How many people can answer what is democracy and what it stands for? In our, by liberalism shaped minds, democracy is shaped in a simple dichotomy – democratic and undemocratic, free and autocratic (white – black). But when we investigate the reality based by the Internet, social media and other new technologies this line isn’t so clear anymore. Either regimes due the Internet seek the same goals – predict and change our origin choice. Control, whatever it is for capitalist reasons and our purchases or effort to govern through the Internet in order to gain stability of regime. The Internet can be a tool for both purposes and it should be seen as controversial rather than unambiguous process.
But the biggest problem isn’t technology it self, but the way we understand the values of democracy and what it stands for. Especially the youth do not really understand in reflective way the values of democracy like free speech, free will and etc. Brexit is a valid example of this. After it we could see lots of confusion, especially in the youth eyes: they really didn’t believed that there is someone wishing to live in the older version of world, with boundaries, visas and other constrains.
The problem is that we do not appreciate democratic values and take it for granted. Our generation never experienced censure or occupancy, borne and raised in liberal world, so, something like this is surreal. Some would argue, that this generation is generation of terrorism with all of its consequences, but I argue that it made the dichotomy just more intensive, but did not reflect the democratic values it self. The latest illustrations from Poland, Lithuania or Hungary, showed us that if we take those democratic values in small pieces, we can broke the frame of democracy from the inside.
There were more noise after some Lithuanian parliamentarians decided to block YouTube, than when parliament was trying to politicize and effect the independency of the public broadcaster, limit the media accessibility or is trying to pass restrictive laws against criticism of government. The key point is to find what or who inspires society to take real action, participate and to defend democracy as our choice.
This paper invites researches of this field to discuss and focus their approach to the understanding of democratic values itself and its consequences for political and citizen participation. Recently Yuval Noah Harrari invited us not to be afraid to reconstruct the social harmony which is based on the myth of free will. We defiantly live in the new world were technology will and are challenging the conventional politics. Question is can we teach something that no longer exist? Liberalism, democracy needs new conceptions in order to become more close and knowable for those whose world and understanding is shaped by technologies. Its crucial to go back to society because without the conscious society, which do not understand what it stand for, there won’t be any line between democratic and undemocratic regimes.
