[T]here is... an important difference between two concepts of the active democratic citizen, which is not recognised in optimistic discussions. On the one hand is positive citizenship, where groups and organisations of people together develop collective identities, and autonomously formulate demands based on them, which they pass on to the political system. On the other hand is the negative activism of blame and complaint, where the main aim of political controversy is to see politicians called to account, their heads placed on blocks, and their public and private integrity held up to intimate scrutiny. This difference is closely paralleled by two different conceptions of citizens' rights. Positive rights stress citizens' abilities to participate in their polity: the right to vote, to form and join organisations, to receive information. Negative rights are those which protect the individual against others, especially the state: rights to sue, rights to property.
The second mini-snippet is a nice line about privelege, and our modern failure to spot it.
In non-democratic societies, class priveleges are proudly and arrogantly displayed, and subordinate classes are required to acknowledge their subordination; democracy challenges class priveleges in the name of subordinate classes; post-democracy denies the existence of both privelege and subordination.
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