Everyone knows that Alexis de Toqueville wrote the book on Democracy in America—literally and metaphorically. However, Toqueville was also a penetrating political philosopher generally. Today at The Saker there’s a long article on Toqueville’s thought under the same title:
"After having thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having molded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." Democracy in America (book II)
My comment is late, as there is much food for thought, but I feel there is too much emphasis on government per se. I like an article in today's American Thinker, "L'Etat, c'est moi." It ties in with the way I think, that what counts is the individual. My religion puts the accent on personal responsibility. Nothing the State does or says can override that responsibility. Indeed, the State exists for two basic reasons, law and order and weights and measures. Our State at present is doing a poor job of both. Protecting our lives and property had best not be left to individuals carrying concealed weapons, and nations should not be allowed to force other nations to kowtow to them. By weights and measures I mean standards must be guarded, 1+1 should always equal 2 and today's dollar should have the same value tomorrow. Standards of justice should not be subjective. You may label me a 'libertarian' although I don't know what the term means. I am a humanist with great faith in what moral individuals can accomplish, and even if this only represents the minority of individuals, for me they are the only ones that count. Governments can help or hinder. They will never eradicate the human qualities that give value to life.
Critique on democracy, is a critique on who governs. Aside of that there should also be a philosophy of what to govern. Classical liberalism is a good source regarding what to govern, what the function of the state should be, what it should govern, and what does not belong to its tasks, and why that is the case. A clear concept of what the tasks of a government are, and why, is fundamentally important, as government has a tendency to ever extend itself, especially in a democracy, as in a democracy enormous masses of people are invited to partake in government.
With utmost respect, and not to get all pedantic, the first recorded democracy in history, Cleisthenes’ Athens circa 508/507BC, followed a tyranny. That of Peisistratos and his sons. I don’t think most contemporary Greeks saw much difference.
We need not debate whether we had a democracy, republic, or other before 2022 to determine whether a tyranny had developed or is developing. The key point is that there isn’t a fixed cycle. The word “tyrannos” is a non-Greek loan word, probably from Lydia, that the Classical Greek poleis used to refer to those cities that were ruled by men that did not rely on established laws. If we use that definition, it’s pretty obvious that this government meets the tyrannos standard.
Street violence terrorizing the populace with the lawfully constituted armed forces refusing to put it down and acknowledging private citizens encouraging that violence and rigging elections rather than the elected or appointed magistrates to whom they owe allegiance. Is that not government without benefit of law? Was that not 2020?
From the replies to my reply, I think I turned this into a pedantic and/or technical argument, notwithstanding my starting off with “not to get pedantic.” Apologies.
It matters not what you call it. “Tyrannos” was a word the Greeks literally had to borrow to describe a form of government they had never experienced before. Find a word to describe the thing you’re experiencing—don’t try to force what you’re experiencing fit a word. We are living in a tyranny now—id argue anarcho-tyranny—and for all we know it could be replaced by a coup and democracy. Or monarchy or anarchy anarchy. You never know; there’s no fixed cycle. That was the point I was going for, using a historical example.
If there is no fixed cycle, I argue that there is at least a great probability of what will be the next one in turn. Plato for instance argued that, democracy demanding too much freedom, will automatically lead to the opposite. Thus, the next system is related to the faults of the former.
I argue that, since a democracy is also the rule of an egalitarian mediocrity, which is exclusive of those who are above that mediocrity, the swing will be in the direction of an oligarchy, the oligarchy being at least superior to the mediocrity which rules the democracy. While just as undesirable as a democracy, an oligarchic system repairs the faults of the former.
It appears there is a confusion between a philosophical treatment, in order to arrive at an understanding, in case of definition, and a pedantic.
I propose that while the masses always find words right from the heart, and use words as magical invocations, there still need to be proper definitions, in order for language to remain collectively understandable. Thus, to fit our experiences into words, which have a commonly accepted meaning, is the foremost basis of a language, i'm sure you will agree. Your trip into an original definition is thus by no means pedantic, though anti-intellectualism and envious intolerance of mediocrity might explain it as such.
Thus, if the democracy or some other system of government establishes a great deal of laws which severely limit the freedom of individuals, it is not tyranny because they are established laws...? Then we have to use the word slavery, which is unfreedom. But is not tyranny also chaos, and chaos, is lawlessness, and lawlessness is unfreedom.
Thus, one can arrive at unfreedom both through lawlessness (tyranny) and lawfulness (slavery).
Unfortunately, too many folks view democracy and republicanism as one and the same, while nothing could be further from the truth. Whenever I hear the mainstream media and leftists talk about DJT being a threat to “democracy”, what they are calling “democracy” is actually their own personal brand of tyranny.
“You will own nothing and you will be happy” is the road to hell paved with collectivist good intentions.
As everyone here knows I’m sure, fallen human nature always throws a wrench into the best laid plans, with “equality” and “fairness” being two of the largest wrenches in the toolbox of tyrants.
Democratic man is the conqueror, the conquerors write history, therefore the body of political (and cultural) 'anti-democratic' philosophy, is delegated to the archives, to the margins, or some or another way obscured or neutralized.
I have often observed that people of the church of democracy, when they are confronted with the fact that the heroes in their canon, like Rousseau, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, and many others, were not in favour of democracy (lest it be a small scale peasant democracy), they experience cognitive dissonance, and they try to explain it away much like religious people try to explain all kinds of unexplainable stuff in their scriptures.
The view of the founding fathers is also obscured and forgotten that way, through the propaganda of the victors.
The whole of democracy rests on slogans and beliefs for believers, repeated ad nauseam, which is the way to over-shout those who hold alternative views. Aside of the fact anti-democratic views are sometimes co-opted by all kinds of what I would call democratic-anarchist movements, which are a product of democracy themselves, thus not really anti-democratic, but rather an expression of the tendency of democracy to erode and destroy all tradition.
The Founding Fathers studied ancient history and knew about the trial of Socrates, that's why they didn't create a pure democracy. I've always said that the highest form of a democracy is a lynch mob: "We all took a vote and decided to hang you. You aren't against democracy now are you?"
It is not just because of Socrates of course, even as symbolic, Socrates was mistakenly thought of as a sophist (subjectivist), and therefore executed by the conservatives, later he was rehabilitated (which is the reason why Plato could publish works using Socrates as his mouthpiece). Sophists could be seen as being equal to contemporary progressives of all kinds.
To understand sophism, as it was called in these days, you need to realize that it is subjectivism, including philosophical subjectivism. A modern day sophist expression of subjectivism is the attack on the traditional idea of gender, of male and female, which is an objective reality. The LGBTQsomething mania is a subjectivist attack and destruction of the objectively given reality of male and female. The phenomenon of constant attack on common sense, tradition, and what is objectively given is a typical characteristic of a hyperdemocracy, the above example being merely one out of many, of which another example is the demise of the arts. Science-fiction, fiction-science, futurism, transhumanism (tech-cults) of our times, among many other things, are also a product of contemporary sophism and its destruction of traditional values. The politicization of everything is also a product of hyperdemocracy, the tyranny of politics and demagogy slowly pervades the whole of culture and life. The tumorous growth of the state and a bureaucracy sucking the lifeblood and soul of society, enslaving the individual and preventing really free association among individuals is another characteristic of democracy (depending on its form).
There is a long history of sophisticated philosophical writings by eminent men against democracy, mostly up to just before the revolt of the masses broke loose. Since the conquerors write history, this has been more or les delegated to dusty archives, to the margins, or is ignored by disbelief of believers.
Plato's Republic as a whole is a masked critique against democracy, masked because it was dangerous at that time. Aristotle entertained a more nuanced view, distinguishing various types of democracy, in comparison the contemporary forms would be regarded as the most worst corrupted forms. But not yet 'extreme democracy' as he called it (direct democracy), where the people would indeed speak justice by voting. Socrates was not the only one in danger in the Athenian democracy, bot Plato and Aristotle and other philosophers at several occasions were in danger, had to flee, or were banned.
The relative popularity of Tocqueville these days is a matter of some people awaking a bit since hyperdemocracy is leading towards its about inevitable conclusion. But digging a lesser philosopher from the archives (a lesser political philosopher) is also a product of the fact that the democratic church and democratic anti-culture has delegated the more eminent writers (and their culture) to the archives. More or less like the Roman Catholic Church suppressed ancient Greek knowledge and philosophy. Critique on democracy was normally not just a matter of the question 'who governs', but also about the implications on the whole of a culture when the masses and their mob leaders are in power, as it is always accompanied with a whole tearing down of tradition and higher culture.
The founding fathers accepted a certain amount of popular rule, but popular rule tends to erode institutions and tradition. Demagogy which continually increases, demagogic agitation and misleading of the masses, thus a 'tendency towards democracy,' or guided revolt of the masses.
The rise of an oligarchy is inevitable, as the democracy is egalitarian, but equality is an illusion, a product of ideology which has nothing to do with reality. Thus, people who are somewhat smarter than the mediocrity in the mediocracy (democracy) assume control naturally. Nature, by fair or foul applies a correction of the unnatural condition of equality. Somewhat greater intelligence asserts itself as a qualitative power over the quantity based power of the democratic masses, natural order is restored, though in a way which is undesirable. Then we are doubly screwed by two tyrants, the demagogically controlled democratic masses, and an oligarchy.
When the judgment of the masses is subverted (by propaganda, corrupt elections, violations of law or otherwise) and the rich and powerful oligarchy directs the subversion for its own corrupt purposes, then, yes, we are doubly screwed.
The democracy is egalitarian, diversity is just a magical slogan which is invented for the sake of multiculturalism. The democracy will swallow all that diversity, which is more chaos than diversity. One tendency of democracy is cultural chaos, and the other egalitarian uniformism, after some chaos has been created, uniformity will be demanded.
To quote de Tocqeuville
"After having thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having molded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." Democracy in America (book II)
More quotes by various authors:
http://manteau.nl/search-quotes?search_api_fulltext=democracy
Thought provoking. For me anyway.
My comment is late, as there is much food for thought, but I feel there is too much emphasis on government per se. I like an article in today's American Thinker, "L'Etat, c'est moi." It ties in with the way I think, that what counts is the individual. My religion puts the accent on personal responsibility. Nothing the State does or says can override that responsibility. Indeed, the State exists for two basic reasons, law and order and weights and measures. Our State at present is doing a poor job of both. Protecting our lives and property had best not be left to individuals carrying concealed weapons, and nations should not be allowed to force other nations to kowtow to them. By weights and measures I mean standards must be guarded, 1+1 should always equal 2 and today's dollar should have the same value tomorrow. Standards of justice should not be subjective. You may label me a 'libertarian' although I don't know what the term means. I am a humanist with great faith in what moral individuals can accomplish, and even if this only represents the minority of individuals, for me they are the only ones that count. Governments can help or hinder. They will never eradicate the human qualities that give value to life.
Critique on democracy, is a critique on who governs. Aside of that there should also be a philosophy of what to govern. Classical liberalism is a good source regarding what to govern, what the function of the state should be, what it should govern, and what does not belong to its tasks, and why that is the case. A clear concept of what the tasks of a government are, and why, is fundamentally important, as government has a tendency to ever extend itself, especially in a democracy, as in a democracy enormous masses of people are invited to partake in government.
With utmost respect, and not to get all pedantic, the first recorded democracy in history, Cleisthenes’ Athens circa 508/507BC, followed a tyranny. That of Peisistratos and his sons. I don’t think most contemporary Greeks saw much difference.
We need not debate whether we had a democracy, republic, or other before 2022 to determine whether a tyranny had developed or is developing. The key point is that there isn’t a fixed cycle. The word “tyrannos” is a non-Greek loan word, probably from Lydia, that the Classical Greek poleis used to refer to those cities that were ruled by men that did not rely on established laws. If we use that definition, it’s pretty obvious that this government meets the tyrannos standard.
Street violence terrorizing the populace with the lawfully constituted armed forces refusing to put it down and acknowledging private citizens encouraging that violence and rigging elections rather than the elected or appointed magistrates to whom they owe allegiance. Is that not government without benefit of law? Was that not 2020?
From the replies to my reply, I think I turned this into a pedantic and/or technical argument, notwithstanding my starting off with “not to get pedantic.” Apologies.
It matters not what you call it. “Tyrannos” was a word the Greeks literally had to borrow to describe a form of government they had never experienced before. Find a word to describe the thing you’re experiencing—don’t try to force what you’re experiencing fit a word. We are living in a tyranny now—id argue anarcho-tyranny—and for all we know it could be replaced by a coup and democracy. Or monarchy or anarchy anarchy. You never know; there’s no fixed cycle. That was the point I was going for, using a historical example.
If there is no fixed cycle, I argue that there is at least a great probability of what will be the next one in turn. Plato for instance argued that, democracy demanding too much freedom, will automatically lead to the opposite. Thus, the next system is related to the faults of the former.
I argue that, since a democracy is also the rule of an egalitarian mediocrity, which is exclusive of those who are above that mediocrity, the swing will be in the direction of an oligarchy, the oligarchy being at least superior to the mediocrity which rules the democracy. While just as undesirable as a democracy, an oligarchic system repairs the faults of the former.
It appears there is a confusion between a philosophical treatment, in order to arrive at an understanding, in case of definition, and a pedantic.
I propose that while the masses always find words right from the heart, and use words as magical invocations, there still need to be proper definitions, in order for language to remain collectively understandable. Thus, to fit our experiences into words, which have a commonly accepted meaning, is the foremost basis of a language, i'm sure you will agree. Your trip into an original definition is thus by no means pedantic, though anti-intellectualism and envious intolerance of mediocrity might explain it as such.
Thus, if the democracy or some other system of government establishes a great deal of laws which severely limit the freedom of individuals, it is not tyranny because they are established laws...? Then we have to use the word slavery, which is unfreedom. But is not tyranny also chaos, and chaos, is lawlessness, and lawlessness is unfreedom.
Thus, one can arrive at unfreedom both through lawlessness (tyranny) and lawfulness (slavery).
Unfortunately, too many folks view democracy and republicanism as one and the same, while nothing could be further from the truth. Whenever I hear the mainstream media and leftists talk about DJT being a threat to “democracy”, what they are calling “democracy” is actually their own personal brand of tyranny.
“You will own nothing and you will be happy” is the road to hell paved with collectivist good intentions.
As everyone here knows I’m sure, fallen human nature always throws a wrench into the best laid plans, with “equality” and “fairness” being two of the largest wrenches in the toolbox of tyrants.
Democratic man is the conqueror, the conquerors write history, therefore the body of political (and cultural) 'anti-democratic' philosophy, is delegated to the archives, to the margins, or some or another way obscured or neutralized.
I have often observed that people of the church of democracy, when they are confronted with the fact that the heroes in their canon, like Rousseau, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, and many others, were not in favour of democracy (lest it be a small scale peasant democracy), they experience cognitive dissonance, and they try to explain it away much like religious people try to explain all kinds of unexplainable stuff in their scriptures.
The view of the founding fathers is also obscured and forgotten that way, through the propaganda of the victors.
The whole of democracy rests on slogans and beliefs for believers, repeated ad nauseam, which is the way to over-shout those who hold alternative views. Aside of the fact anti-democratic views are sometimes co-opted by all kinds of what I would call democratic-anarchist movements, which are a product of democracy themselves, thus not really anti-democratic, but rather an expression of the tendency of democracy to erode and destroy all tradition.
The Founding Fathers studied ancient history and knew about the trial of Socrates, that's why they didn't create a pure democracy. I've always said that the highest form of a democracy is a lynch mob: "We all took a vote and decided to hang you. You aren't against democracy now are you?"
It is not just because of Socrates of course, even as symbolic, Socrates was mistakenly thought of as a sophist (subjectivist), and therefore executed by the conservatives, later he was rehabilitated (which is the reason why Plato could publish works using Socrates as his mouthpiece). Sophists could be seen as being equal to contemporary progressives of all kinds.
To understand sophism, as it was called in these days, you need to realize that it is subjectivism, including philosophical subjectivism. A modern day sophist expression of subjectivism is the attack on the traditional idea of gender, of male and female, which is an objective reality. The LGBTQsomething mania is a subjectivist attack and destruction of the objectively given reality of male and female. The phenomenon of constant attack on common sense, tradition, and what is objectively given is a typical characteristic of a hyperdemocracy, the above example being merely one out of many, of which another example is the demise of the arts. Science-fiction, fiction-science, futurism, transhumanism (tech-cults) of our times, among many other things, are also a product of contemporary sophism and its destruction of traditional values. The politicization of everything is also a product of hyperdemocracy, the tyranny of politics and demagogy slowly pervades the whole of culture and life. The tumorous growth of the state and a bureaucracy sucking the lifeblood and soul of society, enslaving the individual and preventing really free association among individuals is another characteristic of democracy (depending on its form).
There is a long history of sophisticated philosophical writings by eminent men against democracy, mostly up to just before the revolt of the masses broke loose. Since the conquerors write history, this has been more or les delegated to dusty archives, to the margins, or is ignored by disbelief of believers.
Plato's Republic as a whole is a masked critique against democracy, masked because it was dangerous at that time. Aristotle entertained a more nuanced view, distinguishing various types of democracy, in comparison the contemporary forms would be regarded as the most worst corrupted forms. But not yet 'extreme democracy' as he called it (direct democracy), where the people would indeed speak justice by voting. Socrates was not the only one in danger in the Athenian democracy, bot Plato and Aristotle and other philosophers at several occasions were in danger, had to flee, or were banned.
The relative popularity of Tocqueville these days is a matter of some people awaking a bit since hyperdemocracy is leading towards its about inevitable conclusion. But digging a lesser philosopher from the archives (a lesser political philosopher) is also a product of the fact that the democratic church and democratic anti-culture has delegated the more eminent writers (and their culture) to the archives. More or less like the Roman Catholic Church suppressed ancient Greek knowledge and philosophy. Critique on democracy was normally not just a matter of the question 'who governs', but also about the implications on the whole of a culture when the masses and their mob leaders are in power, as it is always accompanied with a whole tearing down of tradition and higher culture.
However, the clear trend in American politics is toward democracy and away from republicanism.
and the only defense against it, short of violence is action at the state level. Not the most intellectual take but...
Everyday that goes by I become more convinced that the Fed Gov't, outside of its core functions is a cancer on the country.
Or perhaps its toward oligarchy...with 'democratic' elections really just a (necessary) facade to maintain the oligarchy...
The founding fathers accepted a certain amount of popular rule, but popular rule tends to erode institutions and tradition. Demagogy which continually increases, demagogic agitation and misleading of the masses, thus a 'tendency towards democracy,' or guided revolt of the masses.
The rise of an oligarchy is inevitable, as the democracy is egalitarian, but equality is an illusion, a product of ideology which has nothing to do with reality. Thus, people who are somewhat smarter than the mediocrity in the mediocracy (democracy) assume control naturally. Nature, by fair or foul applies a correction of the unnatural condition of equality. Somewhat greater intelligence asserts itself as a qualitative power over the quantity based power of the democratic masses, natural order is restored, though in a way which is undesirable. Then we are doubly screwed by two tyrants, the demagogically controlled democratic masses, and an oligarchy.
@John
Yes.
And therein lies the rub.
When the judgment of the masses is subverted (by propaganda, corrupt elections, violations of law or otherwise) and the rich and powerful oligarchy directs the subversion for its own corrupt purposes, then, yes, we are doubly screwed.
Yes, it's been said before, these people continue to act as if elections don't matter. Including actions of this week.
“He that dies with the most toys wins”)
Then the probate court system gets to work, legal fees mount, the legacy is eroded away !!!
The democracy is egalitarian, diversity is just a magical slogan which is invented for the sake of multiculturalism. The democracy will swallow all that diversity, which is more chaos than diversity. One tendency of democracy is cultural chaos, and the other egalitarian uniformism, after some chaos has been created, uniformity will be demanded.