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Phil-Pod: A collection of philosophical, philanthropic, philharmonic and other musings from Gordon Philpott....

( Ed. note: The podcast is being transcribed, this is the written script ) "Democracy is the only self-correcting form of government." A friend of mine made this observation in class a decade or so ago and I still admire the insight. Humans, as you may have heard, are not perfect yet they strive for it more often than not. "Remember the Titans" taught us that individuals can be flawed and yet, as a team, the season can be perfect. As are most things concerning humans -- strange but true that is -- the whole really can be greater than the sum of the parts. That sort of statement annoys most mathematicians, by the way, but humans are inconveniently squishy things that have all sorts of ill-defined and incalculable components like feelings and intuition and morals. They do things that make no sense, maintain multiple beliefs that are contradictory and they simply make no sense on paper. So Democracy is well-suited for governing humans; Self-correcting, least efficient, impossible on paper, Democracy sums to a greater good than its parts. Democracy, by the way, was not invented in America, despite what you may have heard. However, The Great Experiment did advance the notion of Democracy quite a bit in the early days and, coupled with an abundance of natural resources and an overwhelming absence of obstacles, America and Democracy got along famously for several decades. That's not to say it has always been a picnic or that it hasn't stumbled, of course, but it recovers from those stumbles with surprising grace, much like cats do after a nine-gainer bellyflop. Somehow, looking back, we can manage to say we meant to do that and almost always have enough wiggle room to squeak by whatever awful truth we're steadfastly ignoring. A lot of that, however, comes well after the fact. In the midst of the pratfall, things tend to look a bit confused, often scary and wholly out of control. Many of you may be feeling that sort of "out of control tailspin" worry after watching the evening news or listening to the naysayer about the water cooler at the office. Then again, the evening news doesn't really exist anymore, since it isn't in the evening and really isn't much for news. And the office water cooler is usually a Coke machine or Starbucks but you get the idea: There's a lot more focus on what's going wrong than what's going right these days and to be honest, I think we're all looking for someone to blame. The Democrats are quite eloquent in blaming the Republicans, the blue states are warily looking at their red state neighbors and the media, well, what can they do, bad news sells and we know it because they aren't selling much else these days. And if you are agreeing with me right now, we are both guilty of peddling the same negative views. Luckily, it was just between you and I, so we don't have to tell anyone. Better still, maybe we can fix it and avoid that sort of thing in the future. We're better people than that. We don't need to gossip, we don't need to nitpick and we know - whether we were raised this way or just know people who were - we know we can do a little better in what we think, what we say and what we do. My grandmother used to call it carrying tales, my brother called it ratting someone out, TV calls it a talk show, a news report or worse, "reality TV" which is one of the terrific and ridiculous contradictions I told you humans could create. But, as far as you and I go, we know we can find a better balance than what we're offered. We can find the good as well as the bad or what grandmother would call a silver lining. Being humans, we can handle more than one set of facts, even if they contradict and we're not afraid of looking at something for a couple of different angles just to understand things better. Even if we can't quite see the other persons viewpoint, there's benefit in the attempt. When we talk, we're just exchanging thoughts, viewpoints, knowledge. And Knowledge changes things. No one looks at the New York skyline the same way we used to but what each of us sees is different. Some will see emptiness, some will see loved ones, some will "not see" the towers. Some will see anger and others will see sadness. And back when we were talking about it every day, we each one came away with a different understanding than we went in with, because that is what humans do, we talk about and think about and try to understand things that make no sense. It is what gets us from one day to the next, at times, that effort to understand, as individuals and as a group. I think it is one of the reasons we gather around the cooler/chat room/fireplace/watering hole: To communicate and talk about things and see what others think about them. I rarely get my viewpoint completely turned around from a conversation but I do get a better insight and a better feel for what I think on it. It satisfies some inherent curiousity and need to know, I guess, one that is buried deep within each human and probably what drives us to do some of the sillier things we do. Honestly, what good does it do to stand on the moon and look at the house? But, there we go and that's what we did and for whatever reason, we all felt a little better about it, though few of us ever looked at the moon, the house or the skyline the same way again. So, what does this have to do with catfalls, Democracy and you and I? Simply this: Humans need to understand things, the why and the why not, the how and the wherefore of it all. Since then, the world hasn't made a whole lot of sense much of the time. We, you and I, individually and as a group, have been trying to understand, at some level, what is going on and there is a general frustration building in the growing absence of an explanation. Some can't find an answer, others are finding too many answers and nothing is making sense. And a lot of us are worried that it isn't getting better, it can't get better, that the world is a little dimmer than it was once upon a time. There is a subconscious worry nagging at our collective soul and it comes out in a variety of ways, mostly negative and the world tends to spiral down ever darker. But we don't all need to be peddling this to one another, things aren't always going to be spinning like this. Some of us will land on our feet, others will -- intentionally, we'll later claim -- land less gracefully and some are still in a free fall. But however we land, we will pick ourselves up, individually and together, we will stand back up and eventually, we'll see only how we meant to do that. Eventually, we'll look back at the victories, not the defeats. In the meantime, you and I can avoid the negative by being those better people we know about, by helping others stand up and ignoring their ungainly landing, by focusing on things that are positive as much as negative. By being the people our parents, grandparents and leaders were back once upon a time. By doing the right thing, by finding the optimism or, at least, by not focusing on the negative so much. Little ways, little steps if you like. Don't feed the rumour mill, change the subject at the water cooler, don't swallow your opposing thoughts or quash others' -- instead have the discussion, but make it worth while, get or give something out of it, it's how humans learn and get through the day, find our bearings and get through to the brighter days, individually and as a greater whole. Democracy (you thought I'd forgotten!) requires a clash of voices and opinions, that sustained revolution of thought, opposing views, the back and forth between and betwixt the players. The self correcting part comes out of that conversation, much more than on voting day. Talk to your neighbors, your family, your representatives, the people you agree with and those that you don't -- listen to your neighbors, your family, your representatives, the people you agree with and those you don't. Think your own thoughts over and then start it all over again because in the midst of that back and forth, you and I and all the rest will correct one another individually and, as a whole, find the best balance, the best solution, the right way to take us all into the brighter tomorrow.

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