Democracy is in the minority and always has been through out history. Ponder the irony of that sentence for a moment. An aberration in the ancient Hellenic peninsular surrounded by city state autocracies and empires, land masses ruled from citadel and democracy didn't emerge anywhere until modernism. This idea is in the minority in space and time, like a piratical crew surviving by wits in a sea that seldom likes how you think. In the catalogue of human past, democracy was the minority form of society. Even today most of humanity lives not in democracy. And there's nothing, especially given these facts, that suggest it ever will be. Let that sober consideration give you pause. Let also, its fragility concentrate your mind.
Let also the sober fact that prosperity is also in the minority, that most of history has been history of mass poverty, starvation, war and Bacchic-born judgement by a few, or by one. Let then the fool who today murmurs petty, cynical disquiet be struck cold by the pitiless oblivion in our history, and always dormant in our bones. Let not hubris and ignorance blind the fact that we live as a minority, and always will. Let it not blind us, for in such darkness we could lose all that was gained. The tragedy then would be that it was lost not heroically, but prosaically. Flippantly, laconically. We could lose our enlightened democracies because we could amuse ourselves out of guard duty. Amused then to death. We could, too selfish to serve, destroy the thing that worked for our own best interests. Perhaps this is why democracy has always been in the minority. It is the thing which releases all talents, which release all benefits, which releases all selfishness, which releases all possibility, which releases all freedom, and therefore all chaos.
Yet if the autocrat, the tyrant, the totalitarian may collapse by a breath from Dionysus, democracy lets such winds pass through its Apollonian metric like wind over water. There is strength in democracy. There is a precious beauty in it too. And yet it will never be in the majority because it gives too much promise to too many. It treats everyone with dignity, when there isn't enough to share. This is a gloomy picture because history adumbrates that democracy is fragile. It is the best, and like the best wine, it is the most expensive and delicate. And also the rarest.
And so it is also a stubborn element too. We do not live by reason. And as long as Homo Sapiens is the dominant intelligence that statement won't change. Democracy is the most rational system, but it is in the minority. And yet reason is stubborn because although there are many different ways for greed or avarice or corruption to change, reason stays the same. It repeats. It comes back to the beginning. The allotropes of greed and fear, evolve only to greater entropy. Democracy is stubborn because it is built on defenses of truth, not on the lies of tyrannies whose aim is to exploit. Thus democracy is also beautiful. Truth be beauty, beauty truth.
Against the bitter winds of chaos, the democratic society can fortify with equanimity. Against the same winds, the tyranny only has force. That's because all tyranny is a state of force, where force is the centre, where the aim is not the best for the greatest number, but the maintenance of power. And in such states, the life of the individual is always subservient, power cannot co-exist with the right of the individual. Therefore, beware the justification of power for its own sake. Beware the excuse of maintaining order. Committee of Public Safety? There's one in China as there was in Robespierre's France.
Democracy threatens because by unleashing all talents, the ruling class cannot compete and so lose power. Since their state is based on power, if they lose it, their state crumbles. But democracy is based on the equal weight of voice, of vote, of power. Arguments are won by persuasion, not force. Power is distributed. Government is responsible. It is answerable. It can be renewed. It can be reformed. It can be removed. And yet Hitler was elected. Mussolini was elected. Mugabe was elected. Putin was elected. What are we to understand by the election of self-confessed anti-democrats? It can be understood by the following:
Democracy works only as well as the citizens are educated.
Only the ignorant can elect fascists. Only the stupid can vote against their own interests. Only a mass enthralled by trinkets, lucre, circuses, greed and fear can destroy the equality that maintains the state. By this way the society throws away a diamond only to clutch a piece of coal.
Therefore fortify yourself, fortify others. Defend our democracies, minority states in place and moment. Encourage education. Stimulate dialectic and debate. Energise the cynical, appeal to their heart. Never let anyone say the democracy is inferior. It is superior. It is superior to all other forms. The apathetic aren't lazy, they just don't understand the value of the jewel. Whisper to them the value. Show them the life without the jewel. Let them see the jewel shine. And always be ready to fight against the lie for the lie is undemocratic. If the jewel belongs to everyone, everyone shines. If it belongs to one, to a few, it is shrouded in the deepest vault, among the most miserable of men.
Let also the sober fact that prosperity is also in the minority, that most of history has been history of mass poverty, starvation, war and Bacchic-born judgement by a few, or by one. Let then the fool who today murmurs petty, cynical disquiet be struck cold by the pitiless oblivion in our history, and always dormant in our bones. Let not hubris and ignorance blind the fact that we live as a minority, and always will. Let it not blind us, for in such darkness we could lose all that was gained. The tragedy then would be that it was lost not heroically, but prosaically. Flippantly, laconically. We could lose our enlightened democracies because we could amuse ourselves out of guard duty. Amused then to death. We could, too selfish to serve, destroy the thing that worked for our own best interests. Perhaps this is why democracy has always been in the minority. It is the thing which releases all talents, which release all benefits, which releases all selfishness, which releases all possibility, which releases all freedom, and therefore all chaos.
Yet if the autocrat, the tyrant, the totalitarian may collapse by a breath from Dionysus, democracy lets such winds pass through its Apollonian metric like wind over water. There is strength in democracy. There is a precious beauty in it too. And yet it will never be in the majority because it gives too much promise to too many. It treats everyone with dignity, when there isn't enough to share. This is a gloomy picture because history adumbrates that democracy is fragile. It is the best, and like the best wine, it is the most expensive and delicate. And also the rarest.
And so it is also a stubborn element too. We do not live by reason. And as long as Homo Sapiens is the dominant intelligence that statement won't change. Democracy is the most rational system, but it is in the minority. And yet reason is stubborn because although there are many different ways for greed or avarice or corruption to change, reason stays the same. It repeats. It comes back to the beginning. The allotropes of greed and fear, evolve only to greater entropy. Democracy is stubborn because it is built on defenses of truth, not on the lies of tyrannies whose aim is to exploit. Thus democracy is also beautiful. Truth be beauty, beauty truth.
Against the bitter winds of chaos, the democratic society can fortify with equanimity. Against the same winds, the tyranny only has force. That's because all tyranny is a state of force, where force is the centre, where the aim is not the best for the greatest number, but the maintenance of power. And in such states, the life of the individual is always subservient, power cannot co-exist with the right of the individual. Therefore, beware the justification of power for its own sake. Beware the excuse of maintaining order. Committee of Public Safety? There's one in China as there was in Robespierre's France.
Democracy threatens because by unleashing all talents, the ruling class cannot compete and so lose power. Since their state is based on power, if they lose it, their state crumbles. But democracy is based on the equal weight of voice, of vote, of power. Arguments are won by persuasion, not force. Power is distributed. Government is responsible. It is answerable. It can be renewed. It can be reformed. It can be removed. And yet Hitler was elected. Mussolini was elected. Mugabe was elected. Putin was elected. What are we to understand by the election of self-confessed anti-democrats? It can be understood by the following:
Democracy works only as well as the citizens are educated.
Only the ignorant can elect fascists. Only the stupid can vote against their own interests. Only a mass enthralled by trinkets, lucre, circuses, greed and fear can destroy the equality that maintains the state. By this way the society throws away a diamond only to clutch a piece of coal.
Therefore fortify yourself, fortify others. Defend our democracies, minority states in place and moment. Encourage education. Stimulate dialectic and debate. Energise the cynical, appeal to their heart. Never let anyone say the democracy is inferior. It is superior. It is superior to all other forms. The apathetic aren't lazy, they just don't understand the value of the jewel. Whisper to them the value. Show them the life without the jewel. Let them see the jewel shine. And always be ready to fight against the lie for the lie is undemocratic. If the jewel belongs to everyone, everyone shines. If it belongs to one, to a few, it is shrouded in the deepest vault, among the most miserable of men.
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