Quote:
Originally Posted by Shearwater
And in Germany they have been.
I would say: We cannot tell whether democracy always leads to the best results. But we can tell that it is the most legitimate one.
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A wise man explained to me once, a long time ago, that "legitimate" and "competent" (or adequate, if you want) unfortunately are not the same, and can appear at the same time if you're lucky, but most often do not coexist. He also said that where we know the legitimised quality does not do the job it is intended to do, it may somewhat lose if not the formal but then at least the moral legitimation. that man was my grandfather. He had seen the rise of Hitler as a juvenile and young man, he needed to fight in the war, he got his brother courtmartialed and executed for what he indicated to be disobedience to orders having to do with these special operations behind the front, and having seen the rise of the federal republic, and the Brandt era. and no, he was no Nazi. He was disgusted by them, and by socialists as well. He used to think of both as offsprings of the same mindset. And in a way, I agree with that.
He was the one who for the first time ever raised doubts in me that it is always so wise to think in absolutes about what is good and what not in politics and governing a nation. As I have explained in long in a discussion with Lance some months agi, I today think that democracy can only show its merits in small communal contexts, and is to be considered as a solution to formalise and legitimate adminstration only on the local level, whereas it becomes the more inefficent und prone to corruption and - in Aristoteles' prediction - distorted by self-emerging oligarchic structures the more democracy attempts to govern not only local communities of limited size, but turns to the regional and national and international and supranational level. The bigger the community system that is to be adminitred, the less good a choice democracy is, and the more inefficient and vulnerable it becomes - best example is the UN, which got highly abused, corrupted, infiltrated distorted while operating as a supranational entity by rules focussing on equality of all, and democracy. It simply does not work, and it never will. I therefore think that the more distanced from the local level a community is (the bigger and more far-reaching it is), the less adequate democratic governing is and the more we need to consider alternative forms of government. and that may be the reason why democratic structures get the easier corrupted the bigger the context is in which they are embedded. And transparency is the first victim of growth of political structures.
Because the one big problem the past systems of feudalism our democracy has not solved: how to make sure that those being in power are a.) competent and b.) not corrupt and not selfish to abuse their power for egoist motives. A struggle you can see in almost all eras of the roman empire, from the republic to the empire. Linked to it is the confrontation between the social power of the rich (thew noble), and the poor (the workers, farmers, slaves). In modern democracies, both issues a.) and b.) are extremely big problems, obviously. and here the circle closes back to my grandfather who questioned that legitimation (by being elected) automatically translates into competence (in skill, knowledge, character, trustworthiness, altruism for the sake of the "whole"). we see it in western politics day in, day out, that this simply is not the case. And that is to the disadvantage of most, but to the advanatge of only a very few who have private profits at stake when trying to ensure that the system itself does not get touched.
In the end, the longer I live the more I understand that all and everything never stays static, never remains to be only good or only bad, and that everything by its simple existence already gives birth to the forming of it's antagonist, and bears the seed of it's own self destruction inside itself from it'S very beginning on. In our world, things are not meant to last, but to chnage and to transform. We either adapt to that, and may live and find a relative ammount of happiness while riding on the waves, or we try to resist to that, and sink like a stone while standing in the water. To me, democracy is no golden cow that is untouchable and unavailable for being put into doubt. It had its value in the past, but also sometimes failed miserably and caused destruiction, and civilisational suicide. If it will serve human interests of survival for the same ammount of time again in the future, I have my doubts. Because I do not see any democracy in the West anymore, only corrupted oligarchic regimes that dot not allow democracy beyond a ritualised context that helps to keep the crowds pleased. Due to elections, names may come and go, but the basic powerstructures that run the world remain the same.