Who decides?
Feb. 7th, 2011 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sechan19I recently came across an impressively disturbing clip, entitled We Need a Christian Dictator.
In the clip, the lecturer explains that the problem with democracy is that in a democracy everyone gets to vote--both the informed and the uninformed, both the moral and the amoral--and that, consequently, the only way to maintain society is to install a dictator (with the correct sense of principles, of course) to guide everyone through the landmine-infested quagmire of modern civilization.
Now, what's interesting about this argument is that it does have some foundational merits. The problem with democracy (and it's a problem that I have occasionally lamented) is that everyone gets to vote, and some of those everyones aren't exactly the sharpest pencils in the box. But, see, when you raise that issue, you necessarily encounter a very sticky question:
Who decides?
Who decides the group that leads and the group that follows? Who decides what is best for the multiple souls--souls that each have different cultural perspectives, different life experiences, different beliefs, and different needs--that inhabit the world?
If it's you doing the deciding, you'd be understandably happy. But if it's not you, well... not so much, eh?
Democracy is an undoubtedly flawed system, but the political alternatives are too inappropriate and too dangerous--for all of us--to ever be countenanced. And guys like the yahoo in the above clip would do well to remember that.
Via.
In the clip, the lecturer explains that the problem with democracy is that in a democracy everyone gets to vote--both the informed and the uninformed, both the moral and the amoral--and that, consequently, the only way to maintain society is to install a dictator (with the correct sense of principles, of course) to guide everyone through the landmine-infested quagmire of modern civilization.
Now, what's interesting about this argument is that it does have some foundational merits. The problem with democracy (and it's a problem that I have occasionally lamented) is that everyone gets to vote, and some of those everyones aren't exactly the sharpest pencils in the box. But, see, when you raise that issue, you necessarily encounter a very sticky question:
Who decides?
Who decides the group that leads and the group that follows? Who decides what is best for the multiple souls--souls that each have different cultural perspectives, different life experiences, different beliefs, and different needs--that inhabit the world?
If it's you doing the deciding, you'd be understandably happy. But if it's not you, well... not so much, eh?
Democracy is an undoubtedly flawed system, but the political alternatives are too inappropriate and too dangerous--for all of us--to ever be countenanced. And guys like the yahoo in the above clip would do well to remember that.
Via.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 02:46 pm (UTC)Yeah. Ancient Greece had a bit of a method for dealing with this - they ousted tyrants when they got too despotic and not benign enough, but it was easier for a very small society to be able to do this. And also, Greek democracy was not at all what WE think of as democracy today.
The idea of a Christian dictator scares the bejabbers out of me.