Participatory Democracy Quotes

“Max Planck once remarked that new scientific truths don’t replace old ones by convincing established scientists that they were wrong; they do so because proponents of the older theory eventually die, and generations that follow find the new truths and theories to be familiar, obvious even. We are optimists. We like to think it will not take that long.

In fact, we have already taken a first step. We can see more clearly now what is going on when, for example, a study that is rigorous in every other respect begins from the unexamined assumption that there was some ‘original’ form of human society; that its nature was fundamentally good or evil; that a time before inequality and political awareness existed; that something happened to change all this; that ‘civilization’ and ‘complexity’ always come at the price of human freedoms; that participatory democracy is natural in small groups but cannot possibly scale up to anything like a city or a nation state.

We know, now, that we are in the presence of myths.”
― David Graeber, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

“Some of those who say they are worried about erasing history are really objecting to decisions about monuments being taken down by a small group of people, whether protesters or officials. Ideally, communities as a whole should decide, but you cannot impose this as a requirement without the existence of a real process for having these conversations. Today, what we are truly in danger of losing is not history but rather the chance to use monuments, whether fallen or still standing, as paths to get to a better future”
― Erin L. Thompson, Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments