"The People"

Years ago, when I was doing research for what became my tribute to Woody Guthrie performance, Ramblin': the Songs and Stories of Woody Guthrie, which I toured widely through the 1980s, I marveled at Guthrie's faith in "the people." You feel the same faith in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. "The people" are good, it's governments and power groups that turn bad.

Of course, this depends on which people you're talking about. The German "people" in 1930s Germany probably would need get the same enthusiasm from Guthrie that his beloved "Okies" received.

I believe the genius of the American system is not so much that majority rules but that the minority is protected. A true majority can rule by sheer force: it's the minority, especially an unpopular one (let's say "atheists" in this Christian land) who need protection from the prejudices of "the people." For democracy to work at its best, the people need to be educated -- and this opens a can of worms. What does it mean to be educated? This question quickly gets filtered through ideologies. Education comes to mean what the majority wants it to be mean -- but majorities can be wrong, indeed often are in the long run, which is all the more reason to respect minority rights.

In the final analysis, maybe "the people" means our side. Nothing more, nothing less.