The United States has been a global champion of democracy for decades. Sometimes we have grown too fervent in our support, and sometimes we have done real good in the world by our efforts to give the people of all nations the voice that we, as Americans, have had for generations. On the domestic front, however, we have been slowly ceding our right to a participatory democracy, by not participating in it. Why do so many people take our rights so much for granted: or, perhaps more importantly, why do some people refuse to yield their rights? What leads a person to cherish their voice, and to use it?



For my part, I learned to value democracy when I started reading about places where it did not exist. History was never my strongest subject, so this reading was mostly novels. In science fiction and fantasy -- my favorite genres growing up -- an entire world can be carefully constructed to suit the storyline, and the epic stories those genres encourage sweep up countries and empires as well as individuals. Given these traits, writers of speculative fiction have an opportunity to broaden their scope and involve entire cultures as characters in their story.

When entire systems of belief are laid out as forces in the context of a story, they push the readers to evaluate them as fully as they might the characters who move in and against them. They become something more than abstract ideals, and their strengths and weaknesses begin to become apparent. Because they are fictional, it is easier to consider them objectively. They aren't familiar. We're encouraged to look at them, to doubt, to measure.

Authors know their systems are not perfect. They don't try to make them perfect. Guy Gavriel Kay (http://www.brightweavings.com/) is one of my favorite authors because of the deftness with which he creates his imperfect realities. He bases his works off of history, placing his characters into the morasses of Byzantine politics or the complexities of the fall of Granada, Spain's last Muslim state. By weaving these genuine systems into a fictional universe, he creates an authentic culture which invites people to judge and to understand.

On a smaller scale, perhaps, but no less vivid, is the world created by Adam and Stephanie Dray for their popular online roleplaying game, FiranMUX (http://firan.legendary.org). FiranMUX presents a rich fantasy society modeled after ancient Rome. Individual players can take on the characters ranging from beggars and thieves to the Clan Leaders who hold absolute power of life and death over their subjects. Playing there, I am amazed time and again by the sophisticated understanding of game management and players alike. I find it reassuring how new players, initially raw to the game, come to seek a greater understanding of how the system works, seeking its strengths and weaknesses. Regular discussions rise about the systems that are in place and the chinks they leave open, and players are encouraged to work that system within the context of the setting.

Perhaps it is inevitable that once you begin to really look at something in fiction, you start to weigh it more in reality. I know that before I started understanding the subtleties of fictional worlds -- of Kay's Al-Rassan, or of FiranMUX -- I did not much think about our own government, and afterwards, I begin to look at it as a reader. I could see the benefits it offered: a voice for the people, a system of checks and balances, a level of accountability held by public servants to the public they serve. I could also see its weaknesses: a vulnerability towards exploitation of personal ignorance, the temptation for public servants to look good rather than to do good, and the power of the dollar to affect our political landscape.

Once a person begins to see their government as an entity with a life of its own, to weigh its foibles and its benefits, it becomes much harder to perceive it as a monstrosity that lumbers on without heeding the individual. The responsibility for guiding it comes home to each individual then, to do his or her part in shaping it.

The United States is not an immovable object, or an unchanging force. It is not bad, and it is not perfect. The only difference between it and the fictional worlds written for us by others is that in the end, writing our country falls on us.