Project for a New American Century

[José]

Doug

You started your post calling my viewpoint “unusual” and this only reinforces my perception of you as an acute observer.

Thomas Kuhn, the great philosopher of science of the last century, would certainly call this replacement of the political spectrum (right/left) by the level of allegiance to the central values of the democratic state determined through a direct comparison between issues/principles, a paradigm shift, that is, a radical change in the basic notions and principles through which reality is understood. In our case, political reality.

 

[José]

Post #41 should be my last one, Doug, but I can’t resist the temptation of answering some of the questions posed by rayboyusmc and also make some comments about your post.

Anyone, including you, who has managed to force themselves to read this barrage of posts should be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Originally posted by rayboyusmc
Is Democracy the best form of government for all nations and cultures at this time or any time?

Let’s start asking a broder question, ray:

Is democracy the best form of government at all (regardless of its suitability for this or that culture)?

Spinoza, the dutch thinker Einstein admired so much, commenting on the political system of Athens, said:

“The problem with this system is its tendency to bring mediocrity to power.”

It’s interesting to note that he wasn’t even referring to the modern democratic state and its universal suffrage but rather, to a mix of ethnocracy and aristocracy (only ethnic greek upper classes could vote).

But his criticism is even more valid when directed to liberal democracies:

When you put the power to choose the rulers of the society in the hands of millions of individuals who are not intellectually and emotionally prepared to take such a serious decision you are bound to allow a vast array of demagogues to come to power through the manipulation of the emotions of the electorate who are easily swayed by their rhethoric.

And the problem is even deeper than just mediocre people coming to power.

Because the democratic process creates a legal way for these demagogues and wannabe dictators to come to power, the system carries in itself the seeds of its own demise, allowing these authoritarian politicians to destroy democracy by democratic means.

So the democratic state must have mechanisms to be at least partially protected from this authoritarian forces.

I discuss these mechanisms below.

A complete analysis of each one of the many forms of government would be a good topic for another thread.

But you can be sure of one thing, ray, all the other political systems have the same weaknesses and additional ones.

I’ll let Churchill do the talking:

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Originally posted by rayboyusmc
I happen be be quite happy living in a Democracy, even with its faults today. But I really ask if this is the only best form of government for all people, or is it a Western thing?

Ray, let me tell you a story.

During the last years of the British Raj, there was a lot of skepticism about democracy taking root in the indian subcontinent after the british withdrawal.

How can democracy thrive in a society fundamentally structured on a caste system, the polar opposite of the egalitarian democratic motto “one man, one vote” equating brahmanes and pariahs?

Sixty years after its independence and a succesful democratic history that was not interrupted a single time by coups and revolutions, those eminent sociologists and political scientists were reduced to a bunch of fools who didn’t even know what they were talking about but managed to get some notoriety by regurgitating seemingly plausible racial/cultural stereotypes.

Today we see a lot of americans and westeners repeating the same stereotypes towards arabs/muslims and history will eventually prove them wrong too.

But westerners are not the only ones to raise the issue of the fundamental incompatibility between democracy and non western peoples.

This is the most vile, self-serving excuse used by the worst kind of dictators around the world to justify their illegitimate rule.

I believe the modern democratic state is, at this moment in the history of our species, not only fully compatible with all ethnic groups but also the best way to organise and govern a human society.

If this is ethnocentrism then I am an ethnocentrist.

 

[José]

Originally posted by Doug
Many countries are semi-democracies -- there are elections, and they are partly free, but some parties are forbidden to participate --- or their victory would not be permitted by the military, or some other strong organized group.

Turkey is like this, and many Latin American countries used to be. When the military didn't like the results of an election, it would stage a coup. Iran does not permit unreliable people to stand for its Parliament. Russia has moved to restrict the free political commentary and competition it had in the 90s.

First of all, since you cited Turkey as an example, let me state that the ban on kurdish nationalist parties reflects the true nature of the turksh state: an ethnocratic state that tries to supress the kurdish national identity and promotes the turkification of its kurdish population.

The real issue here is not so much the ban on kurdish parties but the fact that this ethnic group were dealt a bad hand by History.

As a distinct ethnic group they deserve their own state provided that the civil rights of the turkish population living inside its territory are fully respected.

I support the creation of a Kurdistan that treats its kurdish, turkish, arab and persian population as equal citizens.

As the recent history of Palestine made clear, the need of a distinct ethnic group to have its own country does not trump the democratic imperative of respecting the rights of all the ethnic groups whose historic homelands are comprised by the state.

__________________________________________________________________________________

OK, Doug, the ban on nationalist/sececionist parties is a complete separate matter that has more to do with the issue regarding the right to self determination of subjugated peoples/nations.

What I really want to highlight here is the ban on political parties that stand for undemocratic ideologies.

As Spinoza rightly pointed out in the seventeenth century, any society whose leaders are chosen by the collectivity will necessarily suffer from bad decisions due to the populace’s short-sightedness, tendency to be misled by charismatic leaders and the circunstantial, emotional periods in the life of a nation that deeply influence the decisions of the electorate.

Despite his pro democracy beliefs, Churchill agreed wholeheartedly with Spinosa’s criticism of democracy:

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

To protect itself from the damage caused by the combination of manipulative leaders sponsoring authoritarian ideologies and the naivety and lack of knowledge of the electorate every democratic state should possess defence mechanisms to avoid its own self-destruction.

The ban on communist, supremacist and theocratic political parties is a necessary prerrogative of democratic countries and it is totally different from the supression of the Judicial and Legislative branches’ autonomy, persecution of rival democratic parties as well as the curtailing of freedom of speech that is happening in Russia and Venezuela.

Many countries may choose not to use this prerrogative at their own risk but it is absolutely wrong to call the countries that do semi democracies.

At this point some may say:

“But isn’t democracy the will of the people?

How can a political system that defines itself as the will of the majority supress this same will?

Isn’t this an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms?”

There’s no contradiction at all as soon as you get the equation right:

democracy = will of the majority + protection of the minorities

Any political party whose platform violates this basic tenet cannot participate in democratic elections.

Communists, racial supremacists and theocrats can still try to topple democratic govenments by violent means (coup d’etat, revolutions, uprisings) but obviously not through the use of the democratic process itself.

As I like to say:

The democratic system afford its citizens a vast number of rights.

But the destruction of democracy is not one of them.

 

[José]

Doug

I created a thread showing a concrete example of how the ban on undemocratic parties and democracy are not mutually excludent.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/showthread.php?p=640724#post640724

 

[Doug]

José: As you imply, long posts, and detailed discussions, are not really the style here. They would stand in sharp contrast to the usual threads, where people just pointlessly throw puerile insults back and forth.

You want to look at the latest Policy Review, at the article called A Moral Core for US Foreign Policy. You would find some of your ideas discussed there. I would be interested in your views on that article, too.

The problem is, how to be both moral -- and advance democracy -- and wise and prudent. That article in Policy Review looks at this problem at bit.

As for Thomas Kuhn -- I hope you are not a postmodernist who thinks science is just a social construct!

 

[José]

Originally posted by Doug
José: As you imply, long posts, and detailed discussions, are not really the style here. They would stand in sharp contrast to the usual threads, where people just pointlessly throw puerile insults back and forth.

You know, Doug.

You have to warn the split-second attention span crowd of what lies ahead so they don't suffer a nervous breakdown.

Originally posted by Doug
You want to look at the latest Policy Review, at the article called A Moral Core for US Foreign Policy. You would find some of your ideas discussed there. I would be interested in your views on that article, too.

The problem is, how to be both moral -- and advance democracy -- and wise and prudent. That article in Policy Review looks at this problem at bit.

Thanks, Doug. I didn’t read the article yet, but I know the site.

Originally posted by Doug
As for Thomas Kuhn -- I hope you are not a postmodernist who thinks science is just a social construct!

Philosophy of science has always been one of my passions, Doug, and one I never had the chance to debate online.

In what sense is science objective?

What are the limits of scientific knowledge?

Is scientific change a rational process?

How many unfair criticisms thrown at evolution and so many other scientific theories could be avoided if people had at least a cursory knowledge of this discipline.

As for Tom Kuhn, he followed the "honorable" tradition of so many scholars who conceive a good conceptual scheme and then make too much out of it.

Human knowledge is not simply an endless, irrational succession of conflicting paradigms that are just useful tools to make sense of experimental data.

The only ones who probably still believe that the change from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican paradigm did not bring us closer to the truth are the members of the Flat Earth Society.