A big part of the problem is that we are now governed to a huge extent by systems – policies and procedures elaborated and recorded in detail to be handled by computers with ruthless logic and efficiency. They collect the most extraordinary amount of information about us as a matter of course (which drives us all into paroxisms of privacy-fanaticism which we direct against each other when really it needs to be directed against the faceless systems that we are all subject to).
When a policy or procedure is first typed into a computer the words are sketchy and in-exact but they quickly get tightened up. Legalese added. Then it is cut and paste to other policy documents. Collections of perfectly water-tight legal clauses developed over time but together to become large documents to govern our lives.
Not democratic in any way at all. It is almost a self-organising evolution of bureaucratic language in endless government offices around the city and state and nation and globe.
Computers’ ability to do the same job anywhere means that what was once done locally is then centralised first to a CBD then to one national headquarters then often globally. What is lost is any sense of what is actually happening locally and what the local needs and concerns are. Local uniqueness gets trompled on by system processes that are completely impersonalised.
The processes for arguing against systematised processes either don’t exist or are profoundly obscure. It would take an effort far beyond what any of us can rally.
The only thing I’ve seen so far that might offer a way forward are the equally computer-system-process tools like Avaaz and GetUp. But these target big issues and individuals or governments or corporations. They would also struggle to change the ubiquitous system processes that have become the fabric of our lives.
How do you argue against a system that requires you to enter extremely obscure personal details into it that only you could know then records and holds them in its database? How do you argue against a system that requires you to enter the code of the back of your Visa card that is designed to ensure you have the Visa card in your hand (but the code is then recorded in their system)? How do you argue against a system that hangs up on you if you ring with a question? How do you deal with a system that does not provide any way of contacting them? And they could be anyone anywhere in the world.