As Churchill pointed out: "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others.".
For myself, have always preferred Republics to Democracies. There needs to be checks and balances, and not only in the Treasury. The Constitution created a Republic, which is stated plainly in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Most countries claim to be Democratic Republics, as they have no desire to have the people choose who will lead them, without a fair amount of stiff rules or blinders.
Democracy is perhaps best thought of as Human Nature. It has some wonderful qualities and a lot of not very good ones. Republics are what a society might be like with at least some schooling, that is reinforced by community standards, though that is becoming negligible in vast parts of our country.
Democracy may be a system suited to us, when we as a species grow up and truly become responsible adults, until the limits imposed by a Republic is a safe guard well needed, much like a fire alarm, it is there to prevent disasters from getting out of hand. Given the history of our species, at least for the present, such a barrier to total liberty, which would be indistinguishable from license, is very much needed.
Democracy is flawed because the public education system doesn’t educate us to be intellectually sound. It is only there to pump out cogs for the technological revolution we are currently in. It’s quite irritating that people find studying the humanities as Mickey Mouse degrees when it has been the source of positive advancement in western society. STEM is important of course for the innovative advancement of society, but not at the cost of disarming people’s ability to think critically and curate ideas that advance the diplomacy and culture of society. Let’s not forget the greatest intellectuals of our past and contemporary society were all a product of what the humanities is intended for. It is the study of what it means to be human, which everyone should learn, we’re not robots simply born for the means of production.
Great comment, Ty. I've heard this point from many people, and it's definitely interesting. It's almost as if a strong humanities education is required for a robust, well-functioning democracy.
I actually covered exactly what you're referring to in my last article. I wanted to include an excerpt from it here;
"As opposed to a STEM education, where everything is dealt in absolutes and certainty, a humanities education teaches us how to be okay with nuance, with disagreement, with difference, with chaos and disorder. We should equally push the importance of the humanities as we do for science and math. Science and math create profit, technological advancement, and stability, among a variety of other wonderful things. However, what good is profit if we don’t truly know what we desire, and if we’re told what we should desire in the first place? What good is advancement, technological or otherwise, if we don’t know which direction to go in? What good is stability if we’re unable to handle instability? All I’m trying to say is this; the liberal arts, and the humanities as a whole, provides us with things that STEM simply can’t. In my eyes, the humanities are of equal importance as any other subject, and until we realize this, we’re doing ourselves an immense disservice."
Yes, I partially read the article because I haven’t signed for the paid option(thought I’m highly considering it) yours would probably be the only one I’d be willing to pay a subscription for, very valuable stuff. Ironically, I’m already writing an article on the same thing for my second publication that should be ready by the end of the week. Don’t want you to think I’m copying you, this is a subject I’m particularly passionate about regarding our educational system.
That's great to hear! I'd love to read it. I'm the last person who'd get upset about 'copying' or people writing about a similar subject, I've never understood people who get mad about that sort of stuff. All the best!
I think that Plato has an overall accurate view of how Democracy has developed to function. I think our democratic system is linked too closely to capitalism and that's part of the danger.
I believe that some changes would be very helpful:
* give truly equal opportunities to both men & women, and recognize great leaders of both genders (and others) have risen. One example I can think of is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I think Lady Diana had potential, but the glitter of her royal position got in the way of her true inner strengths being recognizes.
* Offer free education to everybody...through college, and free Healthcare. If we nurture all "classes" (a capitalistic structure) of citizens with good Healthcare & good education ... education that rewards good thinking vs remembering all the "right answers" ... more good leaders will rise up and all other citizens will be worthy voters. That means the need for education reform, changes in how all jobs are rewarded with monetary compensation, and a more wide & even distribution of taxes.
Democracy has its flaws as we the people are faulty to start with. We are intelligently and inherently chaotic. We think and expect that we can afford to be chaotic but others not. We can afford to be faulty and still project ourselves as the perfect, others should perform clockwise with only exception of when we are competing with others; during that time we want our opponents to fail. So by default any system by, for and of Homo sapiens are imperfect; a reflection and work of the imperfect entity/individual. And the generations of us are sucking it up; our History tells us how.
"This is in stark contrast to people who actually should be ruling; philosophers, intellectuals, and people who are genuinely good leaders."
Just focusing on this part a bit, the best leaders I'm aware of, both personally in historically, were neither philosophers nor intellectuals. I think a lot of folks from such groups fancy themselves good leaders but often do more harm than good. They know ideas and they know people, but not how to act so as to inspire others to act. And it's the action that leadership is done.
Overall, though, excellent summary, and certainly worth considering today.
Of course, business leaders are selected and measured on the value they bring to the corporation. Most business leaders are aware that AI can make deeper and better decisions than they can and as a result, many corporate decisions are being made as simply a “rubber stamp” of whatever AI tells them to do. In some ways, AI is actually running the larger corporations by making most of their decision. Of course governments can be run the same way as long as the criteria of “for the betterment of all society” be added to the objective list for all decisions. In such a system, the requirements of your leaders become more about simply being honest men.
Although democracy has its flaws, I think it's the best political system that we have presently available to us. Personally, if democracy were to ever be replaced (which it probably will be, as all systems inevitably change over time), I think we'd move on to a completely new form of governance - one that hasn't been invented yet. In the same way that democracy improved upon the flaws of a monarchy or tyranny, I think this next system will improve upon the flaws of democracy. Regarding the details of this new system, I honestly have no clue what it would look like, but I have a feeling that it would heavily utilize humanity's level of technological advancement at the time of its creation and implementation. Thanks for reading!
Fair enough. I agree with an earlier comment about putting a greater focus on the humanities. We should be developing peoples facility to reason and discern, to better understand ourselves in order to create a more educated, reasoned class of people (maybe wishful thinking).
Btw, I wanted to restack a line from your post but there’s a minor typo in it: “In order to improve an idea, or to strengthen it, we have try to try our best to prove it to be wrong.” I thought I’d let you know in case you wanted to correct it before I share it with the world 😅
I completely agree. The humanities have always played a key role within human progress, and I don't see that pattern changing anytime soon. Also, thanks for alerting me to that typo. Fixed now!
Always glad to see democracy critically engaged, thank you! As for the author's point (at the end) that Plato's critique of democracy is outdated, I have to disagree somewhat; in some sense I think it is more relevant than ever. If we generally agree with Plato's critique that democracy leads to the 'carnivalization' of the activity most crucial to human flourishing, then we cannot but be anti-democratic as democracy is now conceived and practiced. But the most problematic aspect of all this is our existential situation (sometimes referred to as the age of anthropogenic existential risk, our age) in which, for the first time in human history, politics in and of itself has become an existential risk; in other words, the entire future of human civilization can be decided by those in power. I've written about this elsewhere, so I won't bore you with it here:)
As for modern democracy, it was born with a significant handicap, lacking the fundamental principle that made ancient democracy more viable as a system (in my opinion). The missing element is the principle of sortition or determining representation by cast (individuals randomly selected from the population to govern democratically for a period of time). From ancient times until the end of the 17th century, democracy was implemented by random selection. Montesquieu wrote in 1751, “the suffrage by lot is natural to democracy; as that by choice is to aristocracy.” Therefore, the election of representatives goes against the very nature of democracy (in the representative system all kinds of power dynamics, which should play no part in governance, enter the equation). In the early days of modern democracy, random selection disappeared completely from both debate and literature. The U.S. Constitution and the French Declaration of Human Rights (1789) gave citizens the right to vote, allowing them to influence elections. The central principle of democracy became voting, or the selection by the people of the best candidates to govern the nation ("best" often times meaning the most zealous, assertive, and capable, socially and economically). This form of democracy aims to make the majority of citizens subjects, not political actors in their own right.
In general I think it is remarkable how willingly we continue to outsource our voice and action on critical issues to representatives who we assume know and do better, but who are almost always influenced by factors and motivations other than what is reasonable and best for the all. Random selection or sortition has its drawbacks, true; scale is probably the biggest (how to implement it on a national level?). Another problem is obviously how could random individuals, who may have no idea about the matter at hand, make decisions for everyone? This could be remedied, for example, by having panels of experts with no political affiliations help them with these matters.
That panel of experts is the civil service. A most undemocratically selected group of influential ‘experts’. In many countries they have power by influence equal to that of the under-educated ministers they serve. Democracy functions well when the bureaucrats are independently selected through competition and merit. It functions very badly when they too are elected or chosen for their political affiliations. The bureaucracies of the US and UK are under serious threat. Their hollowing out will leave the lunatics to run the asylum
Almost every single philosopher of Ancient Greece hated democracy, not only Plato. Socrates said that democracy is like a ship (the country) being steered by people who are not captains.
True, but there were also many who supported democracy, such as Solon. Although Socrates was the 'character' speaking within Plato's text, it's still unsure what he concretely thought about democracy (as he left no writings), hence why The Ship of the State example is more definitively attributed to Plato. Thanks for reading!
As Churchill pointed out: "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others.".
For myself, have always preferred Republics to Democracies. There needs to be checks and balances, and not only in the Treasury. The Constitution created a Republic, which is stated plainly in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Most countries claim to be Democratic Republics, as they have no desire to have the people choose who will lead them, without a fair amount of stiff rules or blinders.
Democracy is perhaps best thought of as Human Nature. It has some wonderful qualities and a lot of not very good ones. Republics are what a society might be like with at least some schooling, that is reinforced by community standards, though that is becoming negligible in vast parts of our country.
Democracy may be a system suited to us, when we as a species grow up and truly become responsible adults, until the limits imposed by a Republic is a safe guard well needed, much like a fire alarm, it is there to prevent disasters from getting out of hand. Given the history of our species, at least for the present, such a barrier to total liberty, which would be indistinguishable from license, is very much needed.
Democracy is flawed because the public education system doesn’t educate us to be intellectually sound. It is only there to pump out cogs for the technological revolution we are currently in. It’s quite irritating that people find studying the humanities as Mickey Mouse degrees when it has been the source of positive advancement in western society. STEM is important of course for the innovative advancement of society, but not at the cost of disarming people’s ability to think critically and curate ideas that advance the diplomacy and culture of society. Let’s not forget the greatest intellectuals of our past and contemporary society were all a product of what the humanities is intended for. It is the study of what it means to be human, which everyone should learn, we’re not robots simply born for the means of production.
Great comment, Ty. I've heard this point from many people, and it's definitely interesting. It's almost as if a strong humanities education is required for a robust, well-functioning democracy.
I actually covered exactly what you're referring to in my last article. I wanted to include an excerpt from it here;
"As opposed to a STEM education, where everything is dealt in absolutes and certainty, a humanities education teaches us how to be okay with nuance, with disagreement, with difference, with chaos and disorder. We should equally push the importance of the humanities as we do for science and math. Science and math create profit, technological advancement, and stability, among a variety of other wonderful things. However, what good is profit if we don’t truly know what we desire, and if we’re told what we should desire in the first place? What good is advancement, technological or otherwise, if we don’t know which direction to go in? What good is stability if we’re unable to handle instability? All I’m trying to say is this; the liberal arts, and the humanities as a whole, provides us with things that STEM simply can’t. In my eyes, the humanities are of equal importance as any other subject, and until we realize this, we’re doing ourselves an immense disservice."
Yes, I partially read the article because I haven’t signed for the paid option(thought I’m highly considering it) yours would probably be the only one I’d be willing to pay a subscription for, very valuable stuff. Ironically, I’m already writing an article on the same thing for my second publication that should be ready by the end of the week. Don’t want you to think I’m copying you, this is a subject I’m particularly passionate about regarding our educational system.
That's great to hear! I'd love to read it. I'm the last person who'd get upset about 'copying' or people writing about a similar subject, I've never understood people who get mad about that sort of stuff. All the best!
I think that Plato has an overall accurate view of how Democracy has developed to function. I think our democratic system is linked too closely to capitalism and that's part of the danger.
I believe that some changes would be very helpful:
* give truly equal opportunities to both men & women, and recognize great leaders of both genders (and others) have risen. One example I can think of is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I think Lady Diana had potential, but the glitter of her royal position got in the way of her true inner strengths being recognizes.
* Offer free education to everybody...through college, and free Healthcare. If we nurture all "classes" (a capitalistic structure) of citizens with good Healthcare & good education ... education that rewards good thinking vs remembering all the "right answers" ... more good leaders will rise up and all other citizens will be worthy voters. That means the need for education reform, changes in how all jobs are rewarded with monetary compensation, and a more wide & even distribution of taxes.
Democracy has its flaws as we the people are faulty to start with. We are intelligently and inherently chaotic. We think and expect that we can afford to be chaotic but others not. We can afford to be faulty and still project ourselves as the perfect, others should perform clockwise with only exception of when we are competing with others; during that time we want our opponents to fail. So by default any system by, for and of Homo sapiens are imperfect; a reflection and work of the imperfect entity/individual. And the generations of us are sucking it up; our History tells us how.
Thanks for your comment, Nandini. That's an interesting perspective. Thanks for reading!
"This is in stark contrast to people who actually should be ruling; philosophers, intellectuals, and people who are genuinely good leaders."
Just focusing on this part a bit, the best leaders I'm aware of, both personally in historically, were neither philosophers nor intellectuals. I think a lot of folks from such groups fancy themselves good leaders but often do more harm than good. They know ideas and they know people, but not how to act so as to inspire others to act. And it's the action that leadership is done.
Overall, though, excellent summary, and certainly worth considering today.
Of course, business leaders are selected and measured on the value they bring to the corporation. Most business leaders are aware that AI can make deeper and better decisions than they can and as a result, many corporate decisions are being made as simply a “rubber stamp” of whatever AI tells them to do. In some ways, AI is actually running the larger corporations by making most of their decision. Of course governments can be run the same way as long as the criteria of “for the betterment of all society” be added to the objective list for all decisions. In such a system, the requirements of your leaders become more about simply being honest men.
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Honest question: If not a democratic society, then what in its place?
Although democracy has its flaws, I think it's the best political system that we have presently available to us. Personally, if democracy were to ever be replaced (which it probably will be, as all systems inevitably change over time), I think we'd move on to a completely new form of governance - one that hasn't been invented yet. In the same way that democracy improved upon the flaws of a monarchy or tyranny, I think this next system will improve upon the flaws of democracy. Regarding the details of this new system, I honestly have no clue what it would look like, but I have a feeling that it would heavily utilize humanity's level of technological advancement at the time of its creation and implementation. Thanks for reading!
Fair enough. I agree with an earlier comment about putting a greater focus on the humanities. We should be developing peoples facility to reason and discern, to better understand ourselves in order to create a more educated, reasoned class of people (maybe wishful thinking).
Btw, I wanted to restack a line from your post but there’s a minor typo in it: “In order to improve an idea, or to strengthen it, we have try to try our best to prove it to be wrong.” I thought I’d let you know in case you wanted to correct it before I share it with the world 😅
I completely agree. The humanities have always played a key role within human progress, and I don't see that pattern changing anytime soon. Also, thanks for alerting me to that typo. Fixed now!
Always glad to see democracy critically engaged, thank you! As for the author's point (at the end) that Plato's critique of democracy is outdated, I have to disagree somewhat; in some sense I think it is more relevant than ever. If we generally agree with Plato's critique that democracy leads to the 'carnivalization' of the activity most crucial to human flourishing, then we cannot but be anti-democratic as democracy is now conceived and practiced. But the most problematic aspect of all this is our existential situation (sometimes referred to as the age of anthropogenic existential risk, our age) in which, for the first time in human history, politics in and of itself has become an existential risk; in other words, the entire future of human civilization can be decided by those in power. I've written about this elsewhere, so I won't bore you with it here:)
As for modern democracy, it was born with a significant handicap, lacking the fundamental principle that made ancient democracy more viable as a system (in my opinion). The missing element is the principle of sortition or determining representation by cast (individuals randomly selected from the population to govern democratically for a period of time). From ancient times until the end of the 17th century, democracy was implemented by random selection. Montesquieu wrote in 1751, “the suffrage by lot is natural to democracy; as that by choice is to aristocracy.” Therefore, the election of representatives goes against the very nature of democracy (in the representative system all kinds of power dynamics, which should play no part in governance, enter the equation). In the early days of modern democracy, random selection disappeared completely from both debate and literature. The U.S. Constitution and the French Declaration of Human Rights (1789) gave citizens the right to vote, allowing them to influence elections. The central principle of democracy became voting, or the selection by the people of the best candidates to govern the nation ("best" often times meaning the most zealous, assertive, and capable, socially and economically). This form of democracy aims to make the majority of citizens subjects, not political actors in their own right.
In general I think it is remarkable how willingly we continue to outsource our voice and action on critical issues to representatives who we assume know and do better, but who are almost always influenced by factors and motivations other than what is reasonable and best for the all. Random selection or sortition has its drawbacks, true; scale is probably the biggest (how to implement it on a national level?). Another problem is obviously how could random individuals, who may have no idea about the matter at hand, make decisions for everyone? This could be remedied, for example, by having panels of experts with no political affiliations help them with these matters.
That panel of experts is the civil service. A most undemocratically selected group of influential ‘experts’. In many countries they have power by influence equal to that of the under-educated ministers they serve. Democracy functions well when the bureaucrats are independently selected through competition and merit. It functions very badly when they too are elected or chosen for their political affiliations. The bureaucracies of the US and UK are under serious threat. Their hollowing out will leave the lunatics to run the asylum
this is a great essay i loved reading it. I think the content is so relevant. thank you for sharing and educating :)
Thanks for reading!
Almost every single philosopher of Ancient Greece hated democracy, not only Plato. Socrates said that democracy is like a ship (the country) being steered by people who are not captains.
True, but there were also many who supported democracy, such as Solon. Although Socrates was the 'character' speaking within Plato's text, it's still unsure what he concretely thought about democracy (as he left no writings), hence why The Ship of the State example is more definitively attributed to Plato. Thanks for reading!
Thank you for your research, reflection and “rhetoric”!
It killed Socrates plus he thought the voters could not make the correct decisions
Because he was trapped in a cave^^