Democracy, the will of the majority, and groupthink

Just a random thought.

Democracy is about the will of the majority. Yet is this an inherent trap, a self-fulfilling prophecy? A road down to groupthink?

In a democracy, the will of the majority gets executed. The minority may be given a voice and heard, but whether it is heeded or not is entirely up to the majority. If you look at politics as a zero sum game, the winner is the majority while the loser is the minority. (Life is not so simple, and most of the time, the majority does heed the voices of the minority to afford the minority some benefits. But it depends on the goodwill of the majority, which can differ greatly from society and between issues.)

And no one wants to be the loser. Which means that no matter how much something may matter, people in the minority may choose to silence themselves and appear to side with the majority instead of being classified as "the losing side".

It means that those with differing views may choose to keep silent to keep themselves on the "winning side". It is the road to groupthink.

It is therefore of utmost importance that democratic societies have in place systems to guard against groupthink. To make it part of the system that it will never allow itself to be blindsided into bad decisions just because a majority of the people agree to do so.

At the social level, it means a strong education system for the masses. An educated population is essential for a democracy to properly function, because only an informed public can actually make the right choices based on facts instead of feelings.

At the legal and political level, it means having laws and frameworks in place that generates debate from differing angles without penalizing the minority view. Without such a guarantee, even the most informed of public may stray into groupthink since it is human nature to want to be on the "winning side". It may even entail having deliberate processes in place to implement things for the minority, to show that it is not just the will of the majority that gets implemented, but that the society takes into consideration the well-being of all of its members, whatever their differences may be.

Remember, democracy only works when people are willing to voice differing views without fear of being sidelined, disadvantaged, or prosecuted.