Future of Democracy

[The_Rorschach]

There are five criteria that mark a democratic process: voting equality, effective participation, enlightened understanding, control of the agenda, and inclusion of all adult members in collective decisions. These five criteria make the democratic process fully consistent with the logic of political, if not individual, equality. It is intrinsically important that this be made clear when discussing it in a classroom environment, in order to illustrate exactly how unwieldy such a form of government is to implement. However, when it comes to instruction, I believe Democracy should be viewed in a historical context, as it has no place in the world's future. If one studies their history, they will be unable to help but notice that even from its very conception in the early 1900s, democracy found itself almost at once on the defensive. The Great War exposed the myth of guaranteed peace for what it was and shattered the aged structures of false security and imposed order by unleashing dogs of war whipped into frenzy by the angry proponents of revolution. Not revolution for democracy, but against it. Bolshevism in Russia, Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, militarism in Japan uniformly despised, denounced and destroyed individual rights and the processes of self-government, and they did so with the full support of their citizens. In America, there was the Great Depression, which, if nothing else, debased the myth that democracy would guarantee prosperity.

Not yet thirty years into the century and democracy seemed a pitiful concept, rendered spiritless, paralyzed and ineffectual. Universal contempt for Democracy resonated amongst the educated elite and the average citizen alike, parliamentary discussion was viewed with disdain, seen as both bourgeois civility and outright cowardice. In 1940, a book was published by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a bestseller which proclaimed totalitarianism The Wave of the Future. Within she wrote of a "new, and perhaps even ultimately good, conception of humanity trying to come to birth." Hitlerism and Stalinism were merely "scum on the wave of the future . . . The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it." By 1941, the number of democracies could be numbered in less than a few moments, and though now "For the first time in all history," as President Clinton declared in his second inaugural address, "more people on this planet live under democracy than dictatorship," but that will not remain true if the political, economic, and moral failures of democracy perpetrate themselves into the 21st century, as it did in the twentieth. Unless democracy is able to construct a humane, prosperous, and peaceful world, it will invite the rise of alternative creeds apt to be based, like fascism and communism, on flight from freedom and surrender to authority. Already, I find myself already embracing such ideals myself, how much longer will it be until others discover what is lacking within society as it stands now?

"The problem of the twentieth century," W.E.B. Du Bois observed in 1900, "is the problem of the color line." That line exists a hundred years later. One might attempt to give credit to democracy for having abolished slavery, but in truth, the slaves were freed by the industrial revolution which made slave labor obsolete, not by the laws implemented by then President Lincoln. It was not the democratic process which would give western countries influential hegemony, nor that ultimately lead to their triumph in World War II. Rather, it was the rise of technology. Technology was responsible for the birth of the printing press, the compass, the steam engine, the corporation, and the other innovations that laid the foundation for capitalism, hence western dominance, and in time fostered increased rationalism, individualism, and democracy. Initial advances were erratic, intermittent and slow. Within a short span of time it became institutionalized. "The greatest invention of the nineteenth century," observed Alfred North Whitehead, "was the invention of the method of invention." Yet, while initially technology was used a proponent of democracy, it is becoming its adversary, though few realize it as yet. The computerized world we live in today poses problems which cannot be denied or overcome, whereas the Age of Industry created an influx of occupational opportunities, the Age of Information threatens to destroy more jobs than it creates, leaving an almost omnipotent elite in control. One needs look no further than the Patriot Act than to see a new age coming, like the tide. An age of totalitarianism perhaps.

Self-government, individual rights and equality before the law are European inventions, as are the egalitarian myth we created and venerate to this day. In current headlines we see a rise in Asian independence, nations who refuse to bargain, barter or compromise on issues such as nuclear proliferation, trade tariffs and peaceful discourse. Nations which spy, sabotage, and undermine western democracies wherever possible. The Asian tradition, we are told, values the group more than the individual, order more than argument, authority more than liberty, solidarity more than freedom, and it that manner of things which will ultimately, perhaps, prevail over the well intended European political ideologies. How then, should we view democracy? I would say a post mortem examination is appropriate.

[Pub Lover]

[AChimp]

Parts of the last paragraph intrigued me in particular.

Nations that refuse to deal with regards to trade tariffs will be left in the dust under the new globalized trade system that has been emerging over the last decade. Protectionism is now viewed as archaic and non-profitable by investors, and no investors means no foreign direct investment and no FDI means no capital which results in economies falling apart (see Mexico in 1994 and Hong Kong, S. Korea and Thailand in 1997).

These countries have had to restructure their entire financial systems and are really sorry that they ignored the will of the rest of the world.

It will be many decades before Asia gets it act together enough to challenge the West for any kind of supremacy. There is currently too much corruption in their systems for them to remain efficient. Besides, they're all switching to Western-style free market systems, anyways.

They're gonna be just like us.

[Sethomas]

If democracy falters, it won't be out of inferiority to other government types but rather to the economy. I'm not familiar with all of them, but instinctively I feel that current anti-trust laws are far from adequate to deal with the new breed of super-corporations and business alliances. Corporate globalization is no threat if governments can learn to coalesce fast enough to keep up with the present destruction of economic boundaries. I estimate this expansion to be closer to utter completion than most people would care to appreciate. I personally see much reason to be optimistic about the possibilities that may come from a market without borders, but the truth is that we aren't as afraid as we probably should be at this point.

As a democratic socialist, I find myself generally concuring with Roberto Unger in his vision outlined in his Cambridge lectures. I find that far too many people assume that one political philosophy can have absolute logical superiority. I see the tabula rasa as requiring a Libertarian state until it reaches critical mass, at which point it should steadily make a conversion to democratic socialism. I would say that the United States reached that point in the late 1950s, and it is so far behind that the intrisic nature of the Information Age is going to seriously bite nearly every aspect of American life in the ass, and the mark will likely last a long time. While I make no absolute predictions, I find it quite likely that our economy will not reach it's pre-11.09.2001 strength until after a serious tribulation period sometime in the next twenty years.

To speak of the immediate present, my outlook on the tax cuts is exceptionally grim, should they pass. I would have little hesitation to take up the "love it or leave it" offer, though I hope the country stays in one piece long enough for me to get my Ph.D.

For the long term, though, I reiterate that democracy must become more socialized and international relations must become more lucid and economically permeable. Although most people are terrified at the idea of global government, it is an absolute necessity to keep order in the world through the 22nd century. My most optimistic vision is that the world will be distilled into a dozen or so superpowers sometime within the next fifty years, though I know fully well that too many people will kick and scream against this.

[The_Rorschach]

You'll have to forgive for a minor deception. I wish I could take the credit for writing that, but actually, I was just curious what people's reactions would be before I posted the full article. It was written a year before Bush took office, but if his current administration, and the American support behind it, is anything to go by. . .He might be right. I'm still in the process of mulling it over, I came across it this morning when I was doing a search for an article from last months editorial section of the paper.

My paraphrasing skills are decent, but I'm sure a few of you will actually want the article in its full glory, so here it is. If I find myself in over all agreement, I'll happily take up defending the piece, though he seems to do a well enough job himself. . .Although, he seems a bit biased at times.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Written By Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and published in FOREIGN AFFAIRS - September/October 1997. This essay in HTML has been formatted by Joe J. Grech.


Has Democracy a Future?


Through A Glass Darkly

The twentieth century has no doubt been, as Isaiah Berlin has said, "the most terrible century in Western history." But this terrible century has -- or appears to be having -- a happy ending. As in melodramas of old, the maiden democracy, bound by villains to the railroad track, is rescued in the nick of time from the onrushing train. As the century draws to a close, both major villains have perished, fascism with a bang, communism with a whimper.

A season of triumphalism has followed. Two centuries ago Kant argued in his Idea for a Universal History that the republican form of government was destined to supersede all others. At last the prophecy seemed on the way to fulfillment. Savants hailed "the end of history." "For the first time in all history," President Clinton declared in his second inaugural address, "more people on this planet live under democracy than dictatorship". The New York Times, after careful checking, approved: 3.1 billion people live in democracies, 2.66 billion do not. According to end-of-history doctrine as expounded by its prophet, the minority can look forward to "the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government". For historians, this euphoria rang a bell of memory. Did not the same radiant hope accompany the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century? This most terrible hundred years in Western history started out in an atmosphere of optimism and high expectations. People of good will in 1900 believed in the inevitability of democracy, the invincibility of progress, the decency of human nature, and the coming reign of reason and peace. David Starr Jordan, the president of Stanford University, expressed the mood in his turn-of-the-century book The Call of the Twentieth Century. "The man of the Twentieth Century," Jordan predicted, "will be a hopeful man. He will love the world and theworld will love him."

Looking back, we recall a century marked a good deal less by love than by hate, irrationality, and atrocity, one that for a long dark passage inspired the gravest forebodings about the very survival of the human race. Democracy, striding confidently into the 1900s, found itself almost at once on the defensive. The Great War, exposing the pretension that democracy would guarantee peace, shattered old structures of security and order and unleashed angry energies of revolution -- revolution not for democracy but against it. Bolshevism in Russia, Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, militarism in Japan all despised, denounced, and, wherever they could, destroyed individual rights and the processes of self-government.

In another decade the Great Depression came along to expose the pretension that democracy would guarantee prosperity. A third of the way into the century, democracy seemed a helpless thing, spiritless, paralyzed, doomed. Contempt for democracy spread among elites and masses alike: contempt for parliamentary dithering, for "talking-shops," for liberties of expression and opposition, for bourgeois civility and cowardice, for pragmatic muddling through.

In another decade the Second World War threatened to administer the coup de grace. Liberal society, its back to the wall, fought for its life. There was considerable defeatism in the West. The title of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's 1940 bestseller proclaimed totalitarianism The Wave of the Future. It was, she wrote, a "new, and perhaps even ultimately good, conception of humanity trying to come to birth." Hitlerism and Stalinism were merely "scum on the wave of the future . . The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it." By 1941 only about a dozen democracies were left on the planet.

The political, economic, and moral failures of democracy had handed the initiative to totalitarianism. Something like this could happen again. If liberal democracy fails in the 21st century, as it failed in the twentieth, to construct a humane, prosperous, and peaceful world, it will invite the rise of alternative creeds apt to be based, like fascism and communism, on flight from freedom and surrender to authority.

After all, democracy in its modern version -- representative government, party competition, the secret ballot, all founded on guarantees of individual rights and freedoms -- is at most 200 years old. A majority of the world's inhabitants may be living under democracy in 1997, but democratic hegemony is a mere flash in the long vistas of recorded history. One wonders how deeply democracy has sunk roots in previously non-democratic countries in the years since the collapse of the totalitarian challenges. Now the democratic adventure must confront tremendous pent-up energies that threaten to blow it off course and even drive it

onto the rocks.



The Law of Acceleration

Much of this energy is pent up within democracy itself. The most fateful source in the United States is race. "The problem of the twentieth century," W.E.B. Du Bois observed in 1900, "is the problem of the color line." His prediction will come to full flower in the 21st century. Minorities seek full membership in the larger American society. Doors slammed in their faces drive them to protest. The revolt against racism has taken time to gather strength. White America belatedly awakens to the cruelties long practiced against nonwhite peoples, and the revolt intensifies. As Tocqueville explained long ago, "Patiently endured so long as it seemed beyond redress, a grievance comes to appear intolerable once the possibility of removing it crosses men's minds. For the mere fact that certain abuses have been remedied draws attention to others, and they now appear more galling; people may suffer less, but their sensibility is exacerbated."

There are other pent-up energies. Modern democracy itself is the political offspring of technology and capitalism, the two most dynamic -- that is to say, destabilizing -- forces loose in the world today. Both are driven ever onward by self-generated momentum that strains the bonds of social control and of political sovereignty.

Technology created the clock, the printing press, the compass, the steam engine, the power loom, and the other innovations that laid the foundation for capitalism and that in time generated rationalism, individualism, and democracy. At first technologicaladvance was unsystematic and intermittent. Soon it was institutionalized. "The greatest invention of the nineteenth century," said Alfred North Whitehead, "was the invention of the method of invention."

In the twentieth century, scientific and technological innovation increased at an exponential rate. Henry Adams, the most brilliant of American historians, meditated on the acceleration of history. "The world did not double or treble its movement between 1800 and 1900," Adams wrote in 1909, "but, measured by any standard . . . the tension and vibration and volume and so-called progression of society were fully a thousand times greater in 1900 than in 1800; -- the force had doubled ten times over, and the speed, when measured by electrical standards as in telegraphy, approached infinity, and had annihilated both space and time." Nothing, Adams thought, could slow this process, for "the law of acceleration . . . cannot be supposed to relax its energy to suit the convenience of man."

The law of acceleration now hurtles us into a new age. The shift from a factory-based to a computer-based economy is more traumatic even than our great-grandparents' shift from a farm-based to a factory- based economy. The Industrial Revolutionextended over generations and allowed time for human and institutional adjustment. The Computer Revolution is far swifter, more concentrated, and more drastic in its impact.





Hyperinteractive State

The computerized world poses problems for democracy. Where the Industrial Revolution created more jobs than it destroyed, the Computer Revolution threatens to destroy more jobs than it creates. It also threatens to erect new and rigid class barriers, especially between the well-educated and the ill-educated. Economic inequality has already grown in the United Stares to the point where disparities are greater in egalitarian America than in the class-ridden societies of Europe. Felix Rohatyn, the investment banker and rescuer of a bankrupt New York City, speaks of the "huge transfers of wealth from lower-skilled middle-class workers to the owners of capital assets and to a new technological aristocracy." Those who skip or flunk the computer will fall into the Blade Runner proletariat, a snarling, embittered, violent underclass.

The computer will also affect the procedures of democratic politics. James Madison in The Federalist Papers distinguished between "pure democracy," by which he meant a system in which citizens assemble and administer the government in person, and a republic, by which he meant a system in which the majority expresses its will through "a scheme of representation." For most of American history, "pure democracy" was necessarily limited to town meetings in small villages. Now the interactivity introduced by the Computer Revolution makes "pure democracy" technically feasible on a national scale.

Brian Beedham in an article in the December 21, 1996, Economist applauds this development, claiming representative democracy is "a half-finished thing." Every citizen, Beedham argues, is entitled to an equal say in the conduct of public affairs. The rise of public opinion polls, focus groups, and referendums suggests popular demand for a finished democracy. With a nation of computers plugged into information and communication networks, "full democracy" is just around the corner. Full democracy, pure democracy, plebiscitary democracy, direct democracy, cyberdemocracy, the electronic town hall: under whatever name, is this a desirable prospect?

Perhaps not. Interactivity encourages instant responses, discourages second thoughts, and offers outlets for demagoguery, egomania, insult, and hate. Listen to talk radio! In too interactive a polity, a '"common passion," as Madison thought, could sweep through a people and lead to emotional and ill-judged actions. Remembering the explosion of popular indignation when President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur, one is grateful that the electronic town hall was not running the country in 1951. The Internet has done little thus far to foster the reasoned exchanges that in Madison's words "refine and enlarge the public views."



Unbridled Capitalism

While the onrush of technology creates new substantive problems and promises to revise the political system through which we deal with them, the onrush of capitalism may have even more disruptive consequences. Let us understand the relationship between capitalism and democracy. Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property -- resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state -- provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom. But the capitalist market is no guarantee of democracy, as Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, Pinochet, and Franco, not to mention Hitler and Mussolini, have amply demonstrated. Democracy requires capitalism, but capitalism does not require democracy, at least in the short run.

Capitalism has proved itself the supreme engine of innovation, production, and distribution. But its method, as it careens ahead, heedless of little beyond its own profits, is what Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." In its economic theory, capitalism rests on the concept of equilibrium. In practice, its very virtues drive it toward disequilibrium. This is the dilemma of contemporary conservatism. The unfettered market conservatives worship undermines the values -- stability, morality, family, community, work, discipline, delayed gratification -- conservatives avow. The glitter of the marketplace, the greed, the short-termism, the exploitation of prurient appetites, the ease of fraud, the devil-take-the-hindmost ethos -- all these are at war with purported conservative ideals. "Stationary capitalism," as Schumpeter said, "is a contradiction in terms."

Even premier capitalists are appalled by what runaway capitalism has wrought. If understanding of capitalism can be measured by success in making money out of it, no one understands contemporary capitalism better than the financier and philanthropist George Soros. "Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets," Soros writes, "I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society." The "uninhibited pursuit of self-interest," Soros continues, results in "intolerable inequities and instability."

The Computer Revolution offers wondrous new possibilities for creative destruction. One goal of capitalist creativity is the globalized economy. One -- unplanned -- candidate for capitalist destruction is the nation-state, the traditional site of democracy. The computer turns the untrammeled market into a global juggernaut crashing across frontiers, enfeebling national powers of taxation and regulation, undercutting national management of interest rates and exchange rates, widening disparities of wealth both within and between nations, dragging down labor standards, degrading the environment, denying nations the shaping of their own economic destiny, accountable to no one, creating a world economy without a world polity. Cyberspace is beyond national control. No authorities exist to provide international control. Where is democracy now?



The Asian Shift

The end of the Eurocentric era raises further problems for democracy. Self-government, individual rights, equality before the law are European inventions. Now the age of the Pacific is upon us. The breakthrough of Japan in the century coming to an end heralds the breakthrough of China and India in the century ahead. The economic magnetism of Asia is already altering the contours of the global economy, and foreshadows historic shifts in the planetary balance of power.

I am not greatly concerned about the "clash of civilizations" that worries some thoughtful analysts. Civilizations are rarely unified. Countries within the same civilization are more likely to fight with each other than to join in monolithic assaults on other civilizations. But the impact of the rise of Asia on the future of democracy is worth consideration. The Asian tradition, we are told, values the group more than the individual, order more than argument, authority more than liberty, solidarity more than freedom. Some Asian leaders, notably Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia, love to contrast Asian discipline and stability with the disorder and decadence they impute to the individualistic West. They denounce the attempt to hold Asian countries to Western democratic standards as the new form of Western imperialism.

Nevertheless, both India and Japan are functioning democracies. If the claim that human rights are universal is proof of Western arrogance, the restriction of those rights to Europe and the Americas brands non-Western peoples as lesser breeds incapable of appreciating personal liberty and self-government, and that is surely Western arrogance too. In fact, many Asians fight for human rights, and at the risk of their freedom and their lives. "Why do we assume," asks Christopher Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, "that Lee Kuan Yew is the embodiment of Asian values rather than Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the courageous opposition leader under prolonged house arrest in Burma? A pre-Tiananmen Square wall poster in Beijing proclaimed: "We cannot tolerate that human rights and democracy are only slogans of the Western bourgeoisie and the Eastern proletariat only needs dictatorship." In the words of the Indian economist Amartya Sen, "The so-called Asian values that are invoked to justify authoritarianism are not especially Asian in any significant sense." Chris Patten concludes, "I think the Asian value debate is piffle. What are these Asian values? When you home in on what one or two Asian leaders mean by them, what they actually mean is that anyone who disagrees with me should shut up."

Still, the new salience of Asia on the world scene, the absence of historical predilections for democracy, and the self-interest of rulers who see democracy as a threat to their power suggest a period of Asian resistance to the spread of the democratic idea.



Culture Lashes Back

That resistance will be reinforced by the defensive reaction around the planet to relentless globalization -- a reaction that takes the form of withdrawal from modernity. The world today is torn in opposite directions. Globalization is in the saddle and rides mankind, but at the same time drives people to seek refuge from its powerful forces beyond their control and comprehension. They retreat into familiar, intelligible, protective units. They crave the politics of identity. The faster the world integrates, the more people will huddle in their religious or ethnic or tribal enclaves. Integration and disintegration feed on each

other.

A militant expression of what Samuel Huntington calls cultural backlash is the upsurge of religious fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism seems especially hostile to freedom of expression, to women's rights, and, contrary to historical Islam, to other religions. Nor is the fundamentalist revival confined to the Third World. Many people living lives of quiet desperation in modern societies hunger for transcendent meaning and turn to inerrant faith for solace and support.

According to a 1995 Gallup poll, more than a third of American adults claim that God speaks to them directly. One hopes it is the God of love rather than the God of wrath on the other end of the line. Fundamentalism, carried too far, has ominous implications for democracy. Those who believe they are executing the will of the Almighty are notably harsh on non-believers. A fanatic, as the Irish-American wit Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley once observed, "does what he thinks th' Lord wud do if He only knew th' facts in th' case." Fanaticism is the mortal enemy of democracy.

Back to the question: Has democracy a future? Yes, Virginia, it does, but not the glorious future predicted in the triumphalist moment. Democracy has survived the twentieth century by the skin of its teeth. It will not enjoy a free ride through the century to come.

In America, democracy must run a gauntlet of challenges. The most crucial is still Du Bois' color line. Much depends on the availability of jobs, especially in the inner city. If employment remains high, political action will mitigate racial tensions, particularly when minorities understand that in the longer run ethnic gerrymandering will reduce, not increase, their influence. Tension will be mitigated even more by intermarriage. Sex -- and love -- between people of different creeds and colors can probably be counted on to arrest the disuniting of America.

The national capacity to absorb and assimilate newcomers will remain powerful. The call of the mainstream will appeal far more than linguistic or ethnic ghettos, above all to the young. English will continue the dominant language. Indeed, in essentials the national character will be recognizably much as it has been for a couple of centuries. People seeking clues to the American mystery will still read, and quote, Tocqueville.

Technology will rush on according to Adams' law of acceleration. But for all the temptations of interactivity and all the unpopularity of elected officials, I doubt that Americans will sanction the degradation of representative democracy into a system of plebiscites. Capitalism too will careen on, through downs as well as ups, but laissez-faire ideology will probably wane as capitalists discover the range of troubles the unfettered market cannot solve, or makes worse. Unbridled capitalism, with low wages, long hours, and exploited workers, excites social resentment, revives class warfare, and infuses Marxism with new life. To move along constructive lines, capitalism must subordinate short-term plans and profits to such long-term social necessities as investment in education, research and development, environmental protection, the extension of health care, the rehabilitation of infrastructure, the redemption of the city. Capitalists are not likely to do this by themselves. Long-term perspectives demand public leadership and affirmative government.

In the world at large, can capitalism, once loose from national moorings, be held to social accountability? Will international institutions acquire the authority to impose, for example, a global sec? This won't happen next week, but continuing abuse of power will build a constituency for reform. Wars will still disturb the tenor of life, but where in the past they generally arose from aggression across national frontiers, the wars of the 21st century will more likely be between ethnic, religious, ideological, or tribal factions within the same country. Such wars are harder to define and to control. Let us pray that no factional zealot gets hold of an atomic bomb.

Nation-states will continue to decline as effective power units: too small for the big problems, as the sociologist Daniel Bell has said, and too big for the small problems. Despite this decline, nationalism will persist as the most potent of politicalemotions. Whether democracy, a Western creation, can be transplanted to parts of the world with different cultures and traditions is far from certain. Yet I would expect a gradual expansion of democratic institutions and ideals. It is hard to believe that the instinct for political and intellectual freedom is limited to a happy few around the North Atlantic littoral.

Democracy in the 21st century must manage the pressures of race, of technology, and of capitalism, and it must cope with the spiritual frustrations and yearnings generated in the vast anonymity of global society. The great strength of democracy is its capacity for self- correction. Intelligent diagnosis and guidance are essential. "Perhaps no form of government," said the historian and diplomat Lord Bryce, "needs great leaders so much as democracy." Yet even the greatest of democratic leaders lack the talent to cajole violent, retrograde, and intractable humankind into utopia. Still, with the failures of democracy in the twentieth century at the back of their minds, leaders in the century to come may do a better job than we have done of making the world safe for democracy.



Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., is a writer, historian, and former Special Assistant to President Kennedy. This article is based on the James Bryce Lecture on the American Commonwealth, delivered at the Institute of United States Studies of the University of London.







Copyright 1997 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

All rights reserved.

[Helm]

I had written a big point-by-point response to your original post, but then Opera crashed. Probably for the best, because it was too wordy. The main issues (very condensed) have been retyped:


Your (or rather Arthur Schlesingers) assessment of what the future holds for the current model of democracy is probably correct. The current model is disfunctional, erratic, and prone to corruption. It is also on a short leash, controlled by capitalism economy.

It is probable that a brief period of totaliarianism might occur when this model is discarded.

However, I think that that would not be a lasting change. I believe that this brief period will result in the reshaping of democracy, to a more representative model, where the State will be shrunk to a compact, mobile utilitarian structure, and where through digital means, 100% of the populance will vote on every aspect of internal and external policy. This model will be largely free of corruption, and will further the main goal of democracy since it's inception in roughly 300-400 B.C. in the city-state Athens(rather in 1900 as it was invalidly stated). Namely: Individual freedom. To where this democracy will lead will be purely the result of exercising that freedom.

This, I believe, is the only logical progression of the numerous variations of the faulty democratic model that have been applied in the West.

Bottom line: Man cannot remain ignorant for too long. This has been the main reason democracy remains a consistent option and hasn't been made redundant by any other political system. Current economical studies dictate that some change is historically certain to occur in the next few decades. It's probably going to get worse before it gets better, but better it will get. And when the suggested model of democracy is finally applied, whatever the outcome will be, it will at least be the result of the choice of the people, and there's not much more to ask than that.

[The_Rorschach]

A pity your browser crashed, it would have been interesting to read what you have to say. I also found myself in agreement with his main points, and have for awhile, though I know I certainly never took my disappointment with democratic ideaology far enough to ecompass its eventual failure and abandonment.

As I see things, you're quite right, once it has been swept away, I see two options; Either Totalitarianism, or anarchy, though not necessary the pure Democracy, as described by Madison in the Federalist Papers and implimented by City-States like Athens.

While it might be theoretically pleasant to envision "100% of the populance" voting, practically I hope it never comes to pass. After all, who can argue with the assertion that in democracies citizens with little invested in the system often make unwise and poorly-informed decisions when voting? Especially when so many live irresponsible lives. Look at the drug problem in the United States, for example, or merely the lives the 'average' Americans lead. Are these the sort of individuals on whom's shoulder should rest the fates of others?

When you speak of Individual Freedom, Helm, forgive me, but I cannot help but think you are referring it as defined by people such as Rousseau and Marx whom hated inequalities .They both generally defined freedom as something which made them free from responsibility, rather than a responsibility in and of itself. For them, freedom meany being able to realize certain higher goods (such as to free and equal participation in political activities, freedom from alienation, etc) and that no power or principality should rule over them. Conversely, I agree with Nietzsche, that in order for human excellence to develop freely there should never be any equality constraint on people: a noble heart should not be put down in order to make it equal to a base heart, people should be allowed to compete freely for power and, naturally, noble people will win the competition and become rulers of human society. I guess, when all is said and done, I'm a proponant for benevolent dictatorships.

I fully intend to address your bottom line, but rather than begin talking about my ass, I'd rather get a more factual basis together first.

[Helm]

After all, who can argue with the assertion that in democracies citizens with little invested in the system often make unwise and poorly-informed decisions when voting? Especially when so many live irresponsible lives.

You seem to care for the welfare of the people more than you care about their freedom. Taken to it's extreme, this is what leads to totalitarianism. The point of a democracy isn't (or seeing how much political terms are being twisted around, shouldn't be) about the biggest percentage of the people in it being prosperous, it's about all of the people in it being free to choose their own future. If that future can only be served through unwise, or poorly-informed decisions, then so be it. Pain is a great teacher. The only solution for your initial argument, is to provide for the people to be wise and well-informed, really. That happens by adopting a solid education system that focuses on actual cultural development instead of an education system that just perpetuates the status quo. What you are proposing is the aristocratic "if the head hurts, cut it off" solution, which is, umm... undemocratic, to say the least.

When you speak of Individual Freedom, Helm, forgive me, but I cannot help but think you are referring it as defined by people such as Rousseau and Marx whom hated inequalities.

Yes, I am. As defined in 'The Social Contract', mainly.

[The_Rorschach]

Well. . .I have to admit. I've leaning away from Representative Republicanism and towards aristocracy. Perhaps even monarchy. I've been swayed by the words of Nietzsche and the arguments made in the Bow Bells Novelettes.

Maybe its my tremendous ego, but I can't help put look upon the people of this world with contempt Helm. Self serving, self absorbed, self centred, ignorant and apathetical. Look around you, they desire only to live in a society where they can exist untroubled by others. Those are aspirations fit for cattle, not men. We have the ability to live convictions and face all manner of persecution for abstract ideals, to show undying loyalty to mere concepts. Words have caused us to sacrifice our most precious possession, our life, for not greater reason than to show the level of our commitment to a cause. Thats so amazing. . .A capability no mere animal can ever emulate. Yet so many would turn their backs on that, because its not convenient, they desire only casual, easy things.

And I detest them for it.

But you would say they deserve the right of self government? They haven't earned it though, and if it were handed to them it would mean nothing. A perfect Democracy, aided by technology, would flourish only so long as the people which established it. The ensuing generations would take it for granted, and would believe themselves entitled to such an enriched lifestyle. I don't know, its two in the morning, I'm rambling a bit. 130 years ago the slaves were freed, and yet American society is still decades away from successful incorporation of minorities - Is it because we're irresponsible, or they are? Are these the fruits of democracy?

How pitiable.

[Helm]

People will be everything they're allowed to be. So far, they where never allowed to be free. Think about it. Hating the scum is easy, but it's not constructive. Throwing your hands into the air is nothing but a vacuous statement.

Freedom is not something you earn. It is something you deserve. When it is deprived from you, it is only unjustly so.

Think about it.

[Brandon]

I'm going to have to agree with Rorschach on this one.

Until we see a dramatic change in the populace (which may never happen), an aristocracy (not a hereditary one, mind you) would probably be a more effective government.

I tend to agree with Plato's ideas on government. He suggested a ruling body of our best and brightest that arose out of a certification process rather than elections.

[Helm]

Platos Ideal State is based on the assumption than men, when born into a class, would for some reason desire to remain in it, no matter which it is. Furthermore, whereas he makes some cheap talk about class mobility, he promptly neglects to explain how anyone is to change a class when he has not had any support or education towards that end. Soldiers remain soldiers, philosophers philosophers and the bottom-row farmers remain the tool of the above. It is an inherently flawed system, and one that Plato himself later on in life discarded as infantile. The 'certification process' you speak of presupposes there's only one standard on which we are able to judge wisdom, intelligence and arete, whereas I see no evidence to suggest any such thing. All it would then stand to produce, would be rules that abide by the chooser's moral code, and thus fortify the status quo. Enter yet another dictatorship. Jolly.

[theapportioner]

I'll be the first to asterisk that I'm no scholar of Nietszche, but as I understand it, the "aristocracy" he writes of isn't necessarily a political one. Yea he has nasty things to say about liberalism but he also describes himself as "apolitical". The Overman, for him, could well be an artistic genius, such as Wagner before their falling out.

I don't know Nietszche well enough to say how "political" his message is intended to be, but certainly it can and has been interpreted as such. Ror, what do you think of his virulently anti-Christian stance?

What do you think of postmodernist/poststructuralist theorists, e.g. Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard? They owe quite a bit to Nietszche, especially Foucault, though their conclusions run quite counter to what you're concluding.

[The_Rorschach]

I can always trust you CLA, to add proportion to any argument. Thank you. I appreciate your questions, though I must admit, I'm no scholar of Nietszche either. Just someone who has read a couple books and developed an appreciation.

"What do you think of his virulently anti-Christian stance?"

I hope you don't regret asking this, because I can tell already, my answer is going to be longer than you would probably care to read.

I think had he been able to discuss the Christianity with bliblical scholars similar to those whom I grew up around, he might not have been so 'virulently anti-Christian.' His struggle with religion was intensely personal, and because he was critically objective, he understood immediately that the church was often used as a politica and social tool, and often times things associated with it were anything but religious in origin. Rougly 90% really.

At the age of twenty, he wrote a poem to "the unknown God:" "I want to know you -- even to serve you." Only 25 years old, he was appointed professor in philology at the University of Basel. Ambitious, intellegent, calculating and critical, is it any surprise he had difficulty embracing a religion which seemed self serving, hypocritical, irrational and emotional based? I think it was that very lack of religion which resulted in his skewed perspective, and eventually led him into mad, if wonderfully genius, lines of though.

Not to get far afield, but it directly lead to Nietzsche’s belief in the transvaluation of all values. The very notion is, of course, impossible, as the only set of circumstances which could make it possible cannot logically exist with contradicting the very thesis it itself supports. Even if it did, transvaluating values would still be meaningless, and much worse pointless, since it would be an illusion.

I had to take my Nietzsche books back to the library some weeks ago, so I'm referencing the text A History of Philosophy, Vol. VII by Frederick Copleston though the words were Nietzsche's own.

Master morality, or aristocratic, is the morality of the noble, of the strong. "For the masters, the good is the noble, the strong, the powerful" "the epithets are applied to men rather than to actions." Slave, or democratic, morality, by contrast, "is a morality common to those people who are weak willed, uncertain of themselves, oppressed, and abused. The essence of slave morality is utility." In slave morality, "(q)ualities such as sympathy, kindness and humility are extolled as virtues." Nietzsche termed slave morality "herd morality," because its "moral valuations are expressions of the needs of a herd." When the "herd," then, starts imposing its own slave values on others, i.e. on the masters, an illusion is created which makes us believe that the herd values are universal and objective moral principles. Now, had he been a Christian, these words would certainly never have been uttered, as close to the truth as they come.

I don't necessarily agree with everything he is saying, but I do see the corrolation between Slave and Master as correct and consistant with reality. The slave provides the means by which the master survives, just as the people are the source of any governments power. The master must therefore protect and meet the needs of his slave in order to ensure his own survival. The government also, must pander to the desires of the people or else it lies in danger of being pronounced illigitimate and being put down. This ties, very directly, into the line of thinking which inspired our Revolutionary War.

The American Revolution was a war of ideas. The new nation which declared itself independent in 1776 was founded upon the "natural rights" philosophy Locke. Following the ideas and values embedded in the Declaration of Independence, America went to war to defend the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the property -the last later being ammended to 'pursuit of happiness'- and that all men were created equal. Underlying this theory of natural rights was the contract theory of government that postulated that government was a voluntary agreement between a ruler and the people and that when the ruler violated that contract the people had the right of revolution.

"What do you think of postmodernist/poststructuralist theorists, e.g. Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard?"

Now here I can be brief since I think very little of them. My passion is politics, not philosophy. There are certain philosophical theories I ascribe to, such as existentialism, but my interest in philosophy is directly related to political implimentation. I'm sorry, but I'm fairly two dimensional in this regard. I go through information, with no mind to its intended point, and evaluate it based solely upon its usefulness to my area of interest. If it refutes something I have come to believe, I give it all due diligence, even more than if it justifies my ideologies.

I like Foucault’s histories, which were inspired by Nietzsche’s anti-idealism, and endeavour to avoid ‘projecting "meaning" into history’. Unlike modern sociologists, I do not believe objectivity is an impossibility, and therefore I believe that even if ultimately unattainable (giving such proponants ofthat fraudulent science the benefit of the doubt), it is to our benefit to at least make the attempt. Derrida was a insignificant and uninsightful, his fundamental criticism of Western Philosophy is that it privileges or favors "lagos," literally meaning "words" but implying rhetoric. He underestimates the profoundity inherent in actions motivated by abstract concepts, and I consider him a fool, if a brilliant and very persuasive one. The only difference between rhetoric and action is that words have the ability to subdue a rival through his cognitive abilities and actions can only do so through the affecting their life, possessions or property. Lyotard concerned himself with the changing nature of knowledge in late capitalist societies, without realizing that that this was only one facet, and the smallest, of western societies. Therefore, like Nietzsche, his work suffers from a lack perspective also.

I suppose, that since they and I all started with Nietsche and ended up travelling largely seperate paths, that gives some relevance to the transvulation of values theory, but I still don't buy it

[VinceZeb]

The only thing I can say about this is our misuse of the world "democracy". Democracy is dangerous. We are a represenative republic. Democracy is basically majority rule anarchy.

[kellychaos]

Originally Posted by VinceZeb

The only thing I can say about this is our misuse of the world "democracy". Democracy is dangerous. We are a represenative republic. Democracy is basically majority rule anarchy.

OMG! I actually agree with Vince on something ... to a certain degree anyway. :/

To Ror, no matter how hard one tries to sugar-coat it, any form of will always have a class system to some degree. I think it's just a matter of how well that form of government can sell it's snake oil. Maybe it's just a matter of choosing the lesser of the evils ... i.e. what works, especially for THAT society at THAT time. Then it runs its course and may or may not get recycled under a different guise at a later time in history. I don't see it as an evolutionary thing. Hell, I don't what I trying to say here. Maybe you can put it in more lucid terms.

[The_Rorschach]

Vince, every thread you touch turns to shit.

Obviously you have no idea what you are talking about because the difference between anarchy and democracy are, well, day and night to keep things simple for you.

Go back to manufactoring lies which will make your life seem more interesting. Your political opinion's are uneducated, uninspiring and unwanted.

[VinceZeb]

Anarchy = complete and utter chaos where there are no rules and it is possible that bands of people could join together to try and have some sort of rule for their localized groups

Democracy = mob rule, i.e. a big ass group, which for the most part a mob exists because there is no one to law down neither law or order.

Tell your family or roomates not to worry about seeing you with a gag in your mouth being fucked in the ass. That is just me back there taking another idiot to school. So before you open your mouth, please learn what the meanings of words are. I'll let you speak what you find right before I shove my dick in there.

[Sethomas]

The fall of Athens makes so much sense now.

Care to sumarize how the US would disintegrate with the abolition of the electoral college? Or does this contribution of yours fail to be the first that isn't utter shit?

Rorschach, to say that people will be apt to lose their self-government because they fail to appreciate it properly seems a bit far-fetched to me. At best, the idea looks to me like emotional wishful thinking. The masses are fickle, the masses are ignorant. True enough. But any kind of automated plutocracy is, by definition, not a government of the people. With modern technology and communications, it takes very little discontent to brew destruction. This is both a blessing and a curse to the democratic process, which is going to be a huge factor paving the next few decades.

I only read once very quickly through your posts, so I apologize if I glanced over some section in which you clarified how you think a select few might be selected in an aristocratic fashion. Aristocracy definitely made sense in its own eras, but highly doubt its potential for our own. The present corporate environment invites far too much corruption for an oligarchy to be a virtuous path for us.

[theapportioner]

Aristocracies exist, and there are many varieties, even in a supposedly democratic society. Look at the myriad instances of elitist cultural niches. Authorities and leaders of religion, law, politics, medicine, business, the humanities, the sciences, technology, music, cinema, ad infinitum. They seem to be tolerated by the people of the United States since they are of a more diffuse, more "invisible" sort of systematic control than the traditional political aristocracy. And usually they are more porous and have more social mobility than the traditional sort. But the hierarchies, and power structures, are real. The leaders in these niches follow an "ethic" (perhaps that is too strong a word) that is certainly not one of herd mentality.

Some "aristocracies" I think are reasonable for a supposedly democratic society to have, and others are not -- for instance racism.

On postmodernism: Derrida I'm not particularly fond of, and I'm not familiar enough with Lyotard's body of work to say anything with authority, but I do admire Foucault. His historigraphies on mental illness and sexuality, among others, reveal the mechanisms of control by which a movement uses knowledge as a will to power to shape our perceptions on these areas, indeed create them. I certainly became aware of all the different power structures in a new light, and Foucauldian analyses certainly have political relevance. Take Edward's Said's seminal Orientalism, which resonates vividly today. He's not beyond criticism, but reading Foucault's work was a bit of a turning point in my way of thinking.

[Sethomas]

Yeah, I'd certainly agree that elitism often manifests itself into rather impermeable social structures, but for ease of nomenclature I was thinking of the term in the most traditional sense. The case of racism that you brought up calls to mind that a state has to really catch up with its own progress before it can usher in a new change of any real meaning. Like I said, I honestly feel that sometime in the next few decades the economy is going to turn cannibalistic in a way, so hopefully things like racism and sex discrimation will be generally eradicated by then.

Another thing about aristocracies is that market mobility is probably going to become much more difficult in the coming years. This will make more and more oligarchies out of economic corners, to a point, and then fewer and fewer of these with consolidation of their interests.

I never planned on watching this happen, but the aftermath might make a good story.

[kellychaos]

I don't know if I agree with Vince's point that democracies are dangerous. Hell, I don't think I've ever even seen a real democractic form of government on a large scale. It's not feasible. It may be the case in small discussion groups or business meetings but not to run a country. Vince IS correct in stating that calling our country a democracy is a misnomer and it's a pet peeve that makes me cringe when I hear it. It's a republic ... as in based on the ancient greek republics. There are aspects of democracy to it such as when you vote. Maybe just maybe at that time ... and this is stretching it ... can you call it a democracy. Then, it's over in an instant and the people you have chosen to represent you in our great republic are free to do their bidding. Sure, you can watch them do their thing ... it's an open forum (mostly) ... but it's no longer a democracy. I know that this may seem nit-picky but it's just a pet peeve of mine.

Case in Point: If the founding fathers were truly interested in the opinions of "Joe Six-Pack", what the hell is the "electoral college" about? That's just one example of how out country is NOT a true democracy. I can go through the Constitution and find many other examples. Like I said, it's a pet peeve.

[Sethomas]

I already brought those points up.

As far as I know, Greece was a democracy, Rome was a republic. The issue of Greece's democracy is complicated by the fact that their concept of citizenry was more stringent than ours, but still.

One could argue semantics and say that we are, in a way, a democracy because we utilize the democratic process to select our leaders. It's a moot point for which I care little, but oh well.

[VinceZeb]

Democracy is dangerous because the minority is never protected. Even is 500,001 want something and 499,999 don't, the minority opinion does not matter. Kinda like anarchy but with a fancier name.

[Sethomas]

But what does that say for failures of the current system, such as a president like the present one who lost the popular vote? Dumbass.