
Harvard research suggests an entire generation has lost faith in democracy - sgustard
http://qz.com/848031/harvard-research-suggests-that-an-entire-global-generation-has-lost-faith-in-democracy/
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socalnate1
"Democracy is the worst form of government ... except for all those other
forms that have been tried from time to time."

The issue is that this entire generation hasn't really had much direct
experience with "all those other forms."

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basch
democracy being the best choice is so ingrained in us from childhood,
questioning it becomes painful. its like finding out about santa. cognitive
dissonance comes into play, and any critical thinking is squashed. its hard
for people to even question democracy in a hypothetical environment, it being
the fairest is almost established as a basic law of physics.

even the title of the article ... "lost faith" seems to imply its a bad thing
to question democracy.

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mcphage
> even the title of the article ... "lost faith" seems to imply its a bad
> thing to question democracy.

No, it merely means that previous generations _did_ have faith in democracy.
Whether that faith is well founded or not is not addressed.

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basch
"new generation gains critical awareness of democracy's faults, pitfalls, and
shortcomings"

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mcphage
Was that in the title of the article at some point? I don't see it there now.

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joe_momma
This coincides with the invention of WikiPedia, Youtube, social media, search
engines, and mobile phone cameras, which are the new pillars of democracy and
allow the spread of information which in the past would not have been known.

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huherto
They also allow to spread fake information which we are learning that it can
be really, really bad.

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joe_momma
Fake information has always been available, in fact it may have been the only
information available at the time.

What is interesting is all of the new information and our ability to process
it as much as we want.

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excalibur
Millennials. Boomers. Millennials. Boomers. Repeat ad nauseam.

Generation X is sick of your bullshit.

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Semiapies
Yeah, but we're outnumbered.

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pjc50
Huge if true, but I'm going to apply a huge amount of skepticism. Only 19% of
millenials believe that military coups are illegitimate? Really?

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nkurz
It might depend on the interpretation of "legitimate", and make more sense if
"are legitimate" is interpreted as "ever legitimate". For example, could a
military coup in North Korea be "legitimate"?

They give some more detail in their linked earlier paper:

 _Similarly, while 43 percent of older Americans, including those born between
the world wars and their baby-boomer children, do not believe that it is
legitimate in a democracy for the military to take over when the government is
incompetent or failing to do its job, the figure among millennials is much
lower at 19 percent. In Europe, the generation gap is somewhat less stark but
equally clear, with 53 percent of older Europeans and only 36 percent of
millennials strongly rejecting the notion that a government’s incompetence can
justify having the army “take over.”_

[http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Foa%26...](http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Foa%26Mounk-27-3.pdf)

While still striking, and while I still wonder whether generational
differences in terminology are a factor, the addition of "when the government
is incompetent or failing to do its job" does make it more plausible.

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polotics
Could this maybe because their democracy ratio defined as:

(decisions that your vote could influence)/(decisions that affect you)

...is low enough that they don't think it makes a difference either way?

Pro-tip: vote with your feet, this works.

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jmclnx
One thing I do not see mentioned, Democracy depends upon a educated voters and
that education has been eroded greatly over the last 50 or so years. Voters
also need to review real facts, not facts created by "Reality TV" shows we
call the news media and various Internet Sites. No wonder faith in Democracy
is falling. An educated person can easily spot these fake stories from a mile
away.

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agentgt
I wonder if part of the problem is democracy is rather ill defined. I'm sure
you have seen the classic case where some one says the United States is not a
democracy but a republic... usually its a troll comment. Regardless I think
there is general confusion as to what a democracy is [1] and isn't.

[1]:
[http://www.economist.com/node/8908438](http://www.economist.com/node/8908438)

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hood_syntax
> Only around a third of US millennials see civil rights as “absolutely
> essential” in a democracy

Can we see the data for this? Absolutely shocking to me.

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toor2
You can have a highly stable democracy without civil rights. Just look at the
United States

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grzm
Would you expand on this? Are you implying that the US isn't perfect in its
civil rights in practice? Is actively against civil rights? Values civil
rights and wants to improve? Had in the past huge disparities in civil rights
and was still stable at those times?

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toor2
I was mainly referring to the civil rights practices of the United States in
the past (i.e. Slavery, segregation, lack of suffrage for women, etc).

The United States functioned just fine as a democracy when well over half of
it's population was lacking basic rights. Civil rights aren't required in a
democracy as long as a portion of the population (classically white males in
the US) has the right to vote.

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grzm
Gotcha. There's nuance in this answer that wasn't obvious to me in your first
comment. Thanks for expanding.

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flamesnare2
Something to note in the article is how interest in politics overall has
declined in the newer generation. Thus the lack of faith in democracy, if such
a trend is legitimate, may be the result of an increasingly apathetic culture.

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mcphage
I think that it's interesting that a lot of the major social advances in the
US—ending segregation, legalizing abortion, legalizing gay marriage—are the
result of Supreme Court decisions, which is probably the least democratic part
of our government. Not all, certainly. But I guess I'm not so surprised that
some young people don't see democratic action as the only way to advance
social progress.

