On 6/9/26 00:17, Kaelyn wrote:
Hi André,
I'm not exactly interested in wading into the various discussions around GCD
008, but there is one point you mentioned in your recent email that I find
myself needing to comment on.
On Monday, June 8th, 2026 at 1:28 PM, André Batista <[email protected]> wrote:
Did you happen to read their other post[3] linked on this one? There they
spouse another reactionary view on law and society by claiming that social
change is not democratic. You know, they use democracy as equal to the
simple majority rule whereas for at least a century democracy is understood
not as the rule of majority but as the system that provides protections to
the minorities and those who are vulnerable.
Can you please cite your sources as to your alternate definition of "democracy" as
"a system that provides protections to the minorities and those who are vulnerable"?
Democracy is--and to my knowledge has always been--by definition (and etymology) the rule of the
majority [1]. Even in the Merriam-Webster definition, the closest to what you describe is
definition 3, which is about a system wherein everyone is treated equally and have the right to
participate equally. Neither that definition, nor any[2] other[3] that I have seen have indicated
that democracy is about providing protections to minorities and other vulnerable persons. At
best[3], various freedoms and rights (including minority rights) are described as common features
of democracies, not defining characteristics or required features.
Now I'm curious too. I also understand democracy in the way André
describes it; that democracy is having entire population ('demos')
included and represented in the decision making, not majority rule.
But I can't for the life of me tell you how/where/when I learned that.
So I can't add much except adding another data point.
It ties in with the idea that the elected leaders [should] represent the
entire electorate; not just those people that elected them. Politicians
[should] rally on 'what is best for everyone' (according to them).
Just the voting part doesn't make a system democratic. Voting to
disenfranchise (or worse) a minority group is not democratic, since by
no means that is 'best for everyone' and that minority group would then
not be represented anymore.
Voting is a means to reach democracy, not the democracy itself. There
could perhaps be other ways to have a democracy, although I wouldn't be
able to give you any explicit examples.
To bring the discussion back to Guix: the idea is similar to what we try
to have here with the consensus finding; the GCD deliberation process is
not 'voting', yet it is democratic.
