Have democracy and multiculturalism failed?

[Abu]

Exiled Child #20
I despise the idea of a literal democracy

However, as none other than Professor Robert P George explains in The Clash Of Orthodoxies, ISI Books, 2001, p 139:
‘Certain critics of the subjectivist or relativist spirit of our age suggest that the sources of society’s pathology are precisely in the democratic institutions bequeathed to the public by the nation’s founders. Throughout his pontificate, however, Pope John Paul II has robustly defended the principles and institutions of democratic governance.9

‘John Paul II enthusiastically promotes democracy not as some sort of “lesser evil,” but as a system that more perfectly than any other embodies the great moral truth of the fundamental dignity of each human person.10’
Notes:
9 Centesimus annus, 46
10 Ibid
**
CENTESIMUS ANNUS
JOHN PAUL II
Saint Peter’s, on 1 May, the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker, in the year 1991**
Excerpt:
‘46. **The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.**93 Thus she cannot encourage the formation of narrow ruling groups which usurp the power of the State for individual interests or for ideological ends.

‘Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the “subjectivity” of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.’
Notes:
92. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today Gaudium et Spes, 76.
93. Cf. ibid., 29; Pius XII, Christmas Radio Message on December 24, 1944: AAS 37 (1945), 10-20.
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html

 

[Usagi]

I’m not arguing that there weren’t some inadvertent benefits that resulted, yet there is no denying that the core principles that arose from the “enlightenment”, one being the diabolical ideology that “rights” foremost flow from the subjective will of the people and not from Almighty God, are anti-Christian in nature. The ideas of the “enlightenment” are in large part antithetical to the principles that governed Christendom in its golden age. I see no way how one can reconcile ideas like religious indifferentism or the subordination of the rights of God to the state (and the collective whims of those who comprise it) as developments that were encouraged by Catholicism. The “enlightenment” planted the seeds of modernism.

I have always read that the “enlightenment”/American Revolutionary era position on “rights” is that they do indeed arise from a higher reality (whether explicitly called God or just nature) rather than from the will of anybody. It’s the authority of government that arises from the will of the people, and the main reason for the people to alter their government (as we see in our Declaration of Independence) is that it denies their pre-existing rights as humans and citizens.

I’m a Catholic, but I’d rather live in a “religiously indifferent” state than one that persecutes some of its people based on their beliefs. And as I have said before on these boards, the only theocratic Catholic monarchy I want to live in is Heaven, where the King is actually wise and good enough to be trusted with His absolute power.

 

[JackVk]

I’m a Catholic, but I’d rather live in a “religiously indifferent” state than one that persecutes some of its people based on their beliefs. And as I have said before on these boards, the only theocratic Catholic monarchy I want to live in is Heaven, where the King is actually wise and good enough to be trusted with His absolute power.

This is the reason I go back and forth between libertarian and monarchist, often in the same train of thought (I’m well aware of the discrepancy). Yes, I want the Social Kingship of Christ upheld. But I cannot do to non-Catholics what Henry VIII and Diocletian did to Catholics and be consistent.

Our Lord said that His Kingdom is “not of this world”. He never called for a North Korea in cope and mitre. Monarchy and theocracy works, so long as the Theo is doing the Cratting, and not an inbred in fancy clothes.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’m not arguing that there weren’t some inadvertent benefits that resulted, yet there is no denying that the core principles that arose from the “enlightenment”, one being the diabolical ideology that “rights” foremost flow from the subjective will of the people and not from Almighty God, are anti-Christian in nature. The ideas of the “enlightenment” are in large part antithetical to the principles that governed Christendom in its golden age. I see no way how one can reconcile ideas like religious indifferentism or the subordination of the rights of God to the state (and the collective whims of those who comprise it) as developments that were encouraged by Catholicism. The “enlightenment” planted the seeds of modernism.

I don’t for a minute deny that the Enlightenment had its dark side. But the rise of the scientific movement in itself was not dark, and was certainly encouraged by Rome. Copernicus, Galileo, and Descartes were Catholics, not atheists. The Church in the case of Galileo did not behave well, but did not b y that fact cease to advance the cause of science since the Church was very interested in astronomy in particular and sponsored astronomical studies of the heavens. It was the later developments of the Enlightenment that resulted in David Hume’s generation raising the specter of skepticism regarding supernatural truth.

To this very day the Church encourages science to do its thing, and the Vatican employs its own astronomer, not to mention that it conducts scientific forum for the purpose of discovering how, in a scientific way, we can read the mind of God.

 

[Abu]

Charlemagne III #24
I don’t for a minute deny that the Enlightenment had its dark side. But the rise of the scientific movement in itself was not dark, and was certainly encouraged by Rome. Copernicus, Galileo, and Descartes were Catholics, not atheists.

The Catholic development of science preceded the advent of the so-called “Enlightenment”.

In Science and Creation Father Stanley Jaki lists seven great cultures in which science suffered a “stillbirth” – Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, and Maya – they did not have the Catholic conception of the divine. Fr Jaki emphasises that “nature had to be de-animized” for science to be born. (Creation and Scientific Creativity, Paul Haffner, Christendom Press, 1991, p 41).

“During the twelfth century in Latin Europe those aspects of Judeo-Christian thought which emphasized the idea of creation out of nothing and the distance between God and the world, in certain contexts and with certain men, had the effect of eliminating all semi-divine entities from the realm of nature.” (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Dr Thomas E Woods, Regnery, 2005, p 93).

“Western civilization stands indebted to the Church for the university system, charitable work, international law, the sciences, and, important legal principles. … Western civilization owes far more to the Catholic Church than most people — Catholic included — often realize. … The Church, in fact, built Western civilization.”

Woods breaks the history of the Church and Western civilization into chapters that treat the Church from its beginning through the so-called Dark Ages up to the present day. He demonstrates that Western institutions, though often originating in Athens and Jerusalem, were developed into a Catholic culture in a process that accelerated from the early Middle Ages right up to the time of the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy (Lanham, Md.; Lexington Books, 2005].

“First of all, classical learning did not provide an appropriate model for science. Second, the rise of science was already far along by the sixteenth century, having been carefully nurtured by religiously devout scholastics. Granted, the era of scientific discovery that occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was marvellous, the cultural equivalent of the blossoming of a rose. But, just as roses do not spring up overnight, and must undergo a long period of normal growth before they even bud, so too the blossoming of science was the result of centuries of intellectual progress.”
catholicleague.org/resear…nd_science.htm
*Catholicism and Science *by Rodney Stark (from Catalyst 9/2004).

The Church in the case of Galileo did not behave well,

In fact, Galileo picked a very inopportune time to attack the Bible following Catholic Luther’s revolt and errors over the Scriptures.
Second, he was publicly disrespectful and disobedient.
Third, he was wrong in his interpretation of the Bible.
Fourth, he was wrong in his Physics.

‘In the fourth century, St. Augustine had counselled his fellow Christians to read the scriptures to find spiritual truths – not matters of natural science. Galileo should have heeded this advice of thirteen centuries before, instead of asserting that the Bible was in error – in particular Joshua 10.13 “Sun and Moon stood still”. We will agree with Galileo’s own statement, “Holy writ is intended to teach men how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go” just as we would agree also with Cardinal Bellarmine’s reply, “If there is contradiction between the Bible and observed facts, let us say we have misunderstood the Bible rather than pronounce false what is demonstrated”. It was this over-literal interpretation of the language of the Bible that caused Galileo’s trouble.’
From: Science and the Church
Rev. Bro. Dr. V. McKenna, B.A., M.Sc., Ph.D.
An edited version of an address given by Rev. Bro. Dr. McKenna at the University of W.A., June, 1964

 

[jeannetherese]

Sociologists claim that there are 9 distinct nations within the United States.

Greetings JackVk,

Would you mind sharing your source for this? I’m interested in the list and also in the authors’ definition of nation.

Thanks so much and may God bless you.

jeannetherese

 

[Charlemagne_III]

In fact, Galileo picked a very inopportune time to attack the Bible following Catholic Luther’s revolt and errors over the Scriptures.
Second, he was publicly disrespectful and disobedient.
Third, he was wrong in his interpretation of the Bible.
Fourth, he was wrong in his Physics.

And yet:

nytimes.com/1992/10/31/world/after-350-years-vatican-says-galileo-was-right-it-moves.html

 

[Bradski]

Well, Australia is far from perfect, but we seem to mange it OK.

Christianity also produced the enlightenment…

Mmm. And was also responsible for the Internet as well, no doubt. And cheese in a spray can, basketball, Minessotta, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the wheel.

 

[Abu]

Galileo was, in the 1633 Decree of the Inquisition, censured as “vehemently suspected of heresy.” No papal declaration of heresy was made.

Galileo got in trouble for presenting heliocentrism as more than just a hypothesis, as absolute truth. Nicolaus Copernicus had no problems at all, and even dedicated his De Revolutionibus to the Holy Father.

The only statement was a theological opinion issued by the theologians of the Holy Office. Theological opinion does not represent the Magisterium (official teaching) of the Church – Copernicanism had never been declared heretical by either the ordinary or extraordinary Magisterium of the Church.

On Galileo, Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Huxley, “went to Rome and examined the Case, a little more thoroughly than the average humanist, probably intending to use it in his ongoing controversy with the Anglican bishop, Samuel Wilberforce. In a letter written to Mivart in 1885 he concluded, rather disappointedly, I presume – ‘I looked into the matter when I was in Italy and I arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals had rather the best of it.’ ”
[Arthur Koestler, *The Sleepwalkers, MacMillan, 1959, p 353; cited in The Six Days of Creation, Br Thomas Mary Sennott, Ravengate, 1984, p185-6].

In the end, Galileo recanted his heliocentric teachings, but it was not – as is commonly supposed – under torture nor after a harsh imprisonment. Galileo was, in fact, treated surprisingly well.

As historian Giorgio de Santillana, who is not overly fond of the Catholic Church, noted, “We must, if anything, admire the cautiousness and legal scruples of the Roman authorities.” Galileo was offered every convenience possible to make his imprisonment in his home bearable.
catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

 

[KidCatholic1]

This is the reason I go back and forth between libertarian and monarchist, often in the same train of thought (I’m well aware of the discrepancy). Yes, I want the Social Kingship of Christ upheld. But I cannot do to non-Catholics what Henry VIII and Diocletian did to Catholics and be consistent.

Our Lord said that His Kingdom is “not of this world”. He never called for a North Korea in cope and mitre. Monarchy and theocracy works, so long as the Theo is doing the Cratting, and not an inbred in fancy clothes.

Can you provide evidence of how monarchy works? Monarchies, like dictatorships, can operate with complete power (exceptions for constitutional monarchies), and the rights of men can be trampled just as well. Republics, of course, can be closed or repressive (being more anocratic, take the early Roman republic in mind with the patricians), but many have constitutions and elected officials- two things that prevent the destruction of civil liberties.

 

[Exiled_Child]

However, as none other than Professor Robert P George explains in The Clash Of Orthodoxies, ISI Books, 2001, p 139:
‘Certain critics of the subjectivist or relativist spirit of our age suggest that the sources of society’s pathology are precisely in the democratic institutions bequeathed to the public by the nation’s founders. Throughout his pontificate, however, Pope John Paul II has robustly defended the principles and institutions of democratic governance.9

‘John Paul II enthusiastically promotes democracy not as some sort of “lesser evil,” but as a system that more perfectly than any other embodies the great moral truth of the fundamental dignity of each human person.10’
Notes:
9 Centesimus annus, 46
10 Ibid
**
CENTESIMUS ANNUS
JOHN PAUL II
Saint Peter’s, on 1 May, the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker, in the year 1991**
Excerpt:
‘46. **The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.**93 Thus she cannot encourage the formation of narrow ruling groups which usurp the power of the State for individual interests or for ideological ends.

‘Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the “subjectivity” of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.’
Notes:
92. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today Gaudium et Spes, 76.
93. Cf. ibid., 29; Pius XII, Christmas Radio Message on December 24, 1944: AAS 37 (1945), 10-20.
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html

Abu, I suspect you’re misunderstanding me entirely, and Pope John Paul II, as well. Carefully read and digest his words:

EVANGELIUM VITAE,
25 March, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 1995
IOANNES PAULUS PP. II
Extracts;
70. Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality. Fundamentally, democracy is a “system” and as such is a means and not an end. Its “moral” value is not automatic, but depends on conformity to the moral law to which it, like every other form of human behaviour, must be subject: in other words, its morality depends on the morality of the ends which it pursues and of the means which it employs. If today we see an almost universal consensus with regard to the value of democracy, this is to be considered a positive “sign of the times”, as the Church’s Magisterium has frequently noted. 88 But the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes. Of course, values such as the dignity of every human person, respect for inviolable and inalienable human rights, and the adoption of the “common good” as the end and criterion regulating political life are certainly fundamental and not to be ignored.

So, when I say that democracy is actually despicable, loathsome and beneath contempt, I’m saying exactly the same thing the Pope is saying, I’m just saying it a thousand times more bluntly and less gracefully. Again, read and hear what he says on the subject. Democracy and monarchy are the same: their goodness depends entirely on either an enlightened populace or an enlightened monarch. If you live your life under King James I of England, you’re in luck; if you live your life under Caligula or Nero, not so much. Same thing with democracy. If the will of the people is noble and wise, then democracy is excellent. If, say, the will of the people is that abortion is fine, then in that case democracy is at odds with me, and I reject it entirely. The framers of the Constitution were all too aware of this, and they saw both monarchy and democracy as evil. It’s why the Constitution is aimed at ironclad defense of individual rights, not mob rule/democracy, which is finicky and changes as often as the weather.

 

[multitude]

The “enlightenment” is not a product of authentic Christianity (AKA Catholicism) and the only way it could be construed as such is if one considers the Protestant heresies present in the countries where “enlightenment” thought took hold to represent true Christianity. You will notice that Protestant nations were the first to fall under the sway of “enlightenment” thought. Catholic countries, like France, were only conquered by its evils through violent revolutions.

Yes. I would say Enlightenment is actually Masonic. It places reason on a pedestal, above all else. The Masons are known for this. Note that the players of the French Revolution, were all Freemasons. This is why I have always considered Protestantism and Masonry to be in, frankly, unspoken cahoots. Because Protestant heresy is borne of the same principle. It is a perfect alliance that just works. But they won’t admit that, or if they do, no one will say a word. Why would they?

 

[Abu]

Exiled Child 331
The framers of the Constitution were all too aware of this, and they saw both monarchy and democracy as evil. It’s why the Constitution is aimed at ironclad defense of individual rights, not mob rule/democracy, which is finicky and changes as often as the weather.

There is no ”ironclad defense of individual rights” in the U.S.A. as Obama and the Supreme Court demonstrate amply with abortion, euthanasia and whatever some want made law at choice.

Fantasising that any charter does not depend on the virtue and values of those exercising it has been shown to be hollow.

Evil will continue precisely as long as the moral law and precepts of the Church are not followed but democracy enables truth to be aired and directed towards justice and peace. The will to do this rests on the formation of people through the Church.

ewtn.com/library/Theology/zpapthenatlaw.htm
Address of Papal Theologian on Natural Moral Law
Problems and Prospects
ROME, 24 FEB. 2007 (ZENIT)
Excerpts:
“In fact, in the Western world, at least in the public sphere, there is bleeding atrophy of understanding what is natural and what is not, leading to changes in ethical mores that are amounting to a profound revolution of the foundations of civilization. These changes are not taking place in the name of some forceful ideology, capable of mustering the support of crowds – as was the case with nationalism and communism, both of which had an altruist element within them – but in the name of pure hedonism and anti-rationalist skepticism, hidden under the mask of tolerance.

Among the civilizations that he had studied, Koneczny specified the Latin civilization as the most demanding, because it requires that all dimensions of life, including the social and political, be bound by ethical norms.[2] Today, however, Western Europe is rapidly losing, or totally transforming, its age-old Christian ethical convictions, and in this it is drifting away from the moral foundations in which for centuries it was anchored.

At the same time, it is facing more and more directly a foreign Islamic civilization. Will this encounter finally force Western Europe to seriously wonder about what is the real source of its specificity, and to an urgent defense of its own traditional moral fiber? **Will it lead to a re-appreciation of the inherited anthropological and ethical foundations that made democracy work, or will the washing away of these foundations cause the crash of Western civilization, just as the crash of communism was caused by its anthropological catastrophe?
**

 

[multitude]

Yes. I would say Enlightenment is actually Masonic. It places reason on a pedestal, above all else. The Masons are known for this. Note that the players of the French Revolution, were all Freemasons. This is why I have always considered Protestantism and Masonry to be in, frankly, unspoken cahoots. Because Protestant heresy is borne of the same principle. It is a perfect alliance that just works. But they won’t admit that, or if they do, no one will say a word. Why would they?

Would also like to mention that this issue tends to danced around, too.

 

[Ion]

I think democracy can’t survive the current tendencies towards atheism and multiculturalism.

Only the Christians have developed stable democracies in the modern world.
The society started to give up the christian morals and we can see a crack growing toward fracture between the rich and the poor. Many people display the “Scrodge” attitude saying " I dont care, I pay my taxes, poor are the gov problem…". The comunists triued to compensate the rejection of God with an obscene nationalism. Multiculturalims will reject the nationality bonds and traditions.

Only tyranny will be able to keep people together and comitted to some rules.

 

[aclausen]

I think democracy can’t survive the current tendencies towards atheism and multiculturalism.

Only the Christians have developed stable democracies in the modern world.
The society started to give up the christian morals and we can see a crack growing toward fracture between the rich and the poor. Many people display the “Scrodge” attitude saying " I dont care, I pay my taxes, poor are the gov problem…". The comunists triued to compensate the rejection of God with an obscene nationalism. Multiculturalims will reject the nationality bonds and traditions.

Only tyranny will be able to keep people together and comitted to some rules.

I think Japan would be rather surprised to find out it is not a stable democracy.

And why do atheists keep getting accused of being baddies, when the Church itself, nearly into the 20th century was very opposed to liberal Democrayc.

 

[Ion]

I think Japan would be rather surprised to find out it is not a stable democracy.

And why do atheists keep getting accused of being baddies, when the Church itself, nearly into the 20th century was very opposed to liberal Democrayc.

More or less. They fought in the WWII until their emperor said to quit.
The western society proved succesful and ofcourse other countries tried to adapt it to their culture. But it needs the love for your neighbor. Not only good whishes or “do not hurt another person”. The church works for the salvation of souls, it is interested in " what make you tick" and “how you tick”. It did not have a defined objectiv in enlightment or in democracy but provided the conditions foir them. The church has to be rather conservative and opose the social experiments while there is no guarantee of their outcome and they hurt people or even ruin their souls. It is hard because of our fallen nature combinbed with freedom.
There is nothing to replace God with, no other gods or ideeas can keep its place in our mind or soul.

 

[aclausen]

More or less. They fought in the WWII until their emperor said to quit.
The western society proved succesful and ofcourse other countries tried to adapt it to their culture. But it needs the love for your neighbor. Not only good whishes or “do not hurt another person”. The church works for the salvation of souls, it is interested in " what make you tick" and “how you tick”. It did not have a defined objectiv in enlightment or in democracy but provided the conditions foir them. The church has to be rather conservative and opose the social experiments while there is no guarantee of their outcome and they hurt people or even ruin their souls. It is hard because of our fallen nature combinbed with freedom.

While I concede that Christianity laid the groundwork for democracy, I’d say it was more the Protestant variants that laid the groundwork. The first countries to show the glimmerings of democratic reforms were Protestant states; England, Scotland, the Netherlands, where a far more individualistic form of Protestantism evolved along with significant economic and social changes (in particular the first glimmerings of the rise of a middle class).

Look at 17th century England, where you had not just the rise of the Non-comformists, but also the rise of a new mercantile class, increasingly wealthy, but still shut out of much of the political power by the remaining vestiges of the older Medieval system. The Stuarts still asserted some degree of absolutism, and the fact that there were suspicions that they were crypto-Catholics didn’t help. So you ended up with a collision between Parliament, which had evolved as a sort of “peoples assembly” (or rather, rich commoners’ assembly) and the King and the older aristocracy.

Reforms in Catholic countries were decades later than the new constitutional settlements to be found in England and the Protestant areas of the Low Countries. The French Revolution, which came a century after the Glorious Revolution in England, was as much an anti-clerical struggle as an anti-royalist struggle; the French Church, not entirely without justification, being seen as an ally of the Aristocracy. It is also notable that the Church never regained its position in France, even after the brief Restoration.

There was an inherent conservatism in many Catholic countries that had been excised or at least sublimated in Protestant areas, perhaps because Protestantism still had some of its revolutionary zeal. The Church itself was extremely skeptical of democracy, or at least of the more comprehensive forms of democracy to be found in Britain and the United States, and really only came fully to terms with it as Fascism rose in Europe. Even with the rise of Fascism, elements of the Church thought they could find common cause with the likes of Mussolini and Franco, the latter who still has a following among arch-conservative types in Spain.

There is nothing to replace God with, no other gods or ideeas can keep its place in our mind or soul.

I do fine without believing in God. I will never deny Christianity’s significant influence on Western evolution, although I think one should be mindful that even the Founding Fathers were far more interested in Locke and Classical Athens than in what any particular Church had to say on the matter.

 

[ericc]

Do you think democracy can survive the mixing of different cultures?

Why do you think it has failed? How do you measure failure or success? On multiculturalism, don’t you think diversification is the best way to ensure minorities are adequately protected from an abusive majority mono-culture? Multiculturism may render certain things less efficient, but they do enhance the richness of diversity. There is always the risk/reward tradeoff. If you have a strong constitution, diversity reduces the risk of any particular group usurping it. But you still need some cohesiveness among these groups so that the efficient running of government is not impaired seriously by a government of fractious groups cobbled together such as the ones you see in India from time to time. I am amazed how they get any long term strategy done there.

 

[Lucretius]

Fr. Edmund Waldstein offers a critique of liberalism (in the classical sense), and in particular democracy:

sancrucensis.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/the-politics-of-nostalgia/

Today it seems obvious to most people that democracy is the only reasonable form of government—indeed, even the only legitimate form of government. Democracy has become almost a synonym for legitimate government, for the rule of law. “Undemocratic” has become a synonym for “tyrannical,” for a regime unconcerned with the good of the people.

Even those who are weary of the hypocrisy, vulgarity, and pettiness of democratic politics—the short-sightedness and divisiveness of politicians always looking toward the next election, the manipulation of the process through private interests, the dominance of prejudice over reason, and so on—even people who are sick of such politics cannot conceive of any un-democratic alternative.

Thus the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in the United States, weary of the mock representation of the people through magistrates who serve the interests of the “one percent,” on whom they are financially dependent, can only propose a different model of democracy—a more direct, Athenian style democracy—as a means to promote the common welfare. They do not dare to state the seeming implication of their criticism of the status quo: that democracy itself is part of the problem.

On a very different part of the ideological map one finds political strongmen such as Vladimir Putin. Fed up with the democratic chaos of the Yeltsin years, and the extraordinary loss of Russian power that they caused, Putin establishes an autocratic rule. And yet despite his evident contempt for democracy he thinks it necessary to go through democratic rituals of legitimation: elections, referenda, etc.

Why is it that even the enemies of democracy—American anarchists and Russian autocrats—have to pay lip-service to this form of governance?

Historical, the Church has accepted that a Christian, Virtuous Monarchy is the best form of government.

Christi pax,

Lucretius