• they/them

plural system in Seattle, WA (b. 1974)
lots of fictives from lots of media, some horses, some dragons, I dunno. the Pnictogen Wing is poorly mapped.

host: Mx. Kris Dreemurr (they/them)

chief messenger and usual front: Mx. Chara or Χαρά (they/them)

other members:
Mx. Frisk, historian (they/them)
Monophylos Fortikos, unicorn (he/him)
Kel the Purple, smol derg (xe/xem)
Pim the Dragon, Kel's sister (she/her)


(it's a Rush reference: https://youtu.be/qf0qVVbMckU)

"Western civilization", for the moment, pretends that it values nothing more than democracy and liberty—indeed, it claims to have invented these things, and it's fabricated an impressive pseudohistory about being the champions and nurturers of human freedom and pluralism. But the mythology is paper-thin, and underneath the surface of this narrative there seethes a deep and poisonous cynicism, and an ill-concealed conviction that leadership is impossible without authority, strict hierarchy, and police-state enforcement of rule by single persons. The Christian conservatives are especially keen on monarchs because they think their religious doctrines are the real truth about humanity, divine truth that's been papered over by secular illusions about equality and freedom: human beings are herd animals, permanently divided into good sheep and evil goats, fit only to be ruled by a few chosen people in the name of a domineering King.

Western popular fiction and entertainment is saturated with authoritarian heroes; Western journalism habitually fawns over strongmen of various sorts, both political and corporate. it's especially bad in the United States, which more than any other Western nation identifies itself specifically with freedom and democracy, and yet its writers and pundits shower adulation on monarchs and dictators and petty-tyrannical corporate executives who are praised for their ability to Get Things Done™. there's much ink spent on grim warnings about the perils and pitfalls of democracy, which purportedly leads to paralyzed inaction or to "mob rule" and "tyranny of the majority" if it's not riddled with exceptions carved out for rule by fiat. democracy and civil rights may be a pleasant daydream to indulge during weak and piping times of peace, goes the conventional wisdom, but "everyone" knows that life is really war and in wartime there's no room for democratic decision making, only for shouting orders and expecting them to be obeyed without question.

(Whether or not even armies really need to function in a strictly authoritarian and hierarchical fashion isn't a question any important is allowed to ask.)

Assuming that one-person rule is the natural or sensible default is a tempting simplification of dealing with large numbers of people. Western powers have had a habit of preferring to deal with authoritarian governments—Ronald Reagan was particularly fond of them, for example—no doubt because that reduces all foreign relations to merely personal relationships. Why deal with a messy complicated country with a messy complicated pluralistic government when it's easier to deal with a single tyrant?

No doubt corporate relationships are of a similar character, in which all complex decisions that impinge upon millions of persons are reduced to personal agreements between executives who are presumed to have complete and omniscient control over everyone in their power. This absurd oversimplification of corporate governments into mere personal authority is quite appealing—to those who like fawning over authoritarians. Elon Musk acts as though he's personally responsible for every single detail of his corporations' doings, and his fans like it that way; they like thinking that Musk's somehow fulfilling all their little requests himself, like Santa Claus miraculously delivering billions of toys in a single night.

How do we reverse the trend? How can one make democracy and pluralism and rule by consensus look heroic in popular narratives? There's been a lot of idolatry of democracy and voting in the U.S. that's turned increasingly toxic as the institutions that purportedly uphold American democracy become increasingly slipshod and corrupt, and riddled with authoritarian saboteurs who offer tempting shortcuts to a "democratic" system that they've made deliberately chaotic and undemocratic. Single leaders shouting orders, we're persuaded to think, is the only way you can really get anything done; the mass of people are "too stupid" to rule themselves.

In which case I have to ask...why is that supposed to matter? When did "intelligence" become the reason that democracy ought to wither and die?

~Chara of Pnictogen


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