principles of democracy

[Athena]

If has occurred to me that discussions of morality are lacking when there is not also a shared concept of democratic principles. This is also a problem in political discussions or when discussing the limits of power. We have entered wars saying we are defending democracy and in the past when we did this, books were written about the principles of democracy and what separates us from the enemy. Lately, it seems like few people have an understanding of democratic principles, and I would like to what you think they are.

[Ringer]

IMO the main principles that must be involved in a democratic state are equality and knowledge. Obviously that's a simplification of all the things needing to be involved in a democratic society, but without those 2 things a democracy can turn into a self perpetuating POS

[swansont]

Democracy as we know it isn't just having elections and majority rule. As with these quotes, I think it includes individual rights to protect the minorities from the whim of the majority du jour, and also a low tolerance for systemic corruption. It's all based on the consent of the governed — the state has no intrinsic power; it only has what the people grant it in order to govern effectively.

 

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb. ~Benjamin Franklin

 

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper. ~Larry Flynt

 

I also think Ringer has an excellent point about knowledge; that's another limitation on state power.

[Moontanman]

I almost feel like I should just say me too but y'all know better than that...

 

Morality....What a concept, where does it come from? God? Which one? Obviously not (no matter which one you name) i think humans create our own morality as time passes that "sense" of what is moral changes not quite as often as seasons. All you need to do is go back 100 years and most of us would be embarrassed to be related to "those" people. Morality is evolving faster then we are I think this is due to democracy, democracy is one of the most powerful ideas of the humans race, go back 500 years and most of us would be hanged as witches or simply allowed to die when we couldn't take care of ourselves. No matter how Conservative you are no matter how liberal you are the reality is that humans are changing, we ride the razor's edge between the forces of conservative and Liberal only a democracy can allow this balance of power and require it. The bad thing is that as we change we can only see the past. I think we are better off now than we were, i think we will get better at being social creatures but I'm not sure where that will lead, think of 100 years from now and a person similar to me in his thinking would be labeled as a crazy right wing nut, (I can't even imagine where the liberals are by then), all i know is we will only know after we are past it

[lemur]

Democracy as we know it isn't just having elections and majority rule. As with these quotes, I think it includes individual rights to protect the minorities from the whim of the majority du jour, and also a low tolerance for systemic corruption.

So far so good, though I would question how far minorities should be able to take the logic of protection because that can lead to authoritarian-type mandates. I see the critical factor in democracy checking and balancing of power through other power. Minorities check majority and vice versa, and groupism ultimately gets checked by individualism, though the reverse wouldn't seem too democratic to me. I suppose if you had individuals worshiping certain individuals for their individuality, groupism could function as a check/balance for such people's authoritarian worship of individual heads of state, celebrities, etc.

 

It's all based on the consent of the governed — the state has no intrinsic power; it only has what the people grant it in order to govern effectively.

The second part, regarding intrinsic power, is more of a statement of fact than an ideal. No form of social power can function without consent of the governed. Even forceful coercion works by demanding consent by threat. Yes, you can physically manipulate people in certain ways but none of them have a broad spectrum of effects. You can lead a horse to water (by force) but you can't make it drink, for example. Consent of the governed also must not be treated as an absolute criteria because that would facilitate authoritarian abuses of freedom. E.g. if someone refuses to stand trial for killing, for example, they have to be tried and jailed by force if necessary to prevent them from exercising authoritarian power over life and death.

 

 

Regarding the OP: democracy is a concept that can be appropriated for authoritarian purposes like any other. Using democracy as an impetus to pursue authoritarian power is as easy as using the idea of freedom to manipulate people into indenturing themselves to others. Still, when people unconditionally reject the idea of struggling/fighting/warring for democracy, that also facilitates a form of pacifist authoritarianism. In other words, when anything is an unconditional imperative, it results in totalitarian policy. E.g. if war is an absolute taboo, any and all provocations and ethical abuses can be procured without response because the response would entail breaking the taboo. It would be like if there was freedom of speech but the death penalty for battery, people could harass and provoke each other to no end if only to seduce a violent response from their victim, which in turn would result in the death-penalty for that person. So you have to have some check/balance for every form of power, including war and terrorism. Without it, unchecked/unbalanced exercises of power would become authoritarian, I think.

 

 

[imatfaal]

So far so good,...

 

a little patronising perhaps

 

 

though I would question how far minorities should be able to take the logic of protection because that can lead to authoritarian-type mandates. I see the critical factor in democracy checking and balancing of power through other power. Minorities check majority and vice versa, and groupism ultimately gets checked by individualism, though the reverse wouldn't seem too democratic to me. I suppose if you had individuals worshiping certain individuals for their individuality, groupism could function as a check/balance for such people's authoritarian worship of individual heads of state, celebrities, etc.

in a modern society we look to checks, balances, and the division of power - but to rename this democracy is not essentially true

 

The second part, regarding intrinsic power, is more of a statement of fact than an ideal. No form of social power can function without consent of the governed. Even forceful coercion works by demanding consent by threat. Yes, you can physically manipulate people in certain ways but none of them have a broad spectrum of effects. You can lead a horse to water (by force) but you can't make it drink, for example. Consent of the governed also must not be treated as an absolute criteria because that would facilitate authoritarian abuses of freedom. E.g. if someone refuses to stand trial for killing, for example, they have to be tried and jailed by force if necessary to prevent them from exercising authoritarian power over life and death.

interesting use of consent - I would prefer to deny the possibility of consent by duress or force

 

Regarding the OP: democracy is a concept that can be appropriated for authoritarian purposes like any other. Using democracy as an impetus to pursue authoritarian power is as easy as using the idea of freedom to manipulate people into indenturing themselves to others. Still, when people unconditionally reject the idea of struggling/fighting/warring for democracy, that also facilitates a form of pacifist authoritarianism. In other words, when anything is an unconditional imperative, it results in totalitarian policy. E.g. if war is an absolute taboo, any and all provocations and ethical abuses can be procured without response because the response would entail breaking the taboo. It would be like if there was freedom of speech but the death penalty for battery, people could harass and provoke each other to no end if only to seduce a violent response from their victim, which in turn would result in the death-penalty for that person. So you have to have some check/balance for every form of power, including war and terrorism. Without it, unchecked/unbalanced exercises of power would become authoritarian, I think.

I think redefining totalitarian and authoritarian as synonyms for absolute and non-contingent (especially in describing a rejection of violence) is both misleading and fairly insulting to those who have lived under totalitarian/authoritarian regimes. Absences of sufficient checks to power is a recipe for problems but not necessarily authoritarian rule - for example it can lead to runaway corruption and break down of effective rule

 

 

[Marat]

Whole books have been written about democratic theory, but it might be useful to set out a few different definitions of democracy:

 

1) Pure majority rule at periodic elections. Hitler's assumption of power by the use of the Enabling Act in 1933 was confirmed by a popular plebiscite of the German people in which he won 88% of the vote in what most foreign observers agreed was a fair vote. Obviously this kind of democracy is inadequate.

 

2) A form of everyday democracy in which there is popular control of everything happening at every level of society, not just of the 'governing committee of the bourgeoisie' at elections occurring every four years or so. In this form of democracy the people working in each factory would determine by majority vote how the factory would operate, who would work how long and under what conditions, and how the profits would be divided up.

 

3) Majority rule at periodic elections but restricted by the minimal rule of law, so that all statutes would have to be clear, prospective, general, non-contradictory, etc. and interpreted and applied by neutral courts of law

 

4) Majority rule at periodic elections but restricted by substantive human rights constitutionally entrenched and interpreted and applied by neutral courts of law

 

5) Majority rule at periodic elections but restricted by a concept of substantive democracy which required all legislation enacted to be substantively in the interests of the majority of the people. Thus a legislative program which benefited a small minority of the wealthy over the vast majority of the people in a way that could not be objectively justified by its ultimate economic benefits for the majority would be unconstitutional.

 

6) Some combination of the basic principles set out above

 

U.S. foreign policy always looks rather silly when it goes around the world beating the drum for 'democracy' with apparently no appreciation for all these different forms of democracy and their competing claims to validity -- some of which severely impeach America's own form of democracy as inadequate.

[lemur]

a little patronising perhaps

Sorry, it wasn't intended to be. I could have just said that I agreed with that portion of what you wrote.

 

 

in a modern society we look to checks, balances, and the division of power - but to rename this democracy is not essentially true

I find that the essential distinction between democracy and authoritarianism can be modeled at the level of individual interaction. Authoritarian interaction involves a hierarchization of the two parties where one leads and one follows. Democracy checks/balances the control-authority of the leader by allowing the follower to "check" the legitimacy of the leader by questioning, criticizing, requiring validation of authority through reason, etc. Authoritarianism = "shut up and do as I say" while democracy = "this is what I think should be done, what do you think?" Of course, these are the most obvious examples, but then you can get into all the nuanced subtleties like "here is what has to be done, if I ask you nicely could you please just do it without questioning why" (that's gentle-authoritarianism). In terms of exercising power outside of communication, however, democracy involves forcefully "discussing" or otherwise questioning or challenging authoritarian expressions of power. Authoritarianism acts unilaterally and democracy responds by acting back to demonstrate that unilateralism is not possible without resistance/response. In other words, the follower does not accept leadership without the possibility of critique. No taxation without representation, for example, and if there's no representation, the tea gets thrown overboard. The authoritarian response is of course to criticize the very act of resisting authority, calling assertions of freedom immature acts of rebellion, and otherwise attempting to solicit compliance with top-down command-control authority in whatever form. Authoritarianism also resists democratic leadership from below by rebelling against authority/power perceived to be weak. In this way, authoritarian subordinates use their power to demand a strong leader, i.e. one that will lead them according to their interests without requiring their input/discussion. This is anti-democracy.

 

interesting use of consent - I would prefer to deny the possibility of consent by duress or force

Recognizing the coercion of consent in authoritarian power is important because it reveals the seeds of resistance. If people have to be manipulated, seduced, or coerced into consent to be ruled by force, that means they cannot be directly forced to compliance. This in turn means that they are not incapable of exercising freedom; they are just afraid of the consequences they perceive will occur if they do so. Liberation from such fear is ultimately the goal of anti-terror activities, I believe.

 

I think redefining totalitarian and authoritarian as synonyms for absolute and non-contingent (especially in describing a rejection of violence) is both misleading and fairly insulting to those who have lived under totalitarian/authoritarian regimes. Absences of sufficient checks to power is a recipe for problems but not necessarily authoritarian rule - for example it can lead to runaway corruption and break down of effective rule

If I would change my approach because it is insulting to someone, that would be an emotional-submission basis for authority, which in itself would be authoritarian. I'm happy to discuss these things with anyone who has reasons to claim things are different than I do. But there's no reasonable discussion that can come from claiming "I know the reality of totalitarianism/authoritarianism because I've lived it" without putting concrete examples on the table and being open to reasoning about them. It would be authoritarian to insist that one has absolute authority to define something by experience. A democratic approach negotiates a reasonable theory through critical discussion. I find this logic very clear but, of course, I also need to be critically open to different points of view that may hold some insight that I'm not currently aware of.

Edited February 11, 2011 by lemur

[Athena]

Hum, those were some interesting statements, but although some principles were mentioned I am having a problem picking out, and developing a comprehensive reply. If we wrote of the laws of physics as we have written of the principles of democracy, it would be difficult to advance science.

 

One of way of defining a principle is scientific law explaining a natural action. This definition fits into the understanding that democracy is away of manifesting the highest morality. This train of thinking is based on the notion that we are reasoning creatures, and therefore, can govern ourselves with reason.

 

The concept of moral, Moontanman, originates with the ancient Greeks. To be moral, is to know the law and good manners. To know the law is to know how the universe works. We achieve this scientifically, through observation, and then reasoning with each other until there is a consensus on the best reasoning. You know, how scientist work with each other to come as close to truth as we can get. At no point is it assumed we know absolute truth, because tomorrow we may learn something that radically changes our notions of what we hold true today. Please note the root of the word "science" is knowledge and conscience is coming out of knowledge. Your attack on the gods is not appropriate to this discussion, okay?

 

A list or principles might look something like this

 

1. Respect for the dignity and worth of the individual.

2. Open opportunity for the individual.

3. Economic and social justice.

4. The search for truth.

5. Free discussion; freedom of speech; freedom of the press.

6. Universal education.

7. The rule of the majority; the rights of the minority; honest ballot.

8. Justice for the common man; trail by jury; arbitration of disputes; orderly legal process, freedom from search and seizure; right to petition.

9. Freedom of religion.

10. Respect for the rights of property.

11. The practice of fundamental social virtues.

12. The responsibility of the individual to participate in the duties of democracy.

 

Like an understanding of these principles, would be helpful to Egypt's efforts to develop democracy, and avoid the disruption of economic and political institutions that it is dealing with today. More than this, an understanding of these principles is essential to defending our liberty and justice. When human beings do not know these principles, and do not agree to live by them, they get into power struggles, such as Egypt and other countries are struggling with. Defending our liberty and justice is a matter of culture, but I am afraid we are loosing the culture essential to our liberty and justice. Without this culture, that leaves only authority over the people to maintain, social order. That is the police state, or tyranny, we want to avoid, and our military can not defend us from a police state or tyranny. Only education can. We need to understand the principles of democracy, to protect our liberty and justice.

[Marat]

The problem, Athena, is that those rules you have outlined have recently been challenged by the whole communitarian/Critical Legal Studies movement in law and social philosophy, so that everything has gotten much more complicated than your outline of classical liberal values would admit. What this new movement argues is as follows:

 

People can only enjoy meaningful freedom if they have a cultural matrix in which to realize their free choices in a significant way. Since the existence and preservation of this cultural matrix can now be seen as essential to the value of free choice, it is legitimate to limit the free choice by people of anything which may harm or undermine the existence and continuation of his own community's culture or another person's culture. In this way, culture can be set up as a value opposing, limiting, and even completely extinguishing in certain contexts the right of individuals to make free choices.

 

For example, if I sincerely believe that Ruritanian culture is demeaning to the human spirit, I must lose my free speech right ever to say so, since that would undermine the ability of the Ruritanian culture to survive, thus depriving people who felt that their only possibilities for meaningful choice were in the context of Ruritanian culture of their necessary social support structure for their freedom to be significant.

 

But this effort to put culture above free choice is ultimately exactly what the Nazis did. Consider, for example, Hans Frank's 'Strafgesetzbuch fuer das Deutsche Recht' (1936) p. 184: "... the legislature now places the protection and the need for security of the people's community above the interests of the individual ... ."

 

So we have to begin over, but this time with some more vigorous defense of liberal values against these new communitarians.

[Athena]

The problem, Athena, is that those rules you have outlined have recently been challenged by the whole communitarian/Critical Legal Studies movement in law and social philosophy, so that everything has gotten much more complicated than your outline of classical liberal values would admit. What this new movement argues is as follows:

 

People can only enjoy meaningful freedom if they have a cultural matrix in which to realize their free choices in a significant way. Since the existence and preservation of this cultural matrix can now be seen as essential to the value of free choice, it is legitimate to limit the free choice by people of anything which may harm or undermine the existence and continuation of his own community's culture or another person's culture. In this way, culture can be set up as a value opposing, limiting, and even completely extinguishing in certain contexts the right of individuals to make free choices.

 

For example, if I sincerely believe that Ruritanian culture is demeaning to the human spirit, I must lose my free speech right ever to say so, since that would undermine the ability of the Ruritanian culture to survive, thus depriving people who felt that their only possibilities for meaningful choice were in the context of Ruritanian culture of their necessary social support structure for their freedom to be significant.

 

But this effort to put culture above free choice is ultimately exactly what the Nazis did. Consider, for example, Hans Frank's 'Strafgesetzbuch fuer das Deutsche Recht' (1936) p. 184: "... the legislature now places the protection and the need for security of the people's community above the interests of the individual ... ."

 

So we have to begin over, but this time with some more vigorous defense of liberal values against these new communitarians.

 

I do not understand your argument, because it so completely violates the principle of freedom of speech, and is a very good example of why that freedom is so important. Who in bloody 'ell has the authority to sensor speech as you describe? Such authority over the people is completely intolerable.

 

You get big points for knowing that list is liberal. It came out of a text book with some slight modifications. We had liberal education until 1958, when we replaced it with Germany's model of education for technology, and began producing products for industry. That means we stopped transmitting the culture essential to our liberty and justice, and look more like Hitler's Germany every day. So the problem you stated is very real. The underlying problem is we stopped transmitting the essential culture. We replaced training for independent thinking with "group think". At this point, we might as well have surrendered Germany before so many were killed because we are what we fought against, and this change came through public education.

 

Lemur, you speak to the question of authority. The Greeks asked, how do the gods resolve their differences, and concluded, reason, is the controlling force of the universe, and even the gods are subject to reason. That is, reason is separate from the gods. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, not because a god makes it so, but because the earth revolves as it circles the sun. Whatever, the gods do must comply with the reason of all things. So democracy is about finding the truth, the reason of all things, and we all have a part in this. That is it is up to each one of us to question truth (science) and authority, as you said.

 

In the beginning of the US democracy, the question was, to whom does God give His authority, and the answer is, everyone. With our rights, come responsibility. Our Declaration of Independence could also be called a Declaration of Responsibility. The citizens of Egypt behaved very responsibly when they united in demonstration against the existing authority, and did so in a peaceful and orderly way. This should give us great hope they will succeed in their transition. Unlike the violence of the French revolution and failure of their first attempt to have democracy. When the people can unite and behave in a responsible way, it is awesome is it not? That is rule by reason, and what democracy is about.

 

Come to think of it, instead of copying the principles of democracy, I should have made the effort to articulate them myself.

 

1 Rule by reason.

2 Search for truth.

3 Individual responsibility.

4 Check and balance of united effort.

 

Help me with this. Is that an improvement. What should be added?

Edited February 12, 2011 by Athena

[jackson33]

Athena; I believe Marat is injecting "political correctness" with the right of free speech, which to a degree, I feel has been passed, I would agree. Inciting or provoking, under certain circumstances has always been limited, both during the Greek version of Democracy and most certainly in the forming of the "Bill of Rights".

 

While both assumed Speech Rights or other God Given Rights (In their day) did mean to all people, those rights were limited to some understanding of current (in their time) social/society cultures and laws. For instance women were limited in various way to many rights, now encompassed under free speech, as were some ethnic, races or religions. Today once offending laws, many offenders are denied certain rights as well. The responsibility then would be dictated by other forces, than the persons true convictions.

 

On Egypt, I feel it's a bit premature to say was responsibly acted on. There are accusations out there that indicate some form of incitement, via Space Book and the former google executive, there were a good many people that died, injured or harmed and whatever the results, they are far from known. Their economy most certainly has been damaged and will last long after what was to be their scheduled September 2011 elections.

[lemur]

The problem, Athena, is that those rules you have outlined have recently been challenged by the whole communitarian/Critical Legal Studies movement in law and social philosophy, so that everything has gotten much more complicated than your outline of classical liberal values would admit. What this new movement argues is as follows:

 

People can only enjoy meaningful freedom if they have a cultural matrix in which to realize their free choices in a significant way. Since the existence and preservation of this cultural matrix can now be seen as essential to the value of free choice, it is legitimate to limit the free choice by people of anything which may harm or undermine the existence and continuation of his own community's culture or another person's culture. In this way, culture can be set up as a value opposing, limiting, and even completely extinguishing in certain contexts the right of individuals to make free choices.

 

For example, if I sincerely believe that Ruritanian culture is demeaning to the human spirit, I must lose my free speech right ever to say so, since that would undermine the ability of the Ruritanian culture to survive, thus depriving people who felt that their only possibilities for meaningful choice were in the context of Ruritanian culture of their necessary social support structure for their freedom to be significant.

You seem to be mixing problems here, imo. Critique of authority is essential to the functioning of democracy in any ethnocultural context, but when culture-critique is pursued as a means of demonizing and/or subjugating some ethnic identity/ies, it becomes an authoritarian tactic. Anyway who does online discussion knows that ad hominem attacks ruin discussions, and that is what happens when democratic discourse regarding culture degenerates into attributing various aspects of culture to ethnic identities. But the other side of that is what to do when different people hold different cultural values and regard others with different values as wrong, which of course they are according to the ethnocentrism of the other. The question is when a certain cultural practice deserves protection, subsidization, etc. Did the automakers, for example, deserve government protection and subsidy to prevent their financial collapse as a particular culture or should the free market have had to adjust to the market failure by adopting more sustainable forms of transportation?

 

The big issue in cultural-communitarianism, imo, is language territory. As the EU continues to maintain open-border policies that could theoretically facilitate widespread regional integration, can and will language-propinquity be able to be maintained or will global languages become stratified into regionally dominant languages and others that get relegated to private usage among speakers who are broadly dispersed throughout dominant-language regions? Theoretically, it is not that difficult to imagine global cities evolving to host numerous language communities without privileging some over others, BUT this would be difficult considering the amount of national resistance there would be coming from nearby regions that identify more with a national identity than with regional multiculturalism.

 

Considering that it seems like currently there are critiques of multiculturalism that are only negative reactions to the idea that certain languages and cultures "simply don't belong" in certain national regions; the issue becomes whether such national-supremacism won't evoke the kind of separatist-pluralist multiculturalism that was criticized in the 1990s for treating ethnic minority cultures as absolute sovereign territories with the right to total political protection and economic support from the dominant cultures/ethnicities that threaten them. Ideally there needs to be a shift from a discourse of total separatism to one in which various forms of freedom for individuals to congregate for social-cultural purposes AS WELL AS for integration among ethno-cultural identities to take place at various levels, from region, to neighborhood, to families and individuals. No one enjoys when cultural differences get elevated to the point of hostilities and shows of feathers designed to intimidate people into "sticking to their own." Of course, the problem is that not everyone is making such "shows of feathers" out of hate, but rather many are doing it out of fear that incorporation/integration within a dominant ethnic-community will result in cultural/identity losses among subsequent generations. So, in the US for example, without some serious support for ethno-cultural diversity (not meaning government spending, btw) there is a good chance that language death will continue to occur among subsequent generations of anglo-conformist migrants. Then, when people around the world see this cultural-economic pattern occurring in the US, why wouldn't they continue to resist global migration and free-market reforms?

 

But this effort to put culture above free choice is ultimately exactly what the Nazis did. Consider, for example, Hans Frank's 'Strafgesetzbuch fuer das Deutsche Recht' (1936) p. 184: "... the legislature now places the protection and the need for security of the people's community above the interests of the individual ... ."

Indeed, nazism did view subordination of the individual to the community as a high virtue and, correspondingly, viewed individualism purely as selfishness/egoism with no purpose other than to deplete community strength in favor of individual profit. There was no conception, as far as I know, that strong individuals could provide for themselves and make their methods available to other individuals to be able to replicate their strength/success. Likewise, there was no acceptance for individuals who didn't submit to membership in one national identity against others. I believe this was one of the main issues found against Jews, because Jews were seen as insufficiently loyal to any nation and hence they were believed to always be exploiting the nations in favor of their own transnational communities. These are some of the reasons that national socialism became taboo, but these logic still make sense for many people who have no real experience with multicultural families, transnationalism, etc. Even many Americans (N America and S America) don't remember far enough back in history to identify themselves as part of global colonialist migrations. A couple of generations pass and people think they are loyal and rightful citizens of a nation-state and anyone who isn't is a threat to them. In reality, the world consists entirely of individuals doing the best they can in the situations they have available to them. Only many of them think the only means available to them is to collectivize with others and assert group-solidarity for economic territory against others instead of reforming the global economy in a way that makes it possible for all individuals to prosper economically without exploitation.

 

So we have to begin over, but this time with some more vigorous defense of liberal values against these new communitarians.

Shouldn't part of that involve identifying what exactly it is that communitarians seek from their communitarianism and come up with ways of achieving those without issues of inclusion/exclusion and intergroup exploitation?

Edited February 12, 2011 by lemur

[Athena]

I think people have responded to the principle of freedom of speech? I believe democracy holds freedom of speech to be a human right. That makes what others are saying confusing to me. There seems to be some question of if freedom of speech is a human right? When is a person not free to say what s/he thinks?

 

Is lying considered acceptable freedom of speech? Is it okay to tell someone you are renting a two bedroom home for $500, and for one months rent and a $500 they can move in; when in truth there is no such rental? How about yelling fire in a crowded theater? How about slandering someone? I think for moral reasons we do put limits on freedom of speech. We can hold people legally responsible if their words and acts harm another. But how does this get tangled into cultural and language differences? What are the morals involved in the limits of such freedom of speech? A moral being a matter of cause of effect, and principle being a law. In the case of freedom of speech, it supports the principle of seeking truth, and the principle of respecting the individual.

 

The German philosopher Hegel promoted the idea that everyone should conform to the state, and the state may use any means necessary to get this conformity. He was paid well by Germany to lecture at colleges and convince the youth of the value of this conformity. Obviously this threatens liberty and justice, and should never be adopted by a democracy, but it has been. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended, and it can also be destroyed in the classroom.

 

Democracy is an ideology of relationships. Government is only one aspect of democracy. More importantly democracy is manifest through culture, the culture must be learned before it can manifest. Does this threaten the culture of another?

[Marat]

Hegel certainly played a role in the gradual evolution of modern communitarian thinking. For him, the individual could not meaningfully enjoy his liberal right to freedom of choice unless that choice were contexted in a cultural-historical environment which provided it with significant tools to realize itself. But he also said, somewhat more consistently with modern liberalism, that culture could only serve this purpose if it also recognized and affirmed the worth of the individual making his choices within that culture by respecting his freedom.

 

From this we can derive a criterion for which cultures we respect by social protections and which we do not. Since cultures are valuable only because they provide a meaningful context for individuals to realize their freedom in a significant way, the only cultures which can claim social protection are those which respect the freedom of their members and of non-members around them. Thus a fascist culture would not be able to command liberty-restricting respect and social support while a culture more respectful of personal dignity could.

 

But then where do we draw the line between how much freedom a culture can deny to others and to its own members in order to continue surviving in order to provide a meaningful context for freedom for its members? Should it be punished as an illegal hate crime to say, for example, that Roman Catholicism is a primitive, mind-crippling religion or is that statement just a fair expression of opinion on an issue of public interest? In Canada, where the God of Political Correctness sits high on his throne, some Islamic law students actually brought suit before the Human Rights Commission against the national news magazine, Maclean's, because of its anti-Islamic statements.

[lemur]

Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended, and it can also be destroyed in the classroom.

I don't think it's accurate to say that democracy can be ultimately protected or destroyed in any context, classroom or otherwise, in the sense that democracy is foremost a recognition of the multilateral fact of power and resistance in its various manifestations. So when authoritarian rule is exercised in, e.g. a classroom, there are other contexts in which authoritarian expressions are challenged, e.g. the student's mind if nothing else. Yes, students often get to the point of choosing to accept authoritarian decrees of the teachers or administrators to avoid the costs of confrontation/conflict/dissent, but how long can they do so before they discover reality itself to conflict with authority? The blatant example that comes to mind is when the US congress supposedly decreed pi to be rounded to 3.2 for all contracts. Obviously land measurements that used 3.2 would ultimately cause problems that would prove congress wrong. Generally, democratic conflicts are supposed to prevent such unreasonable decrees from persisting by allowing conflicting views to argue their cases on the basis of reason with the assumption (perhaps too optimistic in many cases) that reason will prevail over arbitrary interests/bias. What happens a lot in democratic discourse, however, is that people abuse their freedom to procure ideologies without adequately subjecting those to critical reason/scrutiny. Either that or someone abuses the idea of reasonability to push a certain interest as an objective/neutral or otherwise correct point of view.

 

Democracy is an ideology of relationships. Government is only one aspect of democracy. More importantly democracy is manifest through culture, the culture must be learned before it can manifest. Does this threaten the culture of another?

I suppose it helps when people recognize that democracy is a culture of critical civil discourse between conflicting interests on the basis of open critical reason, but I don't think that this is a necessary condition. There are plenty of examples where authoritarian power ends up generating sufficient resistance to itself that conflict erupts organically. Granted, this can result in overthrows of one authoritarian hierarchy for another, but ultimately it sets a precedent that arbitrary power/authority isn't sustainable. The only kind of authority that is ultimately sustainable, as far as I know, would be one that is subject to reasonable consent of the governed. A simple example would be when a boss tells an employee to perform a task, that employee will only truly respect the order if they fully agree with it as a reasonable order. If they think the order is unreasonable, they may comply out of fear for the consequences of disobedience, but they are not supporting their boss out of legitimate agreement, which renders the boss's "authority" coercive and prone to rebellion.

 

People have been saying in this thread that "shared" culture is a basis for democracy, but it's really not. In fact, the very idea that culture is paradigmatic/axiomatic is contrary to the idea of reason as a basis for democratic legitimacy. Democracy can be host to cultural differences and conflicts, but there has to be some appeal to reason in any cultural claims to legitimacy. E.g. religious customs can be protected as freedom but they can't be expected to be immunized from reasonable critique. Likewise, secularism or statism can critique religions or other cultural prerogatives, but they cannot expect to have their authority validated without reasonable consent of those they are attempting to govern. The major problem with cultural conflicts in multicultural democracy, imo, is that some cultural assumptions get institutionalized as being politically neutral because they are dominant traditions while others get treated as problematic simply because they are identified as different relative to dominant culture. This can best be mitigated, imo, by rendering dominant cultures as just one culture among others and requiring them to pursue the same avenues of critique and defense as any other culture. This is not cultural relativism, because it is not claiming that people can't value some cultures over others. It's just saying that when cultures conflict, they should conflict with each other in a reasonable and preferably non-violent way.