Achilles’ heel

The story goes that a mother, hoping to protect her infant son, dipped him in the river Styx, which offered the boy immortal protection. Everywhere except the heel by which she held her son. That was his weakness, and his inevitable destruction, as his death was prophesied.

It’s the weakness in something powerful. The rotten spot in something good.

Many claim the Greeks invented democracy, today considered the best form of government that has been thought of. The best for the people, and for peace and prosperity.

And that may be true, but democracy has its own Achilles’ heel. It is not, like its Greek origins would imply, a rule by the people. It can’t be. There are too many people, too many disparate ideas and gaps in understanding in any given state for a consensus to ever exist.

Instead, democracy is a rule by the status quo—the mode, rather than the mean of society. It means change is slow, and difficult for those who are weak, either by numbers or position.

These things may all be fine. They are part of democracy’s failings, but even supporters of this form of government would be foolish to believe it is infallible.

Its Achilles’ heel, however, is also its strength. In order for democracy to work, a society’s public needs to be educated. Needs to be interested, engaged, aware and open.

A society of fear, where fact is given equal credence to fiction, where stubborn convictions outweigh common sense, where a culture of misinformation is valued over intellect cannot sustain democracy. In such a society, the status quo is not fit to make decisions for the people.

And what then?

So many people around the world have followed, dry-mouthed and incredulous, at the slow ascent of a loud, rude, quick-to-anger leader who takes no slight lightly and who spews made-up concepts as facts with the infuriating certainty of a stubbornly ignorant uncle.

The American public have yet to elect their next president. In fact, there are still three months to go before they do. And while three months can do much to change public opinion, the two major party candidates are still nearly neck-and-neck, with a mocking media and the cruel criticism of the grieving parents of an honoured soldier doing little to knock this rude figure out of the race.

In November, the American public will choose their next democratically elected leader. Whomever they choose, that person will have an effect on the entire world. It’s not a pleasant task, but I hope it’s a task that’s taken seriously. That the American status quo will have the strength to make choices based on creativity and reason and intellect and empathy.

Because if democracy fails, if that Achilles’ heel is its downfall, we may have to come up with something else. And to date, the world has no better alternative.

mihal@mihalzada.com