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RE: Questioning Democracy
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I think it better to describe the various forms of government in a spectrum.
You could view the spread of power as a measure of this. I think education
is a key to the effectiveness of these forms as the more power is spread
over the governed, the greater their need for training to understand and
capacity to decide.
Another little paraphrased quoted that I like:
Marxism - nice idea, wrong species (Edward Wilson)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
[mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com]On Behalf Of Nick Dippie
Sent: 04 January 2006 21:15
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: RE: Questioning Democracy
To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
BUPS-DIS@bups.org
alex - when i said we lived in a polarised age i didn't mean we were the
only period with disputes or conflicts, just that politically, and the cold
war is the perfect example of this, it seems to be either communism or
democracy. and anything undemocratic is immediately viewed as a tyranny,
which isn't entirely fair.take a couple of hundred years ago (my history is
too vague to be precise) we lived in a semi-democratic monarchy (king has
ultimate power, but parliament curbs it) the french were a republic (no
idea precisely how democratic this was, and the rest of the world had
monarchies and democracies of varying degree. there was then no
straightforward distinction between democratic, communist and dictatorship,
which seem to be to be the only 3 forms of government discussed these days.i
could be wrong though, as i said before, my knowledge is pretty patchy on
this.
nick
Quoting Alex Watt <alex.watt@blueyonder.co.uk>:
> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
> BUPS-DIS@bups.org
>
>
> Nick
>
> I beg to differ about the fact that we live in 'an unusually polarised
> age'.
> Can you give an example of a period in history without dispute and
> conflict?
> The only ones that come to mind are those where population contact and
> density were very low or else our knowledge of their times incomplete.
>
> I am delighted that in 30 years we have reduced the level of nuclear
> threat
> and may have reduced the Irish terrorism problem in the UK. Does anyone
> remember the gallows humour of evening discussions about the location of
> Russian weapon targets in the UK? ... and I cannot speak for those who
> lived
> through the Cuban missile crisis.
>
> Alex
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
> [mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com]On Behalf Of Nick Dippie
> Sent: 04 January 2006 15:37
> To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
> Subject: Re: Questioning Democracy
>
> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
> BUPS-DIS@bups.org
>
>
> good issue edward, like you i'm interested but somewhat lacking in
> knowledge, so hopefully this discussion will improve that a litte.
>
> it seems to me that the main problem with democracy is that the people
> who
> get into power are the people who are good at getting there, and tend to
> be
> bit power-hungry rather than idealistic. the idealists tend to end up in
> their various fields - if you really want to make a difference to health
> care, you become a doctor of some sort, for example.its the flaw at the
> heart of democracy that to persuade the people you are the right person
> to
> govern you have to tell them what they want to hear, not what you may
> think
> is right.very few (if any) truly idealistic politicians succeed at all.so
> we
> end up with what are essentially the best spin doctors (or those who
> employ
> the best) getting into a position of governance that they are not
> necessarily suited to.i think it was plato who was fiercely critical of
> priority given to those with good rhetorical skills.
>
> its also true that a million people are not necessarily more right than
> one.
>
> matthew, your meritocratic idea is pretty interesting, and could
> potentially
> work very well. there are 2 problems i see: firstly there's no real
> democratic element to it(not necessarily a problem of course), unless you
> have people getting promoted purely by some vote of their peers.it is
> also
> open to abuse.thats why it could work very well, with the best getting to
> the legislative roles, or it could become corrupted, with rife cronyism
> and
> senior jobs getting bought.it'd be all too easy to keep dissident voices
> out.as you said yourself, one of the strengths of democracy is its usual
> check on tyranny (don't forget that Hitler was democratically elected).
>
> its an interesting topic though, and i think we are in an unusually
> polarised age, with the cold war just behind us democracy is viewed by
> many
> with an almost religious fervor.this is especially true of americans in
> general, and also over here - no-one seems to doubt that bringing
> democracy, say to the middle east, will be an instant 'cure-all' for
> their
> problems.
>
> nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
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