During World War II, American writer EB White was asked to define "democracy". He went on to scribble a few evocative lines about the sights, smells and minutiae that he personally associated with the hard-to-define term, a term that is almost universally heralded as good, but has long been bandied about with abandon.
He concluded his essay by describing how he felt at that moment: "Democracy is a request from a War Board _ in the middle of the morning, in the middle of a war _ wanting to know what democracy is."
So what is democracy anyway? Can anyone say for sure?
Everyone who uses the term seems to think they know what it means. But given the diverse range of meanings assigned to the term (the Chinese communists rose to power touting their democratic essence; even the North Koreans use it), one might first observe that it can mean very different things to different people.
It's not an ordinary word, not a simple, self-explanatory political term, but a freighted, emotional term with quasi-magical powers, a Delphic gift from ancient Greece, part invocation, part oracle.
Whether or not the Thai term prachatipatai conveys the precise same range of meaning as "democracy" is one for the linguists, but when it comes to celebrating American-style governance in Thailand, as was the case last week, something is clearly lost in translation.
US President Obama's visit to Bangkok had the media all abuzz with the word democracy, not that democracy in action was much in evidence.
The pomp and circumstance for the visit of the US president was more imperial than brotherly, expressed in the form of strict road closings, Secret Service-controlled facilities, the deployment of thousands of police, bullet-proof motorcades, hidden snipers, warnings not to open windows and other draconian security arrangements.
And please, Mr Obama, don't drink the water!
Not only were humans shoved aside and hemmed in by the ceremonial visit of Mr Democracy, but cats were chased from temples and lizards cleared from government property.
In the wake of this extremely costly photo-op, paid for by taxpayers on both sides, a fleeting visit that was over almost as soon as it began, came a different sort of democratic exercise. A ragtag medley of demonstrators loyal to an old soldier gathered near Thai parliament to denounce democracy, or at least what they called the "phony democracy" of the Yingluck Shinawatra government.
Unlike the summit, the Pitak Siam affair was poorly organised with almost no pomp and no circumstance. Unlike the carefully crafted summit in which everyone had to stay on message, the speakers at the demonstration rambled and winged it, without the help of talking points and teleprompters.
About the only thing the two "democratic" events had in common was the deployment of a Darth Vader-like security force, which used draconian measures similar to those used for Mr Obama's visit, to halt and disperse the gathering crowd.
A charitable interpretation of democracy might describe it as a system of governing by consent, and consensus, a system by which the rights of the opposition and those defeated in the electoral process are protected, cherished and maintained.
It's not so much about winning or losing as is it is about the security and certainty that win or lose, everyone is still equal under the law, and everyone still has a chance to fully express themselves and participate in society.
While US democracy in action falls short of democracy in the ideal _ what with the heavy-handed security apparatus, the blatant cronyism and the gaming of the system in a way that gives undemocratic advantage to the super rich and those with the right connections _ there is still something to be said for the American tradition of protecting minority rights and allowing the opportunity for a political opposition to play a role.
So while there's something inherently odd about the sight of an old soldier like Gen Boonlert asserting the democratic right to peaceful assembly in order to close down the government, only to be shut down by the security forces of the elected regime, the frustration he and his followers are feeling is not beyond comprehension.
There is something deeply unsatisfactory about democracy in Thailand today.
Listening to the "democratic" rhetoric of Prime Minister Yingluck's elder brother, his subordinates in the ruling Pheu Thai party and his red-shirt street force, one gets a slightly different nuance; democracy is a winner-takes-all rumble in which the full force of the state machinery is exploited to consolidate power and advantage.
It's the kind of democracy in which the feathering of beds and the lining of wallets of the winning team follows naturally on the heels of victory at the polls.
Some crowd-pleasing gestures can be expected to placate the grassroots base, but the opposition and non-partisans are deprived of as much as a mat to sit on, barred meaningful participation until the next trumped up electoral drama.
Is there not something inherently unfair, if not technically undemocratic, about a billionaire fugitive from justice who lords over a "winner-take-all" political machine stacked with relatives and cronies?
Alas, Thai democracy is a work in progress. It's at least as difficult to define as the American version, so perhaps it's better not to get too theoretical, but instead attempt to describe its most recent manifestation, tongue-in-cheek, as EB White did when pressed to define America's version of the beast.
Surely Thais know what democracy is. It is the smell of tear gas in the morning. It is the thick line of police that block a public thoroughfare. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are wrong, more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy violated on Facebook, it is the fear of violence among school kids, the feeling of vituperation everywhere.
Democracy is a banner at the barricades, it's the last round of a boxing match. It's an idea that is tired and over-used, the words of which you can't get out of your head. It's som tam, it's tom yam kung, it's sticky rice _ with sweet coconut cream on top.
Philip Cunningham is a freelance journalist and some-time contributor to the Bangkok Post.