/lit/ - Literature

An epic failure, every democracy has turned into very an authoritarian regime.

>>4208341
There are dozens of democracies today that haven't turned into authoritarian regimes though.

Not everyone should the right to vote.

And to avoid any self-serving interests or egoism, if I were to not qualify for whatever standards needed to have the right to vote, then I would be fine with not having it.

dumb. society is a failed project.

it's a system based on a fallacy. even if it is more effective (however you choose to define that) than every other form of government, it would be silly not to acknowledge its flaws.

>>4208350
a couple of 12s that have yet to join the masses of failure. soon they will turn into czars and masses will be groveling to live in china where they can at least spend their savings in western-styled suburbs and sell their children to slave camps

>>4208374
What's the fallacy it's based on? Explain.

Modern democracy was a workable idea for the era in which it was conceived, when constraints of land, language, and transport made local governments ideal to day-to-day questions of governance so long as a wider federal government was able to defend the overall nation from foreign aggression and collect taxes.

The model fell apart with the advent of modern transport and communication. The local has shrunk, but the distribution of powers is uneven. The electorate can affect the entire nation in ways that it could not before, but as a whole it lacks the information (or the time/education needed to parse that information) to do so effectively. Thus it became corrupt and enslaved to more efficient and powerful corporate interests, who have no such constraints.

In the digital age, Democracy may be viable again. Once we close the digital divide and have more effective means of teaching digital literacy, we can have a strong federal government managed and overseen by a well-informed populace. The components currently missing are information literacy on a mass scale, and an effective, third party means to punish institutional corruption.

>>4208379
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

>>4208376
Well no country in history has ever lasted forever. By your standards authoritarianism is the best form of government since it usually collapses and turns into a democratic system.

Democracy is fine, but voting should be restricted to Christian male heads of families.

>>4208387
I'm not sure I understand, are you implying a piece of legislation can be objectively "right" or "good"?

Why shouldn't people who live in a country get to decide how that country is run?

>any universilizable theory ever

oh danny boy, le plebes, le plebes are calling

You mean deliberative democracy.

>>4208391
>I'm not sure I understand, are you implying a piece of legislation can be objectively "right" or "good"?

people can vote in favor of something they would have opposed if they were more knowledgeable about the subject.


>Why shouldn't people who live in a country get to decide how that country is run?
why listen to 51% of those people who support one thing over the 49% who support another?

A democratic process, in terms of elections, is good. However, a democracy as a system of governance is bad. Democracy is majority rule over minority. Thus in a democracy their is no protection of the minority. Look at 1950s South where the white people had majority rule over the minority blacks. We all know how bad that was. I prefer a republic were everyone is represented one way or another, and whose rights are protected and not diminished by the rule of force by the majority

>>4208416
>people can vote in favor of something they would have opposed if they were more knowledgeable about the subject

At least in democracy they can be educated, isn't that superior to other systems in which you don't have a choice at all?

>why listen to 51% of those people who support one thing over the 49% who support another?

Democracy doesn't work that way in any nation I'm aware of.

Limited democracy works when the franchise is limited to people who deserve it and the society has a good authoritarian bent to provide leadership for the mob. But it's still unnecessary and potentially dangerous.

Ironically the biggest fear, that democracy will become a radical and dangerous mob, is the opposite of the truth. The only thing that happens in a universal suffrage democracy, in a stable society, is stagnation, oligarchy, and (at best) "social democracy".

A better question is, what is the best democratic voting system? How can promote politically intelligent democratic citizens?

>>4208454
>At least in democracy they can be educated, isn't that superior to other systems in which you don't have a choice at all?
see
>>4208374
>even if it is more effective (however you choose to define that) than every other form of government, it would be silly not to acknowledge its flaws.

>Democracy doesn't work that way in any nation I'm aware of.
regardless of the specifics, why listen to the majority rather than the minority? what makes popular vote the best way for the people to decide how their country is run?

>>4208454
There are no true democracies in the world anyways, save for a few tribal systems or small governments. Most "democratic" nations are actually representative democracies, and this system is meant to counteract tyranny of the majority

>>4208339


i would say theres never been such a thing, nor can there be.


are the pretential systems of 'democracy' worthwhile though? that is a much more interesting question. certainly, history has shown there is no more effective context and method for regimenting the minds of man, and for dissimulating power structures if that is desired.

the stumbling block of course is that though indeed highly effective at self-enforcing an orthodoxy and defusing critique and dissent, what that orthodoxy is is not infinitely variable. the context of the system inevitably tending to certain trends vis demotism (ie, those that can exploit and inflame these trends can supplant those that dont), the only antitode to which is to, of course, make things less democratic.

>>4208420
>We all know how bad that was.
Do we? America has gone from having minorities that had to drink from different water fountains to having minorities that obliterate entire cities (Detroit).

Democracy is a poisonous method of governance in that the majority of people are foolish and easily bamboozled by whatever foolhardy social justice platform being disseminated at the moment. They are a thoughtless mob only looking to their own short-term benefit, raiding the national treasuries and satisfying immediate appetites, but neglecting long-term consequences and goals.

>>4208339
Democracy encourages people who are experts in nothing, other than the ability to be elected, to be in control of things that require experts to truly understand.

>vote
>vote
>vote

Democracy is much more than that. Its problems and its qualities go beyond how to make votes "fair".

Gives the power of decision-making to the lowest common denominator, who are easily manipulated and ignorant of their own ignorance.

Marxism is the ideal but is ultimately a pipe dream. Fascism seems to be the only logical political conclusion.

>>4208640
*tips fedora

>>4208640
Get out /pol/


We live in the democracy of the ruling class. Therefore, I propose a democracy of all the people in a society without class.

Its pretty bad, but it is the best weve got.

>>4208653


democracy is always a democracy of the ruling caste.

tradition flows from leaders to solipsists, not the other way around; freedom and democracy, as long as you always know what the right choice is.

I think a lot of people tend to see things too much on the side of utopia or an "universilizable" idea (like >>4208400
said, what a word, by the way, lel).

But the good point of democracy, in my opinion, is exactly that, for the first time, conflict is not seen as something bad. Only fascist and authoritarian regimes seek to end the conflict, hide it, eliminate it, decide for the rest. Democracy, on the other hand, feeds on this endless conflict and discussion and I don't see it as a way to end it, on the contrary. I don't sense that it tries to end it, that, the voice of the people would eventually go unison and find the better solution, but rather that it gives us this voice. Even the voice that we have now, to discuss what would be best for us and even criticize democracy itself. This is something I admire and treasure in democracy. It's like that red ink joke Zizek told at Wall Street.

On the other hand you have the danger of more in depth forms of control, of a transparency that hides something else. The danger of saying "you chose me, so why don't you trust me?" or "I'll give you exactly what you want" and then turning in to a process of telling people what they should want.

The illusion is that democracy gives us a power that allow us to be lazy. It is the contrary, it is a power that is burden, a responsibility and it demands from our consciousness to be part of this endless conflict. Its flaws and victories are our own, not our "parents", our leaders.

>>4208670
You're right. Let me clarify.

Democracy of the current ruling class must be ousted, along with what allows them to hold power. Then we can start to reorganize society into a classless, democratic society of all the people.

>>4208684
>Then we can start to reorganize society into a classless, democratic society of all the people.
There's more of a chance of me waking up and seeing a leprechaun, a unicorn, and a wendigo all stroking their cocks while singing Auld Lang Syne.

>>4208684


mmm, i suppose thats what politics comes down to no? how do we get beings in accord with our ideals into power and stay in power (in accord with our ideals).

gramsci was most prescient, you dont even need to whip up the plebs into a frenzy, all you have to do is reform those who already exist in power structures. certainly its not impossible, we are living in the results today.

>>4208695
But do you agree with the idea?

>>4208705
Of course not. People are not equal and wolves will never willingly consent to being of the same station as sheep. Hierarchy is not only inherent to the human condition but it is a beautiful institution.

Kill one king and you'll soon find that another will take his throne. He may not wear a crown, he may have avowedly said that he was dedicated to such a classless society...but he'll become a king nonetheless and his followers will form the new aristocracy to replace the old.

>>4208417
fuck you, fuck habermas, fuck all these european fuckers and my law teachers who still think that Habermas is good, or that the process creates rationality on the system, of those who think that his use of Austin was correct, and fuck the guys who think that his project was applicable to a 3rd world country (or any 1st world country, if you take into account the massive inequalities caused by racism and machism)

democracy, as we know it, is based on the state of exception, and it'll always be like that

fuck habermas, the nigga you guys have to read is Agamben, even if he doesn't give any solutions, still better than Habermas

you cant create a better society. Society is doomed to be imperfect

Democracy only works when every citizen is heavily educated and deeply involved in the political and governmental processes.

Otherwise it is just as bad as a authoritarian regime.

>>4208339
Democracy is a utopian ideal that tends to fuck things up more than anything else and just provide an excuse for oligarchial, top-down bourgeois dictatorships with electoral window dressing.

Forget Communism, "democracy" is the real great lie of modern politics.

[Read this]

The utility of democracy lies not in some idealist "power to the people" justice in consent of the masses or such nonsense, democracy has a very realist value in how populations under it behave.

There is a bit of a chicken and egg game with determining attributes of democracy in relation to attributes of developed nations, as there is a considerable correlation between the two. Lets look, then, at a time when modern, developed nations both democratic and authoritarian competed.

In World War One, regardless of what what side its people were fighting on, regardless of its position or most other factors, if an autocratic nation was put under the stress of a modern war, it fell. From the 1870s onward (although there had been considerable rise since the beginning of the 18th century) politics became a populist game. The noble elite were no longer the primary influential group. Taxes, tariffs, scandals, general petty politics became the concern of the masses just as soon as newspapers started hitting doorsteps. This was inevitable with the rise of communication tools and technologies in the industrial age, some government systems were better equipt to deal with this.

In an autocratic system, Tsarist Russia or Wilhelm's Kaiserreich, the common people have no sense of involvement in the working of a nation, but still hold much of the same attention and anger. When breadlines lengthened and prices soared, people who felt they had no agency in government took to the next obvious solution: uprooting and changing that government. This caused the German Surrender after loss on the homefront, the russian revolution, and more.

In democracies of the same era, however, when the discontent of the masses reached a boiling point, elections stood to serve as a regular and reliable "pressure valve" that calmed the populace and made them feel like action was taken, regardless of if it changed anything.

This makes a democracy notably more stable, especially in a time of crisis. By this, I would amend Voltaire's statement that the best government is "a benevolent tyranny tempered by the occassional assassination" with a modern addendum to address modern popular politics "—In which the population believes it is a democracy"

If I wrote that fast in homework I would have been done 3 hours ago, honest thoughts?

Fucking nonsense.

Republicanism, now

>>4208640
>implying Marxism is the ideal
>implying Fascists aren't glorious meritocratic ubermenschen who choose the State because they know intuitively they will meet its obligations and benefit from it
>implying Marxists aren't effeminate weaklings who are terrified of the State and have to kill millions of people because they can't man up and serve their country in exchange for its favours

>>4208931
Mhmm, and how does the stat's dick taste?

>>4208936
Hierarchies are inevitable and not necessarily malevolent. Households fall apart without strong fathers just as a nation falls apart without robust leadership.

>>4208922
>I made this too long and now no one will read it
goddamnit

>“Every movement and change that takes place with the help of 100,000 or 10,000 or 1,000 noisy, grumbling, rumbling, and yodeling people...is eo ipso untruth, a fake, a retrogression. For God is present here only in a very confused fashion or perhaps not at all, perhaps it is rather the Devil.... A mediocre ruler is a much better constitution than this abstraction, 100,000 rumbling nonhumans”

democracy is the art of being dishonest about who are the rulers and who are the ruled, who are the servants and who are the served.
if a man in a monarchy thinks that the leader is unjust, then his path his simple --- he must kill the king.
if a man in democracy thinks his government is unjust, then who is he to oppose? The prime minister? The press? The next-door neighbor? Who knows who rules in a democracy. One's thing for sure, that if you killed the prime minister or president another would spring up in his place, like the heads of a hydra. Supposedly I am the ruler, in a democracy, aren't I? So perhaps I should begin by killing myself. Or my next-door neighbour, he is the ruler too. Should I start with him? Who is to answer for the crimes committed by a democratic state? It's clear who is responsible in a monarchy. In a democratic state the ruler is an abstraction - "the majority", "the average voter", "public opinion". You can't kill the majority. If you kill 90% of the population the remaining 10% would still be able to reform the majority, and so "the majority" itself remains unpunished.
Who do I bow the knee to in a democracy? To public opinion, to the majority, the average voter. I would rather bend the knee to a King, at least he is a real person and not an abstract idea.

>>4208679
>Only fascist and authoritarian regimes seek to end the conflict, hide it, eliminate it

The entire point of fascism though is constant struggle and conflict.

>>4208955
>the system isn't super simple ergo it is bad

>>4208922

Holy fuck, I had a flashback to my middle school history class essays.

>>4208922
thanks i'm gonna steal some of this for my homework

>>4208976
yeah I could have written it for 4chan or I could have written it well. but the point is the same

>>4208969
it isn't about simplicity so much as it's about what politicians call "transparency".
you hear politicians talking about "transparency" in government.
in democracy there can be no transparency.
I have no idea where I stand with my government. They probably think of me as nothing but a pawn to be manipulated. My relation to the government is expressed by Kafka in his work --- the government is this bureaucratic entity that looms over me and claims to be working in my interest while keeping me in the dark.
In a monarchy I know exactly where I stand in relation to the King, because there is a visible hierarchy.

>>4208987
kafka lived under an autocratic monarchy

you have obviously never studied or experienced life under an authoritarian government or even looked at history. The fact that delegates are answerable to their constituents at all is colossal.

Yeah, you know where you stand in relation to the king, under his boot. But if you think the king is any less prone to "hydra-ness" or that he is actually the primary actor, you're incredibly mistaken. Look up a grey eminence.

>>4208958
That's the problem. It's not its point, it's merely its reality. Fascism has in its function to suppress anything that confronts its power. Conflict arises, but it opposes the regime itself. The democratic conflict occurs within democracy, within democratic ideals.

Fascism uses force to avoid conflict and gets it. Fascism won't allow mistakes.
Democracy's force comes from the conflict. Conflict of ideas, ideologies, laws, culture, some violent, some not, but it accepts them. Democracy is born from them.

>>4208997
Sure, the King has his advisors, but in the final case the King bears responsibility -- after all, he chooses his advisors. If an atrocity is committed by the monarchy then there is a man to be held responsible.
I would rather know that I am under the King's boot than be wooed by serpent-tongued politicians into believing I have a say in policy while being served up as a dish for the grey eminence. In monarchy, yes, there may be a grey eminence, but he stands behind the eminence. In democracy there is no official eminence at all, because "all are equal" --- yet there is a grey eminence, the unknown eminence that everybody answers to without knowing.

>>4209007
>It's not its point, it's merely its reality

No it is its point, why do you think Futurism was a thing?

>>4208752


reading some walter lippmann is even better.

>>4208339
Direct democracy is the only viable means of practice
>ideological system
No thanks

>>4209007


you seem to be misapprehended, functional democracy is *predicated* on suppressing dissent by its very nature.


>...Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old World expressly intended to censure the vices and deride the follies of the times; Labruyere inhabited the palace of Louis XIV when he composed his chapter upon the Great, and Moliere criticised the courtiers in the very pieces which were acted before the Court. But the ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of; the smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke which has any foundation in truth renders it indignant; from the style of its language to the more solid virtues of its character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape from this tribute of adulation to his fellow-citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can only learn from strangers or from experience.

>If great writers have not at present existed in America, the reason is very simply given in these facts; there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds much better in the United States, since it actually removes the wish of publishing them. Unbelievers are to be met with in America, but, to say the truth, there is no public organ of infidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to protect the morality of nations by prohibiting licentious books. In the United States no one is punished for this sort of works, but no one is induced to write them...

>>4208997
>Austria-Hungary
>autocratic
The Habsburg Empire by the time Kafka was around consisted of two constitutional monarchies with elected legislatures. The Emperor-King had power over them both, but only regarding foreign policy, effectively.

ideology is necessary, democracy is impossible

it's not for me (or you) to comment on either. a moral approach to politics is sheer hyposcrisy.