Democracy is itself a good
From: michael price (nini_pad_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 12/30/04
- Next message: Igor: "Re: Land, Labour and Capital Taxation...."
- Previous message: robert j. kolker: "Re: Democracy is itself a good"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: 29 Dec 2004 21:21:58 -0800
Ron Allen (rallen2@bellsouth.net) wrote:
Date: 2004-12-29 15:34:49 PST
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Democracy is itself a good.
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > I must have missed the context for this, but on
> > the face of it this appears at the very least a
> > gross overstatement. Not only are there
> > unavoidable cases of irreconcilable conflict
> > with liberty and ethics (when a lesser evil, say
> > a requirement for consistent action, may
> > motivate and mitigate but CANNOT justify the
> > necessary evil of overriding dissent), not only
> > are there no justifications for democracy that
> > do not also apply to liberty (since what
> > justifies for each justifies for all but not
> > necessarily vice versa because democracy may be
> > Procrustean), not only does liberty have an
> > instinctive as opposed to a learned appeal
> > (though not necessarily an unselfish instinctive
> > appeal), not only are both liberty and democracy
> > only justified ethically by their assisting in
> > ethical ends and resolving the avoidable
> > conflicts of those (e.g. freedom of religion),
> > not only does much of the value of democracy
> > actually derive from the accumulated traditions
> > and heritage of functioning democratic polities
> > (and so is not universal, and in particular does
> > not apply to imposing democracy where there is
> > no tradition of it, and indeed often emerges as
> > a byproduct of harsh experiences, a silver
> > lining to a cloud that was harmful in aggregate)
> > - not only all these, but also democracy has
> > internal inconsistencies that show it is not a
> > complete system but one that needs to be
> > supplemented with other values (which often get
> > folded in with accumulated tradition and can
> > well go unexamined, but which we should always
> > examine to make sure they have not gone rotten
> > under us):-
> Ron Allen answers:
> I have no idea what you mean to say in the above
> material. Perhaps you can break it all down into
> simple sentence constructs so that a simple reader
> can more easily read and understand what you are
> telling us.
I thought you were a well-read intelligent man who could
understand Marx? Mr. Lawrence was far more plain than Marx ever
was yet you can't understand him?
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > - Democracy can be rigged through agenda control
> > just like getting the right hand by repeatedly
> > drawing and discarding, not asking certain
> > questions or alternatively keeping asking them
> > until the people get it right (sorry, "until the
> > people are ready"). See, for instance, votes on
> > European countries signing up to Europe.
> > - Democracy can transmit and give expression to
> > ethical values, but it cannot of itself justify
> > anything, any more than Athenian democracy
> > justified the horrors of Mitylene and Malos (now
> > called Melos, after the genocide). The reprieve
> > of Mitylene does not show that Athenian
> > democracy made things right, but that it gave
> > the opportunity to pursue the right - and Malos
> > shows that Athenian democracy sometimes
> > knowingly ignored ethics in favour of self
> > interest. I could use more recent examples, but
> > precisely because they are so close they are
> > likely to generate high emotions and obscure the
> > point.
> Ron Allen answers:
> I do not know what you mean when you say that
> "Athenian democracy justified the horrors, etc."
What is there to understand? The Athenians
justified doing horrible things to people while
they were a democracy.
> I have no idea what useful information is being
> given in any of the above material.
> Keep in mind, that I wrote "Democracy is itself a
> good". This simple statement says nothing about
> human beings, and whether or not human beings can
> or will abuse democracy. Human beings can, will,
> and do abuse freedom; and yet this fact does not
> serve to justify denying human beings a right to
> be free. Freedom is itself a good, even if and
> when human beings abuse and misuse their freedom.
Freedom is itself a good because it allows us to
do what best suits us. Why is democracy a good in
itself?
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > - Democracy rests on the concept of "the
> > people", and it cannot define that; it needs
> > something from outside to provide its very
> > basis. Who are "we, the people"? Today in Israel
> > it is this that begs the question of whether the
> > Palestinians have rights to be counted or not,
> > but that is hardly unique in history. (And I
> > suppose I will get flak for using this example,
> > get called an antisemite for using this topical
> > example, just as I will get told my Athenian
> > example doesn't count as it is "ancient history"
> > - as though what illuminates humanity changes. I
> > have used both near and far vision to illustrate
> > how I can be attacked rhetorically either way.)
> Ron Allen answers:
> Who are the people? Every human being living and
> working within a defined community is a person who
> ought to enjoy citizenship rights. It is against
> democratic ideas/ideals to deny citizenship rights
> to any adult person living within a political
> community.
So who defines the community then?
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > Further, in indirect/representative democracies
> > such as we have now, there are "agency costs",
> > divergences of interests between the people and
> > their agents. These are analogues of problems in
> > corporations; the analogue of "diluting the
> > equity" is changing the nature of the people -
> > there is always an internal dynamic to "elect a
> > new people" by instalments, these days by
> > immigration and in earlier times by enlarging
> > the franchise. One cannot say that this is
> > automatically right or wrong, and indeed we
> > cannot judge it independently since we are
> > ourselves the product of these very changes so
> > we inherently incorporate the value systems that
> > were given expression by all this, but we can
> > say that this divergence of interests exists.
> Ron Allen answers:
> When an immigrant moves into a community, their
> primary interest is the same as all the other
> individual members and citizens who live and work
> within the community: the good of the entire
> community is also and always the good of the each
> individual.
Rubbish. The primary interest of any person will be their
own good and that of their family. Few people hold the good
of their neighbours above those of their children, particularly
their new neighbours.
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > And if you are inclined to say that these are
> > not wrongs inherent in democracy but abuses of
> > democracy, remember that I speak of democracy's
> > intrinsic vulnerability to them, and that actual
> > cases are not so much abuses as symptoms; as
> > Burke said in a related context, the thing
> > itself is the abuse.
> Ron Allen answers:
> Does this challenge to democracy, this refutation
> of democracy, also apply to human liberty?
How does it apply to human liberty? Democracy can result
in the abuse of minorities with the minorities being powerless
to resist. How does liberty lead to that?
> What is inherently wrong in democracy that is not also
> inherently wrong with freedom?
It isn't freedom.
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > Or if you ask me to produce a better system or
> > accuse me of being anti-democratic, remember
> > that I am only warning you to look at it all
> > with clear eyes and not delude yourself; I am
> > not making out that there is any better to be
> > had. When Churchill said that democracy was the
> > the worst system known after all the others, it
> > may have been humorous but it was a joke
> > presenting a stark truth that we otherwise find
> > hard to face, like an operation without
> > anaesthetic. I'm giving it to you straight.
> Ron Allen answers:
> I do not say that democracy has no danger, just as
> I do not say that freedom has no perils, no risks.
> Like freedom, democracy comes with no guarantees
> of success, no assurance of security from abuses.
Then what does it come with? What is the thing about
it that makes it good in itself?
> Peter Lawrence wrote:
> > Democracy is NOT itself a good, and the moment
> > you suppose it is you start down the track of
> > elevating means into ends and possibly even
> > forgetting to implement the ends at all. This is
> > precisely what the biblical writers presented in
> > allegorical language, using "idolatry" as a
> > metaphor to describe much more than the physical
> > worship of physical idols. PML.
> Ron Allen answers:
> I believe democracy is itself a good; and this
> does not mean that democracy cannot be profaned
> and misused, perverted and corrupted, prostituted
> and debased.
A democracy being abused is not a good thing. You have not
shown you can stop democracy being abused. So how is it a good thing?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"There is a foolish corner in the brain of the
wisest man."
-- Aristotle
And he should know.
- Next message: Igor: "Re: Land, Labour and Capital Taxation...."
- Previous message: robert j. kolker: "Re: Democracy is itself a good"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
|
