The Washington Post has recently unveiled its new slogan, “Democracy dies in darkness.” This motto seems to precisely capture furious citizens in the United States and South Korea are collectively concerned about the increasing crisis of democracy. They strongly feel that their democracy is in an unprecedented crisis. As a matter of fact, however, democracy has always been in a crisis in the history of humanity. For democracy is not a state of social harmony and unification as a fulfilled promise; rather it is, as the long history of political and social democratization in any country evidences, an enduring condition of multifarious conflicts and contradictions necessary for the realization of the interlocking principles of universal freedom and equality. In a sense, pure democracy is impossible in a modern society that consists of heterogeneous members of contesting interests and ideologies. Accordingly, democracy is nothing but a constant crisis, which proves the vitality of true democratic values and purposes.
  Yet it is not sufficient to underline the impossibility of pure democracy. If we want our democracy to be more than an imaginary fiction or an unreal dream, we should first realize that democracy is no guarantee of ideal future but a continuing process of trials and errors, as well as problems and solutions. Then, we should seriously learn how to deal with our errors and problems, which ask us to talk with people of different ideas and opinions. It is, however, difficult, oftentimes seemingly impossible, to keep having a conversation with those who sharply oppose to/ against us in political, socioeconomic, and cultural agendas and issues. Nonetheless, not to give up the very difficulty and impossibility is indicative of the essential dynamics of democracy to come. In other words, democracy is not something to restore, but something to wait for in our unceasing efforts to embrace all the differences characteristic of our society. Democracy to come can be possible only by means of such endeavors.
  Our new understanding of democracy to come rejects the plausible notion of democracy as a fixed or established political system. In some sense, democracy is like a collection of boxes which can hold all different and contesting beliefs and practices. Only by embracing diversity could true democracy exist and prosper. What is important is not to empty the full boxes of democracy. What we need to do is to make more boxes to contain different people and their views. It is our task to keep having more different boxes that can help us dispel the darkness we are afraid of now. Yes, it seems to be murky now. That’s why we should not stop making more boxes of democratic diversity for democracy to come. Our viable democracy is always alive in the very efforts for the others.