Why I stopped loving and learned to worry about democracy (reply to Oberon)

[Skybird]

I agree that the democratic model of today is much far removed from the model envisioned by the Ancient Greeks, as indeed are most ideas that were founded in that era, the world is, after all, a different place and as such ideas have been changed in the face of new challenges. Although I do believe that the Ancient Greeks would have positively loved the way that the internet has brought the world together in a manner to discuss philosophical matters on a scale which dwarf even the largest fora of old. They probably would have enjoyed the porn as well.

Could it be that you have misunderstood me there, 180° reversed? My point is that the ancient Greeks despoised democracy, and explicitly warned of it. Two or three months ago I used a brief summary by Rahim Taghizadegan, an Iranian living in Austria and founder of the “Institut für Wertewirtschaft” (institute for value-based economics), he is about economics, history, politcal science, cultural anthropology and theology. About the institute (the opening page in English):

http://wertewirtschaft.org/en/index.php

He has released one essay which so very unfortunately is only available in German, for whatever it is worth I nevertheless link it, it explains in compact format how it was with democracy in an ancient Greece. It's not my only basis for assessing Greek history, but I like it for its very handy and compact format. The key issues imo it gets right.

http://wertewirtschaft.org/analysen/Demokratie.pdf

In an older thread ( http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=203589&page=4 ), I summarized part of that like this:

The Greek had no illusions about democracy. They favored a small social elite that was about 5% - maximum 15% of the total population to be allowed in assemblies to vote on issues that affected the community. These 10% had to be males, they had to be rich and materially contributing to the community, they had to believe in the gods and they must honored their parents and forefathers and pay respect to the rites by which the dead forefathers got remembered and honored. Especially the latter was very important and was called for examination not rarely when a new young man demanded access to the assembly. These people were what constitutes the “citizens” of the community. The others - were of lesser social value than citizens. In other words, citizens were an elite, a minority, and a privileged group that also had to live up to the responsibility they had to accept.

In ancient Greece, the "demos" originally meant a small village, and later the "deme" was the smallest local administration cell (surprise, surprise: again the reference to having communities as small as possible!). The "demos" was not the totality of the whole population. At that time, the governing inside the demos meant the self-governing of the "citizen". But the citizens were an elite that was different to the ordinary population. The term "citizen" originally referred to an organized band of armed men - a small military unit, in other words. Men who served under arms were seen as free people and were full citizens, whereas unfree people - most of the population - were forbidden to carry arms or to gain access to the governing assembly.

So, where "democracy" was meant at those times in a positive context, it meant something like the self-governing of small administrative entities like a small city, and one criterion was that from the top of the hill where the assembly met outside the city walls, all of the country and community being governed must have been in view, and places that laid beyond that viewing range could not be claimed to be part of this community. In these assemblies, orthodoxy and conservatism were demanded and defended to protect culture, identity and rites, and the way this elite was identified could only be described as being aristocratic.

Rahim Taghizadegan mentions also this nice little detail: the realm of public affairs, in whose governing the citizens (the free, arms-carrying men) were not only allowed but were expected to participate and take up responsibility, was called "demosios". On the other side, there was the "idios", the sphere of privacy, private household, the non-public life behind the walls and doors of your home. This was seen in a negative, disadvantaged connotation, because the “idiot” was a poor dog or a fool or an unfree man who had to do the work in the household or his job and had no time and no inspiration to make a personal engagement for public issues, he lacked the education for that as well, and finally was not allowed to do that. Thus our modern negative understanding of the term "idiot". Taghizadegan points out that this discriminatory weighing was necessary and understandable, because the private household - the "oikos" - was holy and untouchable (protected private property as well, not that caricature of property protection we have today), whereas to safeguard the common good and a solid living basis for all the community - the "polis" -, public engagement was necessary as well. To engage yourself in the public part of the demosios was needed and encouraged and thus was seen positive, compared to somebody just withdrawing into the privacy of his own life in his home where he could not be of any use for the common good.

So, with this idea of aristocracy, there also came an understanding of that the aristocracy had to accept the responsibility coming with the privileged status. There also was the understanding that not everybody had what it takes to be part of that elite, both in character features and education and wisdowm, and in material wealth and fiscal/economic autonomy. Those without having own investments at risk (the ordinary man, the unfree, the slaves, the poor, all of whom did not own much or nothing) were excluded from decision making so that they could not make decisions that would redistribute other people's private property that was not theirs and direct it into their pockets (I cut it very short, you get the point, I hope). Also there was understanding that not just every stranger, just because he was wealthy, could be allowed into the aristocracy if he did not accept and integrate into the cultural context of rules, rites and traditions, because that would destroy the cultural identity of the whole polis. And finally there was understanding of the need that those wanting to decide needed to be of the education standards to be able to decide, intellectually and morally and with reagrd to knowledge and experience, while it would be a great danger if just any imbecile dumbhead, who had his intellectuality from counting flies in the streets, were allowed to effect the future of the polis.
(...)
The Romans followed that separation between aristocratic public life and idiotic private life, calling them "res publica" and "res privata". "SPQR" in the legions' emblems indicated the one-identity of the army and the senate - the citizens (free, carrying arms, male) and the political privilege to participate in governing. [Where one legion stood in the field, there was - at least symbolically - present the senate of Rome also] While senators and legionaires were not one and the same in person, that the soldiers still were speaking for the senate as if they were them, was implied.

In modern times, some fascists argued and still argue that only those who have served in the army, are real citizens and should have full rights to civil rights and offices of political power.

You see, democracy is a highly discriminatory (and to some degree even intolerant) affair. It refers to self-governing local communities of very small size, that function feudalistically-aristocratically, are hierarchically structured, that clearly differed between “us” and “them”, and where the majority principle - that today we mistake to be the most important feature of democracy - only was used in the governing assembly of the “full citizen's” elite, which only 5-15% of the population were part of.

In other words, today's modern understanding of "democracy" is a distortion that has little to do with the original meaning of it, and which was far more negatively seen by many Greek philosophers. When the Greek city states grew in size and corruption blossomed as a side effect from that, democracy was made available to the wide public, the citizenship was opened for access for more non-elitarist people, and there it all started to go down the drain: Athens leading the way. From that time on, "democracy" became synonymous with the "tyranny of the majority" , the "dictatorship of the canaille". It then was seen as something that was to be avoided, at all cost.

Max Weber's phrase "Dilettantenverwaltung durch Beutepolitiker" (=dilletantic administration by predatory politicians) describes it quite well.

I remind of that even the American founding fathers were decisevely anti-democratic, a fact that really took me many years and more than just one hard swallowing to see and to understand. That the people shall have a govenrment, although with the idelaistic right to rerplace it if they desire that, is not part of the declaration of independence, but just came later, with the constitution. Still, until the time of around WWI, the reputation of “democracy” in the feuilletons, the political and artistic elites, the general “intelligentsia”, was predominantly negative.

That's what I mean when pointing out that the good reputation of democracy today is a relatively young and new phenomenon in human history, with the justification of that fame still not confirmed so far. Considering that it necessarily leads to the robbing of the few on behalf of the many, it is no surprise that the majority mob seems to like it - not understanding how in the end it is at their own cost, too. Most people's time preference, as I explained earlier, is such that they prefer the immediate or imminent smaller reward at cost of higher future costs over greater rewords in a distant future, with risks involved. That is where I would start mentioning this thing of “human nature”.

Certainly one could argue that democracy as it was originally envisioned in the days of more recent times, has also changed and failed,

I again must oppose what I believe to identify as your intention to imply that democracy in principle is something positive, but just gets distorted or abused or perverted and so becomes something that then represents the original idea turned into its fallen, degenerated state. As I see it, democracy for the ancient Greeks meant a state of generation in general – there is no positive format of democracy, neither the way it got used back then, nor as it is understood today. As I said earlier, the concept has implications that imo makes it a very questionable concept from all beginning on – by its most inner essence and nature. And that the Greeks held it in so low esteem and warned of it, imo reflects that. Its not as if they were first celebrating it, and then learned to warn of it. The warning of it is part of its very beginning already, and they tried to keep it on very short line. Like a disease is nothing that was once good and then turned into something bad, but was nothing but really only a disease haunting the people from the time on when it first showed up. The ideal condition would be not the disease in its imagined, idealized form when it was if not good so then at least nevertheless harmless - but to not have the disease at all.

in that the power is once again placed in the hands of the rich and privileged whilst the poor are expected to toil to feed the aristocracy. However, when you compare the living conditions of the modern age with that of two hundred years ago, you realise that there have been definite improvements, and even so there have been improvements in the equality of democracy. Three hundred years ago the thought of a female Prime Minister would have been unthinkable, in fact just the other day in the United Kingdom we celebrated a woman called Emily Davison, who died in 1913 after throwing herself in front of the Kings racehorse at the Epsom Derby in support of Womans sufferage. In less than a hundred years from Emily Davisons death, women have prominent places in office and there has even been a woman Prime Minister. Of course, it is still a male dominated world, and it is harder for women to advance in British politics than it is for men, but the point is that it is happening.

I would like to scratch the paint on that idealised line of thoughts, too, at least a bit, but I would automatically link all what you say here necessarily with the history of feminism (okay) and ultrafundamentalist, radical feminism and today's modern renaissance of it under the proxy-term genderism, and for the sake of not drowning in this already complicated and content-heavy exchange I would at least for this thread prefer to not go into this thematic complex, at least not for the time being. So, for a parting over this theme, I only say I do not agree with what you said at least due to the way you put it, I see problems there.

Maybe we will have another thread like this one, just over feminism and genderism, collectivism, sexism and sexual supremacism – and yes, these terms imo cannot be separated, thematically. It's not for no reason that I ring red alert over the EU's and Germany's genderism agenda.

Democracy is flawed, yes, but so is every single other form of government, there is no magic bullet as every government is made up of people of different ideologies and beliefs, so no matter who is in power and no matter what they do, they will upset someone. It is the curse of the office, and I would not swap places with the President of the United States for all the tea in China, despite the great promises of wealth and power, since no matter what policies I introduced, I would be lampooned and hated by some manner of people.

I do not wish to be personally offensive when I say that I fail to see a rational or logical relevance in this lament. In principle it says nothing meaningful. The claim that democracy is flawed, but so are other thing as well, is a commonplace - imagine what Tuvok or Spock would say to that.

TBC