From the followers society to the citizens society

By Demosthenes Kyriazis

From what we hear and see daily about our political system, a documented conclusion and a justified feeling have been created in the vast majority of people 

The conclusion is: The strategic objective of all political parties is to conquer the power for their own sake and not for that of the citizens; that all parties, in reality, have the same goal. 

The feeling is: Indignation, because what is happening , not only harms citizens  and is unfair for them, but also  insults their intelligence ; people feel that politicians treat them as beings with a lower intelligence than that of their own. 

Here's an example that we see every day: All decisions taken from a party in the government, are advertised as necessary, beneficial and as the best. In contrast to that, the opposition parties, always, characterize those decisions as unnecessary and destructive. This rule is not overturned from some scant exceptions. But both views can’t be applied simultaneously. Beyond any doubt one of the two aspects; either that of the government or that of the opposition, is an absurdity or expedient lie. This means that, at an average the 50 % of what the political system produces is irrationalities and expedient lies. 

However politicians neither believe nor are afraid that the citizens will reach this simple conclusion. They behave as if they believe that recycling lies and absurdities will daze and eventually convince a large number of people that what is right and legal is not unique, but multiple: the blue, the green, the red, the pink and the black right[i]. 

This strategy has created something very important for the survival of the system. It has gradually imposed, informally and quietly, the doctrine and practice, that  citizens should not know and understand, but only to believe; to believe in the blue, the green, the red, the pink and the black truth. This strategy has created the society of the followers; a society with principles and practices similar to those of football supporters, where fans believe fanatically that their team is the best, while the other groups are unworthy. 

If these views expressing the true, then the modernization of the political system should start from the institutions relating to the citizens and then from the institutions related to politicians; namely, by institutions that will transform the followers society to citizens society.  

These institutions will educate the citizens to freely and consciously prefer: 

• Their Individual Power from the rights[ii].
• Their Freedom from the freedoms. 
• The Foundations of the regime from the architecture of its upper structure.     
• The Referendums from the polls
• The Acceptance of responsibilities from their transfer to others.
• The Common good from the individual good.
• The status of Citizen, from the status of the follower.

But with what institutions the abovementioned can be implemented, gradually and by overcoming difficulties and understandable reactions?

 I know such a recipe, although I am just an ordinary citizen. This recipe is not the conclusion of profound philosophy and of relevant science, but the solid conclusion of the thoughtful wisdom of our people. This recipe with Doric austerity is summarized in the popular saying: "The carriage fees awaken the mule driver."[iii] This means that, as long as people remain away from the vehicle of power, they would prefer what they prefer today.  

Today, when only with the status of prominent follower you acquire economic, social, professional, and even academic advancement, while with the status of citizen, you acquire the title of silly, the above mentioned preferences of the people, is deterministically impossible to be reversed.

In our time however, there is a window of hope for such a reversal. This window is though the unprecedented possibilities of “the digital technology and the information society.”  Those possibilities offer a unique opportunity for enlargement the vehicle of power so that everybody, citizens and politicians, may find a place. 

Today there is a great opportunity to build a new Digital Pnyka[iv]  that will operate with rules and institutions of the Athenian Democracy, being adapted to the 21^st century data; to build a new “digital parliament” accessible to all citizens, for interactive communication, digital consulting and participation in the taking of major decisions through digital referendums; through the modern type referendums that compared with the conventional ones have the following advantages:

• Performed from our house resulting: friendly and swift operation and insignificant direct and indirect costs.
• Have better conditions of freedom, because the exercise of direct violence is practically impossible. Violence phenomena, like these at student’s voting, are impossible to occur at digital referendums.
• Have greater reliability and safety than those of conventional referenda.

The above considerations do not lessen the value of an analytical and rational program of modernization of institutions. These programs are important, because they constitute the upper structure of the political system. The above highlight the obvious need for the starting of the modernization of the political system from the foundations, as otherwise we risk to build "Palaces on the sand”.