For the last few days, there’s been confusion in the United States regarding the numbers from the Iowa Democratic Caucus. Because of a failure of the technology used to count votes, the outcome was uncertain, causing a certain amount of mayhem, and leading Donald Trump to tweet that he — and not a Democratic Party nominee — was the winner of the caucus. 

Numbers have ruled the last few years of UK political life too: whether the 52% of Brexit voters or the 45% of Scottish independence voters, we are all attuned to how power and majority go hand in hand. Numbers matter in politics — you want your numbers to win a majority. That’s what democracy is, and it’s right. But it’s not where democracy stops.

In Biblical Hebrew the word Rav is translated as Majority, but it can also be translated as Great, or Crowd or Numerous, or Mighty; words of power. By contrast, the word Mat can be translated as Few, or Lesser, or sometimes the word is translated as Mortal or even Dying.

These days it seems like our political and civic life is played out in games of the majority against the minority, or the mighty against the dying. If it’s a simple matter of Might Rules, then we seem condemned to endless cycles of predictable patterns; what Eugene O’Neill foresaw when he wrote: There is no present or future—only the past, happening over and over again. 

Democracy, however, does propose additional ways to think about numbers. Great moments of human progress have been enacted because someone thought differently about numbers and their power. 

— Sometimes that has meant that the majority reach across the political aisle and lead the way in some kind of consensus model of powersharing that is for the benefit of all, and not merely for the benefit of the majority. 

— Other times it has meant that majority changes because of the rights of a minority who have been treated inexcusably. 

It’s a dream, I know: for so many, the point of winning is to have all the power. 

But there must be another way because we’re stuck with each other, and no matter who is winning, they share space with people on the other side. So we need to find something to add to the equation of winners take all. 

There’s an Irish saying — ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine — it is in the shelter of each other that the people live. 

The word “scáth” — translating as shelter — can also mean shadow. So this old saying isn’t as comforting as it seems; it’s more of a warning. Will we provide shelter to each other? or will we keep some people in our shadow? It depends on who is counting, and how we exercise power.