038: Democracy or Death

The Future Is A Mixtape

In the annals of Occupy Wall Street, in what seem like distant folktales, hundreds of sites burst open like wildflowers in the morning light of 2011. Born by water and sunlight, but pitched by wind and dirt, one encampment after another would rise only to be crushed by the brutal boot of the State before this movement could figure itself out. While this horizontal uprising’s rejection of representation and managerialism were vital and narcotic to some, others found it disorganized and chaotic, garbled by its shrill mic-checks and lack of overt demands. As David Graeber, a co-founder and dream-seeker of this spectacle of mass democracy, wanly stated, “While Americans can do communism, they have absolutely no conception about how to do democracy.” Astra Taylor, Graeber’s friend and skeptical co-conspirator at OWS, investigates our collective troubles with the idea of democracy in her most recent, gorgeously entrancing work of nonfiction: Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. Published in 2019, as a philosophical couplet to her documentary, What Is Democracy?—released a year prior, Taylor’s book hums in a noble persistence that democracy is a utopian ideal worthy of our time, despite the term having long been abused and defiled by politicians and plutocrats into a kind of milky nothingness. The author deeply considers the meaning of democracy in a graceful series of paradoxes bound by binaries within each chapter. Much like her meditative and dreamy documentary, Taylor’s book asks big questions about the trajectory of democracy in both its idealized conceptions and in its less savory, dirt-dreary praxis points. Jesse & Matt will ponder the philosophical and intellectual questions of these works as masterful collages composed of many voices—where a formerly incarcerated poet-barber exchanges stories side-by-side with Plato, political scientists, immigrants, and school children alike. How can we take democracy from being breath and vibrations of air into a concrete system of self-rule? Astra Taylor’s twin projects reflect what democracy does best when we fall into its enchanting thrall: real democracy is a conversation, a struggle to deliberate, to talk and to listen. Certainly, in this era of a global pandemic, economic devastation, and a climate collapse, now is the time—more than ever—to connect, heal and listen to the voices outside of ourselves. Democracy is a word for something that doesn’t exist yet; but the quiet acts of deliberation, being vulnerable and listening to others might make this word real for the first time. These wondrous projects demonstrate this politics of listening, a reminder that the mixtape of a flourishing future must be gathered from the songs of us all.

Comprehensive Show Notes Can Be Found at thefutureisamixtape.com

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