This does not prevent it from being easy to see that large differences between people also follow democracies, albeit to varying degrees. This is the major challenge for today s democracies. Without freedom of expression, spirit and assembly, we will not be able to find our own identity nor see the truth. As John Stuart Mill put it in On Liberty in We cannot know what is true unless we have heard the opinion of others and listened to the objections. Therefore, all types of communication that appeal to people s immediate reflexes and prejudice are alien to democracy. In other words, all forms of populism.
Democracy requires arenas for reflection, testing and weighing of arguments, and must have procedures for such weighing, including the most autonomous legal system possible. Only in this way can the best argument have any hope of winning. The mobility of democracy Through free elections that give minorities the whatsapp mobile number list chance to become the majority, democracy is the form of government that gives oppressed groups room to organize, to protest and thereby to improve their living conditions. This creates conditions for stability and peaceful conflict resolution because minorities can become majorities and or prevail with their demands for justice.
The labor movement, lay religious movements, movements for linguistic rights, the women s movement and the civil rights movement in the USA are classic examples of movements from below that have gained ground under the cover of democratic procedures, including civil disobedience. Democracy s anchoring in scientific knowledge Democracy is built on rationality that knowledge should guide political choices. Democracy is the only form of government that can and will systematically change political lines in the light of new knowledge. The fact that the environmental movement has so far had difficulties in gaining ground with its science based criticism of the consumption and emission society is no argument for giving up on democracy.