John Ralston Saul Quotes About Democracy

Quotes about: Democracy

• The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good.

  John Ralston Saul

  Acceptance, Self, Democracy

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

• Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism. An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good. The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't

  John Ralston Saul

  Self, Civilization, Democracy

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.186, Simon and Schuster

• Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen.

  John Ralston Saul

  Keys, House, Secret

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.94, Simon and Schuster

• The best defence [for a democracy, for the public good] is aggressiveness, the aggressiveness of the involved citizen. We need to reassert that slow, time-consuming, inefficient, boring process that requires our involvement; it is called 'being a citizen.' The public good is not something that you can see. It is not static. It is a process. It is the process by which democratic civilizations build themselves.

  John Ralston Saul

  Civilization, Democracy, Needs

• If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.

  John Ralston Saul

  Running, Democracy, Natural

• Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.

  John Ralston Saul

  Order, Government, Silence

  "On Equilibrium". Book by John Ralston Saul, 2001.

• In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.

  John Ralston Saul

  Giving Up, Sacrifice, Democracy

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