2

Is Demoxie Democracy?

Imagine if the entire country was able to come together via electronic devices and make a democratic decision in under a minute. Sounds harmless, right?

Pages 406-407 in “The Circle” describe that exact situation. With the introduction of Demoxie, the members of the Circle were able to vote on “controversial” topics like whether to implement a second “Take Your Daughter to Work” day per year, or whether to send a drone strike to kill terrorist Mohammed Khalil al-Hamed.

The problem is that voting on small-scale workplace decisions holds much less weight compared to voting on globally recognized political, social, and economic issues.

The leadership of the Circle debuted Demoxie like it was a toy, some form of entertainment. They sandwiched one impactful question between four light, even comical questions! It was misleading in so many ways.

The ultimate goal of The Circle is to reach this point of closure, and nearing the end of the book the buzz surrounding the “closing of the circle” is centered around Demoxie.

Pages 386-395 tells us just how far The Circle is planning on taking Demoxie. Bailey’s goal is for the country to experience full voter participation by essentially forcing every citizen to vote through The Circle. Mae seconds this idea by telling her SeeChange viewers that it will simply be another minuscule law by which we must abide, like requiring children to get an education.

Although democracy is characterized by power invested in the hands of the people, a sense of balance between the power granted to our nation’s leaders and the power granted to the people is required to maintain the integrity of our nation.

I’d like you to contemplate the possible conflicts associated with giving a wealthy, extremely powerful, privately owned institution the ability to control the country. One thing comes to my mind: corruption. The Circle could use these Demoxie polls to change the interface of our country and feed the personal needs of their company.

The potential for corruption is so immense that it is almost disturbing to consider. What is even more disturbing to think about is how people have become brainwashed and manipulated by Circle inventions like zings and SeeChange, so much so to that there is little to no resistance to the implementation of this new democratic system. (Annie acted as a small voice of wisdom for a page or two)

I came across an interesting article from the New Yorker about “The Circle.” It revealed a connection of the modern day companies Google and Facebook to The Circle. The Circle represents a mature version of the major technology companies we have today. For example, SeeChange seemed like the most futuristic Circle idea to me, yet I didn’t realize we have the ability to easily open our lives up to the world via Google Now or a social media checkin.

This isn’t because I didn’t know these options existed, but I never stopped to think about how the technology that we use everyday will come to evolve in the near and far future.

This connection immediately made me think of Twitter polls. Although they are usually light hearted and disregarded by many, what is stopping those polls from evolving into the real life Demoxie?