A quote by Walter Lippman from a fascinating article about the "objects" of democracy:

"The democratic tradition is [..] always trying to see a world where people are exclusively concerned with affairs of which the causes and effects all operate within the region they inhabit. Never has democracy been able to conceive itself in the context of a wide and unpredictable environment [..] And although democrats recognize that they are in contact with external affairs, they see quite surely that every contact outside the self-contained group is a threat to democracy as originally conceived. That is a wise fear. If democracy is to be spontaneous, the interests of democracy must remain simple, intelligible and easily managed. [..] The environment must be confined within the range of every man's direct and certain knowledge." [9]


Read the rest here: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?articleid=53366