible,
as a manifestation of your prosperity and your power,
In a sense the tower was really an expression--
- The phallus? - Yeah, phallic,
a phallic symbol of power, exactly,
This is a moment in which power,
it's very physically accessible,
It's still embodied in local structures,
that are very accessible, you know, to the citizen,
And in that sense can,
it's possible to imagine to overthrow it,
Those exploiters, or those men of power,
are within the reach,
They are within the wall of the city,
You can think of overthrowing,
you can organize yourself to overthrow them,
This is something that has changed immensely,
Today, we don't even see money,
the physicality of money,
It's beginning to disappear,
You know, when people had the bag of coins,
they carried the bag of coin,
But today money's running around the globe
at the speed of light,
Those seeds of capitalism, that we see here,
has now fully blossomed,
So it has become much more difficult, in fact,
to think of a democratization
that starts from the local level
because the global today is so much in mesh
into the local,
- Yeah, I love this idea too of power is less visible today,
If we can't identify it, - Yes,
- we also have a harder time resisting it,
- Exactly, Power appears as an abstract system,
Astra: I wanna ask you about Rousseau,
He's this pivotal philosopher,
In a way, he's the first modern defender of democracy,
Wendy: Yes,
For Rousseau, the meaning of democracy,
and the meaning of freedom
is self-governance,
self-legislation,
It's not what often is called now negative freedom,
liberty, or freedom from the state,
and freedom from each other,
It's freedom with one another
to set the terms of our existence,
And Rousseau's a pretty lone voice in the history
of modern democratic theory,
in pushing that point,
about freedom being collective self-determination,
as opposed to the right to be let alone,
And yet Rousseau understands also,
that to culture democracy, to nourish democracy,
you have to have a people oriented
toward the desire to govern themselves,
And that moderns,
especially because of what he calls commercial society,
or commerce, what we would call capitalism,
are much more inclined to be kind of self-interested,
and self-involved,
So you actually have to produce,
through education, through culture,
through what he calls civic religion,
the orientation toward governing ourselves in common,
And the willingness to be governed in common,
to submit to what the common determines
as what we should do,
what we should-- how we should live,
what our laws should be,
So he-he runs up against the problem
that the thing he thinks will make us free,
which is governing ourselves in common,
is also not something that's just automatically there
in our natures,
It has to be cultivated, it has to be cultured,
it has to be brought about by the very laws,
and by the very form
that he's trying to get us to respect and to honour,
but that won't be produced out of human beings
who don't necessarily incline in that direction,
So that's what we call Rousseau's Paradox,
How do you make democracy out of an undemocratic people?
That's our problem today,
Astra: Do you live in a democracy?
- Yes, absolutely,
- Do you live in a democracy?
- Democracy, is that-doesn't that mean that they tell you
what to do? Like, democ-- - No,
- Do you live in a democracy? - Yes,
- Do you trust the government? - No,
- Do you vote? - No!
- No, I do not, And I'll never vote, ever,
- If there's one issue you think is undermining
our democracy, what is it? It can be anything,
- Great question,
- One issue,,,
immigration,
- I feel like we have a very,,,
like for instance,
if your parents make a certain amount of money,
you're not going to get help from the government,
But if you're below a certain amount,
and like, you're a different race,
you're gonna get help,
Versus, if you're a person
that's lived here your whole life, and you're white,
and I'm not trying to be racist, 'cause I'm not,
you're gonna,,, if you are a different nationality,
you're going to get help,
Versus somebody who has grown up here,
who's lived here, who has, you know,
worked since they were 16,
and your parents make above
the FASFA amount of money,
- $150,000, - We're not gonna get money,
And I think that that's bull crap,
Angela: Well, I haven't been to Miami in a long time,
let me say that, Woman: Welcome!
- The first time I came -
well, I won't talk about the first time I came to Miami,
I was running from the FBI the first time I came,
- We have to abolish rather than fix the system,
The system cannot be fixed!
- I always like to go back to W,E,B, Du Bois,
and his notion of abolition,
Because so many of the problems we are confronting
are a direct consequence of the fact
that slavery was never fully abolished!
Du Bois argued that the abolition of slavery
would not simply be the dismantling of the institution,
but rather the creation of new conditions,
new institutions,
a new democracy,
Because what he argued was that the democracy
that we were all familiar with
could not be the same if former slaves
began to participate on a basis of equality,
It would have to be a very different democracy,
not the democracy of the founding white fathers,
And so, that challenge,
that was the challenge of the end of the 19th Century,
It was the challenge of the 20th Century,
And it remains the challenge of the 21st Century,
Man: Come on in, come on in,
Yeah! How are you?
Oh, good to see you, So good to see you!
- Good to see you, how are you doing?
- Very well, very well,
Oh, anywhere you wanna sit, Anywhere, yeah, yeah,
This is your house,
All right, all right,
Man: Is that good? - How's it goin'?
- I believe in real democracy,
but I believe in a democracy of the people,
not in what we call bourgeois democracy,
or the democracy of the ruling class,
because they definitely had democracy amongst themselves,
even though we're not allowed to participate in that,
We're given the illusion that we can participate in it,
but we're not allowed to participate in it,
And that's why we are sometimes confused
about what democracy is, because we're looking,,,
we're on the outside looking in,
- What is democracy, yes,
but that question to me is like,,,
it defeats the purpose of asking it,
because we know what it is,
We know what they claim for it to be,
Black people have been the experiment of democracy,
We have been at the expense of this so-called democracy,
So what is democracy good for us?
It's never been good for us,
There's never been a democracy
um, you know, to me, in my mind,
So if that's the case it's kinda like,
fuck it, it's not even, you know,
why are we having this conversation?
- If we are going to struggle to make it better world,
a more democratic world, we all first must agree
that all lives has equal values,
Once we all agree on that,
I think we can definitely stretch
the concept of democracy,
To me, I just see another period,
historical moment that we're in,
where we can either leap together forward,
or we can go back,
- I think it's really important when talking about democracy,
especially in Miami, being a global city full of immigrants,
who gets to be like, a citizen, right?
And who gets this global citizenship,
and who is able to be mobile,
and what's able to be mobile?
Zygmunt Bauman said that like, mobility and late modernity
is a lot more important than capital,
and I think we can see it in a lot of cases, right,
My family came from Nicaragua
with the funding of the Contra terrorists,
and the overthrowing of the revolutionary
Sandinista government,
They came over here, they got papers right,
which was a concession from Ronald Reagan,
But a lot of the other Central Americans,
El Salvador, Guatemala, they didn't get the papers,
They get deported, they don't get citizenship,
they don't get to participate,
And it's really important to me like,
who gets to count, who gets counted,
- We're living in a place where there are people
from Central America, from all over the Caribbean,
from South America, you know,
there's all of these different people here,
And I don't see any difference between a Jamaican being like,
well, what do I need to learn about the Bahamians?
A person from Nicaragua would be like,
what the fuck do I need to know about black Americans,
or like, a black American can be like,
what the fuck do I need to know about Cubans, right?
We're closing ourselves off
to everyone else from the get-go,
and if we don't stop doing that,
we're not gonna learn how to pick pieces of the puzzle up
to put together something brand new,
- There's some shards of glass, and he went to like,
three different hospitals until he came in here,
- Why'd he have to go to three different hospitals?
- I don't know,
Tanya: There's a lot of violence here in Miami,
In fact we have so much violence that the US Army
does come here for pre-deployment training
as their medics, prior to going off to Iraq or Afghanistan,
Rishi: For many years now in fact,
they see more trauma here
than they do on their deployment in a war zone,
And that's I think become normalized,
No one seems to blink their eyes at what sounds
like a ridiculous fact,
- Yes, And that is abnormal,
I really believe trauma is a political disease,
We have issues like,
why is homicide the number one cause of death
for young African American men?
Astra: Is it? - It is,
- The problem is the despair
that comes from poverty,
and the feeling like, I got nothin' to lose,
- If you have no way to support yourself,
let alone your family,
children that might be dependent on you for survival,
if you have no way to support yourself,
you're gonna do anything you can,
- It's not just the poverty here, it's the disparity,
It's the extent of extreme richness,
right next to extreme poverty,
- I jump on my bicycle every day on my way to work,
and I'm going across the Venetian Causeway,
which is where you see multi-million dollar homes,
it's beautiful, you know, palm trees,
everything that you can stereotypically think
about for Miami, and South Beach, and whatnot,
Ten minutes later you're in an area of the city
like Overtown, which is extremely poor,
and it's that extreme inequality,
which has been linked directly to homicide rates,
cardiovascular disease for both rich and poor people,
When you have vast inequality, it's worse for everyone,
- I remember when I was in elementary school,
the, you know, the janitor was an adult white man, right?
But at the time, on the salary of a janitor,
an adult white man could have a family,
could have a vacation, could have a car,
But now on the salary of a janitor,
you hear so many times that they can't afford any of that,
and they, and they're, you know,
one inch away from homelessness,
So something's changed in society, because when,,,
you know, I remember his name, Mr, Novak,
Mr, Novak was respected, and could earn enough
being the janitor, working one job,
to have a family, and have a life,
- Yeah, that's a huge shift in our time,
- And that's changed, - Yes,
- Well, that shift from the economy, I think,
is not accidental, - No,
- I mean, I think that's a result of
the idea of democracy, or a democratic government
being co-opted by corporations, and not the people,
whether they're disenfranchised from poverty,
or lack of education, or lack of access,
So I think it is all tied together that these state
and federal government policies that are pushed
by special interest groups, or corporations,
or people who have a lot of money,
I think it does trickle down and affect the people's lives,
- Here's where my Commie friends are goin' off the rail,
So, so capitalism works to keep things functioning
until it gets out of balance,
And I will agree, right now, it's out of balance,
The money is concentrating too much at the very high end,
- But would you say that's deliberate?
- It's outta control,
I don't think there is a Dr, Evil somewhere
scheming to do it, I'm actually very moderate,
And so to both sides I'll say right,
so for, to Tanya I'll say well, I understand,
you know, you drive through this place
where is full of abject poverty,
but I don't expect that you are gonna keep coming
to work every day, and then, and then,
what do you do with that at the extreme, right?
Just hand over all your money into a pool,
and let everybody who's not working share it?
You know, that's not gonna work,
and at the other extreme, we have the people who say,
deny healthcare to everybody if they can't pay for it,
You know, I'm not supporting this with my taxes,
Okay, fine, well, I'd like you to take up arms,
and stand outside the hospital, and when they come up
And they can't pay to come in,
you go ahead and just shoot them, right?
So, and they're not gonna do that either,
So there's these two extremes and the proper answer's
somewhere in the middle, and I don't know where it is,
Astra: If you could cure the social body, what would you do?
- Spend more on education, and less on guns and prisons,
- Education, - Yeah, hands down,
- From the very beginning, - Public education,
Astra: The idea of democracy is that the people rule,
and so that's one thing I wanna talk to you guys about is,
how do you feel?
Do you feel like you have a say in your school?
Is that a place where you feel
like you have any say over how things go?
- I don't think we have a say
because it's run by people bigger than us,
and bigger than the school, Like, it's a whole county,
so I don't think we really have a say,
- Whatever rules they establish we've just gotta follow,
so like, there's nothing else
we could like say to defend ourselves,
we just gotta do whatever they say,
Astra: Is democracy something you talk about in school,
and that you've learned about it in history classes,
and stuff? - Yeah,
- It's like, about government,
like different branches, and like that,
They don't ask us oh, so how do you feel about our school?
How do you,,, like, no,
Astra: Does anybody ever think about school being another way?
Like, could you imagine a school where the kids,
where the students actually had some sort of seat at the table,
and were allowed to have a vote or voice in things?
- People inside a school should have something to say,
but it's really not gonna matter,
'cause like I said, it's the other people ruling it,
Even one-like, my voice is not really gonna change nothin',
Astra: How about beyond your school?
When you look at your parents,
do you feel like they have a kind of say
in the way things are going in the world, or in the society,
like more of a say than y'all?
- I don't think people, like up high in power,
really wanna hear like, a black mom
from, that's poor, and like in a ghetto,
I don't think nobody really wanna hear what she gotta say,
- It's like survival of the fittest,
'cause if she speaks out and say whatever she gotta say,
they might just find somebody else better for the job,
That probably not gonna talk, what they gotta say,
'cause there's plenty of people
that probably want the same job she have, so,
It's better just to go out, do whatever you have to do,
and get it over with,
Jacques: If you could change something in the school,
what would it be?
- Well, we have good school lunch,
but some days, they just not really on it,
Like, the food don't have no flavour,
or somethin' like that, but if you come to the principal,
he's like, food is food,
children in Africa don't get food,
so you should just be grateful,
- I know that one day they're gonna get tired
at a point of us keep on asking them can they warm up our food,
that they just gonna say,
how 'bout we just make some better lunch, or somethin',
Astra: What if the students got together and said,
we're gonna all work together to try to get better lunch,
or warm lunch, that seems a really basic demand to me,
it should at least be warm,
- Like, the "get together" part it's-I mean,
you have a right to do that, but,,,
they take, if you try to go against them,
they take away something we like,
Like, we were able to use phones and stuff,
and when during lunch time, but when we rebel against them,
or do something that we're not supposed to,
that got taken away, so we're still -
we still can't use our phones
from the situation that happened, so,
They know that if we're afraid of something,
that we're not gonna do one thing,
because they're going to take away this,
- Same over here, they said we said we wanted better lunch,
and they took away the vending machines,
School is supposed to be like your home away from home,
where you just gettin' an education,
but I feel like you can keep taking away stuff from us,
that's not right, like, my mamma won't take away
like, my lunch and be like, "Oh no, you can't eat,"
No, she won't do that!
Like, she's gonna try to find a way for me to like,
have a more and better environment,
I feel like when you take away stuff from us,
it's just like, why? Like, why are you doin' this?
Like, what point is taking away vending machines from children?
Some kids don't even eat breakfast,
so by that time, 7:15 hit, and you ain't eat breakfast,
and you say oh no, we not servin' breakfast,
that's a whole day they're not even thinking about school,
they're thinking about oh, I'm hungry, I'm hungry,
Like, I'm starving, I'm not having a better environment,
So I just feel like, why do you take it away?
Try to make it better,
If you hearin' us say somethin' about it,
then you should be like okay, that's a concern,
we need to put it on our boards for next meeting,
Don't just try to push it under a rug and say,
"no, you not gonna do this, I'm gonna take it away from you,
and try to like, beat us,
Like, I don't understand it,
- Teachers and the principal don't really care
about what our opinions and what we have to say,
because at the end of the day,
they're still gonna get their cheque,
That's their favourite word, or line,
- Yeah, at the end of the day, whatever you do--
- At the end of the day whatever you do
I'm still getting paid, so it don't matter
if you get an F or an A,
Astra: Do they say that to y'all?
All: Yes! - Yeah, the people at OYC say it!
- I don't get it, like, you say you go this and you do that,
and we need to strive to be like you,
but you don't like your job,
you don't like what you do for a living,
And what you say to us all the time is,
go to college so you can do what you love,
but you don't even love what you do,
- I learned to cut hair in prison,
It was like somethin' that I used to use to
like, get outta my cell, man,
And I would tell the guards like
"oh, I'm goin' to the shop to cut", and then they'd just,
I would just be cuttin' for like,
all day and all night,
And then I just like, I just started lovin' it,
like it was-it started out as a hobby,
then it became just somethin' like, talkin' to dudes,
and getting' to know people,
And I met some interesting people inside,
I did nine years,
I was at a camp, they had a meat plant,
I worked in the meat plant,
We'd be packaging the stuff that they would use
in the public schools,
Astra: Like, did they pay you for that?
Or did the force you to do it, or how does that work?
- Well um, you get paid,
You get paid what they call an incentive wage,
it's like 40 cents a day,
It's embarrassing, actually, it's crazy, man,
The things that they subjugate us to,
I was at one camp where they put you,
when they take you to iso, they put you in a collar,
You gotta get on your knees,
and submit to the cuffs,
The officer says, "submit to the cuffs,"
Yeah, it's ridiculous, man,
The biggest thing when I came home
is the psychological effects
of being in the cage for so long,
and then coming and being able to like,
be around women, unrestricted,
That was a huge thing for me,
I was like, like, my first girlfriend,
which we broke up, but um,,,
she was like, it's okay to touch me, and stuff,
Like, I was like scared, like,
like, is it okay,
because for so long I'd been told,,,
I guess, I guess I'm not good enough,
or like not worthy enough of human contact,
Things like this,
So that's what's missin', man,
is trying to get guys like me to actually adjust
and acclimate to society,
not comfortably because everybody wants to hate us,
They don't want us to be comfortable,
Not comfortably, but like, so that we can survive,
You know, because yes, we messed up,
but now that we're home,
can we like get a place to live, and a job?
Like, you're gonna do a background check
on my place to live, and my job,
and say I can't live, or work? Like, what?!
Because I messed up like, ten years ago?
Astra: And you also can't vote, right?
- And then I can't even like do anything to try to change it,
You're right, man,
I don't know, I feel like it's just greed,
corruption's just taking over the whole thing, man,
There was a story, they do this huge investigation,
and turns out that the head of the SEC
that's investigating the, the Chase Bank Corporation,
they were frat buddies with the CEO,
I'm literally reading this, I'm like,
I can't believe how is it that this guy was,,,
actually allowed to prosecute like, his own,,,
like, it just,,, it's amazing to me,
And wouldn't you believe it, the guy got off,
Could you believe that, you know?
So, I guess that's democracy, right,
When the judge walks down and gives you a hug,
and says "all right, you ready to go to trial?"
I guess that's democracy,
I think that democracy is inherently flawed
because people have to act it out,
and like Machiavelli said,
"man is a sorry breed,
they're selfish and greedy,
and they're like parasites,"
So now you're gonna have like, ten people get in a room,
and try to decide things, but their egos are flaring,
and now some law has been created,
Right? No tellin' what politician paid so-and-so
to press the green button,
because it's all about just getting these people
to press buttons to agree
on how they're going to control the populous,
And then I'm sitting in the cage,
looking at it,
What're you gonna do about it, you're gonna fight,
and that's, you got guys that fight the system,
and they fight 'em with their own,
fight fire with fire,
Those hunger strikes in prison,
like I was in a hunger strike,
but it was only for six months,
it wasn't one of the big 18 month ones,
And that'll be initiated like, we'll pass notes,
and we'll get everything together,
and then we just won't go to chow,
they'll try to wake us up, we won't go,
The big thing that we were fighting for,
which is gonna seem kinda lame,
is they were tryin' to take the library, man,
This lady came and she told us
that no one can go to school anymore,
Yeah,
She came in and she basically was like,
y'all don't deserve to get an education,
So we stood up and fight,
It used to be, I know for my heritage,
it used to be illegal for us to read,
so I don't know if they're tryin' to go back to this,
or what they're tryin' to do,
like reverse all of this progress and things,
but it's just no tellin' what type of laws
there're going to put,
It used to be illegal to read, I can't believe this,
So like, maybe they're tryin' to do it again,
Cornel: Every democratic experiment we know
has been shot through with structures of domination,
Athens was a slave based democracy,
The United States, slave based democracy,
The legacy of white supremacy was first manifested
with Europeans vis a vis Indigenous peoples,
the dispossession of their land,
the violation of their bodies, their rights,
their dignity, their self-respect,
The second original sin was slavery,
which would serve as not just the land base,
but the economic base
for what would become a highly limited, precious,
but highly limited democratic experiment,
The anti-imperialists at its beginning,
13 colonies revolting against the British Empire,
the largest empire of its day,
And then question would be,
well, given these revolutionary beginnings,
the anti-imperialists struggled against the British Empire,
that's gonna set off some real signs of freedom, struggle,
Other folk are gonna pick up on this,
The enslaved people will, the workers will,
the women will, the gay brothers,
the lesbian sisters, the transgender folk,
the bisexual folk, all will pick up on this,
Lo and behold, this is a human affair,
But what does it mean? It means from the very beginning,
it's a global affair,
There's something very powerful about that,
because it means then all of these arbitrary boundaries,
all of these lines of demarcation,
these walls that separate are shattered,
and therefore our democratic movement is one that embraces
our brothers and sisters in Greece,
in North Carolina, in Guatemala,
in Ethiopia, in Tel Aviv,
in Gaza, in Yemen,
in Somalia, in Newtown, Connecticut,
and south side Chicago,
and Indigenous Peoples' reservations,
All of those precious folk have exactly the same value,
And that's a very different way of looking at the world,
Silvia: We have the Christian virtues flying in the sky,
on top of the common good,
We have faith, we have hope,
we have charity,
One of the things that you notice
is the absence of the principle of freedom,
Freedom and equality are not important ideals
in the Middle Ages,
Actually the concept of liberty and freedom
in the modern sense, which is self-government,
is a concept that has developed
in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries
more and more in contact, with the contact
with the European explorer, and conquistadors,
with the population of the Americas,
In which entire communities had no ruler,
and they also had no private property,
And so the notion of freedom as it is used
by people like Rousseau,
the capacity for self government,
which is our conception,
or at least it is the best conception of freedom,
it's really something that we owe
to the Indigenous population of the Americas,
In fact, out of these tales,
out of these narratives about the so-called new world,
you know, are beginning to form the image of an alternative,
another possible society,
in which not only you free yourself from tyranny,
but you also have the possibility of self-rule,
Astra: But here in this painting,
the oligarchs are saying that they represent
what's best for everybody,
- Yes, exactly, But in reality,
behind this ideal of harmony,
there is a lot of hidden struggle,
and it's the struggle for power
between the big merchants and bankers,
and the local producer, the guilds,
who are actually continuously fighting
to enter the government,
So it's very interesting where democracy is here,
- This is the image of justice being served, and--
- She has a head on her lap!
It's quite weird,
Here it's an image of repression,
because we have a body of guards
hovering over a group of prisoners, tightly tied,
and in very wretched condition,
So we are asking, who are these prisoners?
What kind of crimes, you know, are they being condemned?
And condemned to death,
Because on the extreme left side,
we also see a decapitation,
So we ask, you know, who is this man?
Why is he being decapitated?
You know, were they condemned for political crime?
Were they, perhaps rebels from some attempted revolt?
- You've created a new reading of the painting,
'cause they're giving the image,
here's a picture of good government,
harmony and peace flows, - Yes,
- I feel as though suddenly you've turned it on its head,
because what if these are not criminals but protestors?
- The true democrats, - Yes, Exactly, yes,
- Who are trying to force him to be good?
But what, the whole thing is what counts as a crime
is always political, - It's always political,
Astra: After the revolt of the people
lead to this new idea of citizenship,
Athenians had to rule themselves,,,
Effima: That's right,
Astra: So how did they choose public officials?
And make sure they weren't corrupt?
- First of all they are elected by lot,
It's not that you vote for them, okay,
Because that was thought to be very aristocratic to vote,
Voting is very aristocratic,
to the minds of Ancient Greeks,
So you have to have a random selection of the citizens
to run the business of the city,
So you don't elected by vote,
you are selected by lot,
It's a random sample of citizens because everybody,
but everybody has the capacity to run the business
of the city,
This is the original meaning of democracy,
Not the majority rule,
Astra: I think peoples fear is,
"Oh my God, if you randomly selected people by lot,
you know, the random guy on the subway
could be the President,
- Yes, the Prime Minister could be somebody
who would be a worker, So what?
The worker, perhaps, knows better to run something
than a Prime Minister who is always, you know,
sort of well protected of,,, in the system,
- And only thinking about wining the next election,
- Yeah, That's right,
Democracy was not like a wildflower,
where the Athenians would go and cut it,
and have it as their political system,
Nor is the case that there is the ideal form of democracy,
No, they didn't find it somewhere else,
they invented it,
They created a new political system
because that would ensure their wellbeing,
Because you have to ensure the wellbeing of the people, okay?
That's-that's,,,
we forget that, We forget that,
- I was teaching English, but most of the time,
my students were not interested in my English,
teaching English, they were interested,,,
interested telling stories, and my stories,
Always they were coming to me, sir, tell us the stories,
Stories, Stories about life, stories about something,
Then I was saying that you're coming for English,
you learn English, No, sir, you give us a story,
I really enjoy it,
I was born in Afghanistan,
but I grew up in Pakistan,
It was so difficult to live in Pakistan,
because we are Hazara,
They said they are Hazara, they are from Afghanistan,
they don't have right to live here,
let's kill them,
In front of my own eyes I witnessed
most of the people who were killed,
Then I was coming to my home, I was coming home,
I was saying these stories to my mother,
Then my mother, I didn't want to come here,
my mother talked, told me that you go,
If you stay here, you will be killed,
Astra: What does democracy mean to you?
- Democracy, in one word to me is,,,
to me is justice,
Justice for everyone,
And rule for everyone, justice,
No matter I belong to rich family, or poor family,
But we don't have justice in our countries,
The problem is that I was born in Afghanistan,
and all the people who are born in poor countries,
do they have any problem?
Are they guilty?
- It was interesting you said democracy is justice,
because people often say democracy is freedom,
- Freedom of what? Hurting somebody?
Freedom of killing somebody? Freedom of what?
This is also called freedom,
I don't think, So people, often ideas differ,
Ideas are different,
So in my opinion, I say no,
Freedom of what?
If we have justice, for example, we have rule,
Justice means rule,
Rule, if you have rule, this is the limit,
if you cross this limit, you will be found guilty,
You will be sentenced, you will go to prison,
this is called, And yet rule,
justice, such things are called democracy,
Democracy doesn't mean freedom for everything, I think,
Don't mind, please,
Man: About what Greekness do we speak?
I mean, Greeks have been migrating,
and they have been refugees,
and have been going abroad to study, to work,
to find a better life, to make a better life
for themselves for decades, not even centuries now,
So, this Greekness that those people speak about
hasn't been lost all those years,
I don't think that 52,000 people
are able even to change it,
but most of all, they don't want to change it,
they don't really care about the Greekness,
There are people fleeing war and horrid conditions,
they want a free life, a new life,
They don't want to change anybody else,
Astra: Democracy makes this big, universal claim,
that everybody's included,
But historically there have always been people left out,
- Yeah,
- Can democracy ever live up to its promise?
- Okay, So, this actually brings us to a whole other
issue we haven't talked about, - Okay,
- Which is a big controversy
in thinking about democracy today,
There are many people who think about democracy,
and want what they call global democracy,
or global citizenship,
I'm sceptical,
I think to have democracy there has to be a "we",
you have to know who "we the people" are,
it can't just be a kind of vague, universal thing,
and I think it has to be bounded,
Because in order to govern ourselves,
we have to know who the "we" is who's doing the governing,
and we have to know who the "ourselves" are,
and what their bounds, or limits are,
For us to say we're gonna engage in a democratic process,
we have to decide who's in, and who's out of that process,
Democracy always has exclusions,
They've almost always been premised on terrible forms
of marking, stratifying, and,,,
and naming who's human, and who's not human,
By gender, by race,
Today by the question of documentation,
um, papers and so forth,
I'm not defending those, but I am defending the idea
that democracy has to have bounds,
It has to have a constitutive "we",
- The problem with that is that there are global structures,
That's what TPP is, right, - Yep, yep,
- That's what these, the WTO is,
So you have globalized capital,
and so then what counters that but global democracy somehow,
- Right, Right, So this is the nightmare of our time,
which is that the undemocratic forces,
and the anti-democratic forces
are increasingly global,
increasingly supranational,
not just post-national,
and democracy must have a grounded,
spatialized domain,
So then the question is, is it possible?
Can we think this power problem?
Is it possible to think about democracy
and democratic contestation of global forces
that does not match the scope and the sovereignty
of those forces?
And, I think in the end
the only prospect for democracy
is that it operate at those more local and bounded levels,
in order not just to contest, but to dismantle,
The globalized ones,
- Ah, okay,
Man: We are here! Crowd: We are here!
Man: We are human! Crowd: We are human!
Man: Open the border! Crowd: Open the border!
Man: Open the border!
Open the border! Open the border!
Open the border!
Astra: It seems to me that real democracy,
if it's going to work,
it demands a certain intellectual engagement,
and wrestling with ideas, deliberation,
- Mhmm,
- But do you think people want to rule themselves?
- Well, it's a tough question,
Dostoyevsky raised the question,
is it not the case that most people fear freedom?
Is it not the case that most people
would rather be followers of authority,
rather than authorize themselves?
That's the Dostoyevskian challenge,
Uh, in that sense, Dostoyevsky is like Plato,
Plato's challenge to democracy,
Dostoyevsky's challenge to people who want to be free,
How many people really wanna be free?
James Baldwin said, very few,
"The burden is too much, Tell me what to do,
Dangle in my face the mysteries turning into magic,
and the authorities dictating
how I ought to live my life,"
That's most people, that's "Brothers Karamazov,"
the classic of Dostoyevsky, the last text of Dostoyevsky,
It's a very important challenge,
I think that again,
like Plato and like Dostoyevsky,
we never provide a theoretical response
that is persuasive,
because there's always so much historical evidence
that they're right,
They gotta point out the ignorance,
they gotta point out unruly passion,
they gotta point out
people being deferential to authority in a critical way,
they gotta point out narrow conceptions of piety,
where people have blind obedience to authority,
be it Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Government,
television shows, radio shows, or whatever,
there's tons of evidence for that,
That's what we're up against in human history,
That's why democracy's always an over against practice,
an over against phenomena,
and therefore it is a sense in which we look foolish,
Anybody who goes against the dominant tendencies
of human history, which are those of hatred,
and revenge, and domination, and oppression,
and subordination, and domination, what a fool!
And you say yes, count me in the crowd of the holy fools,
Silvia: It's a very beautiful, bustling town,
We see economic activity, cultural activity,
and also the everyday life,
By the same token,
there's a whole area of life that's missing,
We don't see inside the house,
we don't see aspects of reproduction
that are very central,
particularly the raising of the children,
Reproduction is still not yet seen as a sphere
of political relations, Astra: Yes,
- I think it's very important to bring to this
a family's perspective, - Yes,
- Because first of all, I think the women have a particular
ah, insight into democracy,
Women have never been befriended
by democratic government, on the contrary,
They've always been excluded from them,
and for example in Greece, you know,
women were absolutely excluded from public life,
And in fact, their only role
was to produce children for the state,
And I think it was the great political
and theoretical revolution
of the women's movement in the '70s
to have said, you know, the personal is political,
and more important, the sphere of reproduction,
the sphere where everyday life is reproduced,
is a political sphere,
This I think, it was a theoretical revolution,
that the sphere of the political
is much broader than government,
and passes through the home,
Passes through our kitchen and our bedroom,
passes through the community,
The community is a centre of social power,
- The entire social world is political,
Even our relationships in the bedroom are political,
- Yes, Yes! Exactly,
Democracy in the home, democracy in the country,
in order to have full democracy,
you have to democratize you know,
the sphere of reproductive relation,
You cannot simply have changes of government,
We have to begin the process of reclaiming control
on all the activity
that are most important for our existence,
What are the areas that are crucial
to ensure this capacity and possibility of self-rule?
- So democracy, it's worth fighting for?
- Democracy is worth fighting for,
but we have to be sure about how we define it,
- Yes,
- Not from above, always from below,