Democracy

Illustration by Ryan Miller.

The source is late night BBC, not that listening to the radio is any cure for sleeplessness; it is a companion.

They were discussing democracy and what constitutes the signals, the signs and the effects of democracy.

BBC late night is a kind of free-for-all radio format; a worldwide, open-ended discussion on various subjects. At times the accents are indiscernible and when translation is provided in Scots, still indiscernible. This democracy discussion with all its linguistic flavors was a pretty good definition of democracy.

What emerged was a list of things, items, causes, ingredients, recipes and knick-knacks that incrementally define democracy.

A woman from India said, “Democracy is education for women.”

A hushed voice from Iraq said, “Oh god, please, safe streets.”

From Bangladesh, “A roof and some land.”

A corn farmer’s wife from Iowa rather boldly said, “Wal-Mart.”

A college student in Russia, “Rock and Roll and Pussy Riot.”

From the hills of Tennessee, “Guns.”

A listener in New York City responded with, “Fox News and MSNBC on the same radio band.”

It was from somewhere on the dark continent of Africa came the opinion that democracy was “Big Macs and Irish pubs.”

Of the notions offered I was struck by that choice of democratic indicators from Africa, of democracy as known by the presence of Big Macs and Irish pubs. The listener went on to expand his definition by saying that on any visit to any major city of the world, we immediately know the state of their democracy, its health and well-being, and its margin from tyranny by the presence of Big Macs and Irish pubs.

At 3 am I was bemused by the idea of a Big Mac as the indicator of anything good, the Big Mac being now the universal constant of unhealthy eating, obesity, too much fat, salt and sugar, of the corporate dominance and definition of our food spectrum.

If to admit at 3 am the brain isn’t working normally, to the end it absorbs what BBC is babbling on about without any particular prejudice. Never mind every ingredient of the Big Mac is raised by a sinister CAFO, cruel to cows, probably pollutes the water, doesn’t believe in the carbon economy and is displacing family farms as, according to Leviticus, are to inherit the earth except for Idaho and Utah.

To confess at this juncture, since it is the middle of the night, that my mama, though a farm woman capable of all things and all mysteries, could not and would not make what the modern world would call a decent hamburger. She could, however, mass produce NHL-quality hockey pucks that, if launched at your head by a stick, would really hurt.

Mama, being a country cook, did not believe food needed decoration to be eaten. If you want a hamburger that juicy, you might as well eat the cow raw. As for lettuce, tomato, mayo and a sesame seed bun, then you ain’t really hungry enough. Besides, a Big Mac isn’t exactly honorable to the cow who died for its sake. A Big Mac no longer resembles its four-footed ancestry. Eating is supposed to be a carnivorous act and should behave like one.

Eventually I did get the connection of that African listener, why the Big Mac is a signal of democracy. Because the Big Mac represents that certain degree of affluence, the kind reflected by the dinner plate. The Big Mac represents a kind of luxury and well-being in league with Scripture’s passage about the fatted calf. Nobody saying it’s actually good for you.

There are millions and billions of people who do not know what the Declaration of Independence says, they have never seen the Bill of Rights, and they do not know the Clean Water Act. But they do know about the Big Mac and that for whatever passes for the local equivalent of $3.65 American, you can get a dose of over-the-top gut-level New World zeal.

Personally I would have substituted the Victoria’s Secret Miracle Bra for the Big Mac as the better signal of what constitutes democracy.

As for the Irish pub, what’s so democratic about an Irish pub? Only to know a Guinness must be drawn just so to form that famous head, that patience is required (a principle of democracy often overlooked). To add that there is such a thing as Irish noise, from laments to rollicking infections, propelled by fiddles, penny whistles and of course, poets. Poets, useless as they are, are structural to democracy, at least the rollicking kind of democracy.