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| Hey, I have an opinion! Every idiot has one too. Should only the informed make the decisions then? |
Today in the United States it's been taken for granted that democracy is the right way to run a country, and that everybody deserves equal rights. However as can been seen from the various readings in Polsci 101 class, not everyone has always thought so, including leading thinkers of past times. For example, Hobbes advocated an all-powerful monarch to rule, arguing that it's the only way to ensure peace and order. Plato too, was against democracy. The USA also has had a history of intervening in foreign conflicts, supposedly to promote democracy. That's why it is important that we look at the alternatives and consider whether or not democracy is the way to go for everyone everywhere.
Plato and Aristotle, arguably two of the most eminent thinkers of the Ancient times, disagreed on many issues. There was however, one thing that the master and his distinguished pupil agreed on, and that was that democracy was a terrible system of rule. Plato believed that only the enlightened, those who have dedicated themselves to undertaking the quest for knowledge are fit to rule. He believed that the average citizen does not have what it takes to endure the struggle of the quest, which is getting out of the cave in his famous Allegory of The Cave. Nor does the average citizen like being told that his/her illusions are false by the enlightened ones. Simply put, Plato believed that most people are simply ignorant and lazy and that's that, so they aren't fit to rule.
In modern times, the literacy rate has increased, but the question still remains: is the citizenry informed and "enlightened" enough to be able to make decisions on how people should be ruled? Luckily enough (or not) in modern times in most countries the form of democracy is more of a "participatory democracy" where the citizens elect politicians to represent them, rather than take more of an active approach to ruling themselves, so that question can be bypassed. However if you were to answer that question, do you think the average Joe knows enough about economy or the inner workings of our government to be able to make an informed executive decision?An important tenet of, and argument for democracy is equal rights for everyone, which is also taken for granted in this country. But where do equal rights come from? In contemporary western countries, many believe that human rights come by virtue of being human. But hey, just because you are human, why would you have the right to free speech, etc? Surely the argument that they come from God is not valid anymore in our increasingly secular society. In fact, around 70-100 years ago there are many people that believe you are not born with rights, but they have to be earned. Mussolini, an Italian fascist and dictator, believed that humans are part of the state and have no individual rights, and that you must struggle to earn things. From his book, "Fascism desires an active man, one engaged in activity with all his energies: it desires a man virilely conscious of the difficulties that exist in action and ready to face them. It conceives of life as a struggle, considering that it behooves man to conquer for himself that life truly worthy of him, creating first of all in himself the instrument (physical, moral, intellectual) in order to construct it.”
So, democracy has it's flaws, but given it's track record for peace and prosperity and the alternatives' records, I'm all for it. While I myself believe in democracy, it is good to question its principles and not blindly accept it. It is, after all, what supposedly "educated" people do.
Credits:
Images:https://www.eiu.com/graphics/assets/images/public/hands.png
http://cobalt.rocky.edu/~joel.harris/plato.jpg
Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOv-Ncs7vQk
Mussolini, B. The Doctrine of Fascism 1932
I like the way you are pushing people to not just accept democracy because we are used to, but to question it's purpose and alternatives. It reminds me of something Mill would advocate, because he believed questioning rather than accepting the ways of society is our duty. And I definitely agree that democracy is the right option for me, but I think it is something individuals need to consider. I also like how you point out that too of the most renowned and famous philosophers were opposed to democracy, Plato and Aristotle. That further backs up the claim that we need to question democracy because if two of the most respected philosopher opposed it, there must be some negative sides to it.
ReplyDeleteThe caveat I would add to this is are we truly more equal under democracy than we would be under any other system of government? This probably sounds like a silly question, but hear me out. We talked about the discrimination many African Americans faced in terms of voting during Malcolm X's time, and there is still a lot of discrimination in the voting process today. For example, many Asian American voters are discriminated against because of language barriers or prejudices in the polling stations. Since democracy has this sort of middleman--the ballot--people and their prejudices can get in the way of it being a fair system. I don't support many other political systems, but isn't it true that in a Hobbesian society, yes people have their rights taken away because of the social contract, but at least everyone's rights are taken away equally?
ReplyDeleteI think that it's important to realize that we have in this country isn't even true democracy, in it's purest sense. I like how you point this out, but you make the point of saying that this reality makes the question of whether people are fit to rule themselves irrelevant. I don't agree with this. Alexandra makes a good point, our form of democracy doesn't even necessarily guarantee equal rights. In fact our form of government was designed by the founding fathers to insulate the people from having total power because they didn't believe that the "average Joe" was ready for such responsibility. After reading the Crito you can't help but notice an important aspect of the shortcoming of democracy. Majorities can be both wrong and dangerous. The works of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle did make there way into the American government; for example, the electoral college is a major way in which the popular vote is mitigated and the people are protected from themselves. The alternatives to pure democracy aren't simply conceptual ideas for Americans, to a certain degree the implemented in our own government, and advocated for by some of our founding fathers. I definitely liked this post and agree that it's important to question the merit of all forms of government.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting question, and one that I think this course covers very well. We have grown accustomed to democracy as being accepted as the most representative/best form of government out there in the world today. However, even such a system as democracy has its problems with representation and equality. As demonstrated by the economic crisis and recent voting actions put in place, it is now possible for those with more money to put more of an influence on politics than those with less. I would say that this is hardly democratic, and it brings back your question on what could possibly be better for the people themselves. On the whole, I believe that a government ruled by the masses would never work, but something perhaps a little more representative would definitely be better for people in general...or would it?
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