This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://www.quora.com/How-is-dissent-the-foundation-of-democracy/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1“

1. The opposite of dissent is subordination.
2. Subordination is the foundation for authoritarian regimes.
3. Authoritarian regimes are rigidly hierarchical.
4. Rigid hierarchies are inflexible and abusive toward all people downward in the power hierarchy.
5. Authoritarian regimes eventually break because humans have limits on the abuses they can tolerate.
6. Democracies survive because they are fundamentally adaptable to change.
7. Democracies are fundamentally adaptable to change because they accommodate individuality.
8. Individuality empowers self-determination to maximize flexibility and adaptability.
9. Flexibility and adaptability are contingent upon responsiveness to succeed.
10. Responsiveness demands input and engagement from diverse perspectives to be effective.
11. Dissent filters out ineffective processes that inhibit adaptability.
12. Navigating change requires dissent to ensure that adaptation initiatives succeed.
13. Without dissent, changes are made blindly to make adaptability impossible and guarantee failure.

Hence, dissent is the foundation of a democracy.

Furthermore, embracing dissent improves all of us, particularly in the essential skills area of critical thinking.

The greater our embrace of dissent, the better our thinking skills become.

The better our thinking skills become, the more robust our democracy.

Democracies are being threatened worldwide because we have been failing to equip citizens with the skills they need to build a better world together.

We have been failing to equip our citizens because arrogant assholes with too much of a desire for power wish to reduce citizen efficacy in self-governance systems because they deem themselves superior humans entitled to their power and to lord over the little people.

It’s past time they begin to relearn their lessons in humility.