Languages are alive and they develop and grow loosely bound by rules and structures that are free to evolve within themselves, propelled forward by following the eras and situations all of the users of the language encounter. Languages grow up with cultures and the meaning of the word is accepted in a consensus of its speakers.

“Demon” today is a perversion of the original word and it now means basically the opposite of its original meaning, standing to denote the devil, a bad spirit or a malignant supernatural being and we associate it with ghouls, apparition and horrific entities we encounter as the coagulations of all that is evil, in some sort doing evil only for the sake of evil rotting the core of goodness or serving as its antithesis within myths and stories. Every hero needs a nemesis in the story. But in its original meaning the demon was “daemon” and stood for a spirit, an intelligence and form of existence without a carnal component to it, for divine power. The Greek word “Daemon” was akin to the Latin “genius” or “numen”. This original “daemon” is of divine descent and is here as a force of good and an enlightening presence. We encounter it in the works of Socrates where it is interpreted as conscience, an internal force that leafs you to the higher realm of self and speaks to you on what is right and wrong outside of needing any man made law to govern your actions and thought, a sort of an universal morality beyond the particularities of its expression. This is also where free will comes into play – You already know what is right or wrong, the daemon already showed you, but you’re free to choose if you’ll listen to it. You’re not obligated to be good.

This daemon with its positive connotation is intertwined with the coining of the word democracy – meaning democracy can function only in a society where people listen to their deamonic conscience aka there is no advancement of the whole without the advancement of the individual as a part in constituting this whole. To have better democracies you need people who listen to their conscience, otherwise you get a lacking social structure with more problems than the solutions. The political state cannot work without an engaged wise citizen because it arises (or should in the ideal case arise) from the collective decision and the prevalent direction where its (more or less) wise citizens wish to take it in their current moment in time. If people are docile, anesthetized, incentivized, split divided and entertained into not hearing their daemon democracy can’t work and individuals can just climb to the top and do as they wish to cater their interest alone. No one is paying attention anyway because Dancing with the stars or Big Brother is on.