On the Democracy to Come, from Jodi Dean

Some intriguing theses on democracy from Jodi Dean —even if she doesn’t call them theses, I read them that way. For example,

Fourth, the production of democratic subjects is a challenge; if it has been done before, it has only been achieved temporarily. The production is neither certain, secure, nor robust. There are lots of glitches and faux democrats out there on the market.

I agree with them for the most part, even if I don’t see the requirement for the “Party” as she suggests in the comments…I rather take things from David Graeber’s perspective that functioning democracies can exist without recourse to a Party structure; see his Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology for some examples. While the obvious rejoinder to such a suggestion is, “How do things work at scale?”, such a question presupposes large-scale as a necessary condition. I don’t think that is a requirement, but that is fodder for a much longer post.