Creativity Quote by Peter Hook

Democracy, in Peter Hook's mouth, isn’t a noble ideal slipping out of reach; it’s a room where the mic is always too hot. Coming from a musician whose career was forged in the friction of bands, scenes, and egos, the line lands like a live soundcheck: the loudest voice isn’t necessarily the clearest, just the one that swallows the mix. He’s not making a civics argument so much as describing a social physics he’s watched up close - in rehearsal spaces, in interviews, in the endless culture war of who gets quoted, booked, or believed.

The intent is blunt: modern “democracy” often behaves less like collective deliberation and more like attention economics. Hook points at the way volume stands in for legitimacy, how intensity is mistaken for evidence, how a public sphere built on amplification rewards performance over persuasion. “For us” matters here. It’s not a universal condemnation from on high; it’s a weary, insider report from someone who has seen communities form around music and then fracture into factions, each convinced that decibels equal truth.

The subtext is also a quiet complaint about mediation: when platforms, tabloids, promoters, even fan cultures decide what gets heard, democracy becomes an arms race of charisma and outrage. Shouting is easy to measure, easy to sell, easy to clip. Listening is slow, unsexy, and rarely monetized. Hook’s cynicism works because it’s tactile: you can feel the crowd, the feedback, the person at the front insisting their voice is the room.