A healthy democracy is participatory and consensual, but Western democracies are deteriorating into a post-political condition that makes democracy unrecognizable. The post-political condition has also been theorized as post-democracy, depoliticization and de-democratization. Governments, controlled by corporations, induce passivity in citizens by feeding an addiction to consumption and by discouraging activism. A passive citizenry is indicated by declining voter turnout.
The lack of overt citizen consent and participation makes Western nations increasingly vulnerability to totalitarianism. Theorists concur on four theoretical elements of the post-political condition:
- a) the neoliberal economy has subjected governments to the demands of corporations, and this renders governments powerless to deal with macro issues such as climate change;
- b) in consensual postpolitics, government is a social administrator, replacing an institution where activists debate ideologies of equality and justice;
- c) neoliberal governments create an environment of unspecific anxiety to soften public resistance to increased surveillance; and
- d) in the ideological vacuum created since the Left ceded victory to capitalism, there are few Western political organizations advocating an alternative economic ideology based on agenda of equality and eco-social justice (Dean; Swyngedouw; Žižek).
Politics has become a public relations game, with large corporations owning and controlling the media – both the message and medium. Mainstream media witness the perversions of necrophilia but keep citizens in the dark about the real state of the world by producing propaganda that keeps citizens in their place. The voyeurism of the media can be compared to the observers of a date rape who videotape the necrophilic act and then post it on social media to extort the victim who never gave consent, was not a participant and is powerless to reclaim her privacy.
Human rights are eroding through distortion. Persons with mental disorders who commit violent crimes are regarded as domestic terrorists. Religious organizations demand the ‘right’ to exclude based on religion. Activists are regarded as domestic terrorists if they obstruct the economy with blockades or boycotts. Governments perpetuate the oppression of vulnerable citizens, silence them and instill fear by invading their privacy.
Governments promote consumption, which has the strategic effect of numbing the shrinking middle class into giving up privacy and freedom if it means greater protection for their lifestyle. This then is the perverted necrophilia of democracy in the dominant Western paradigm.
See Reference page for details on citations.