“””ZAROVE wrote:Now now, I never said that people aren't driven by self interest, I just disagree that all people always are.
There is a distinction.”””
I agree with you: people are not always driven by self-interest. I see that as an evident failing, to be honest. Rather, it appears to me to be a psychological disorderliness. Who can exist happily if they are discounting their own interests in life?
The Trick is to make sure your self interest is the interest of others. Its not a failing, rather it is simply that we shouldn’t want for ourselves certain things. The Goal in Christianity is to not only change our focus rom our self interest to others, thereby ignoring our self interest, but rather to change what it is we are interested in so we no longer are so self centred to begin with, and our chief desire is the other party.
“”” The problem with today's Democratic World is that it deals in absolutes and never creates a workable system.”””
While it is that I would advocate a democracy over a monarchy, think that monarchism was a necessary evolution in human social groupings.
Not this again. Why is it that the Whig view of History has taken root? I blame it on that bloody rubbish “Evolutionary” notion we have that things progress upward in a Linear fashion.
Of course its all fiction. The idea that we went form primitive nomads to basic tribes, later on to form an Absolute Monarchy, which gradually eroded into a constitutional Monarchy, till it faded away in the face of Democracy is a purely modern invention. Today’s Trend toward Democracy was the product of Warfare and conquest, not Human advancement and evolution, and Republicanism is not some newer form of Government that came along to replace the Obsolete Monarchism, its just as old as Monarchism and is discussed by Plato and Aristotle.
Human History has been cyclical, not linear, and today’s Republican Supremacy will one day come to its end with Oligarchy, then return to Monarchy, and the whole thing doesn’t end till we do.
In a sense, I look at monarchy as part of a progression toward responsible distribution of necessary freedoms. For example, were I to write out a continuum of the (at least) Western modes of human social arrangements it would look something like this:
Theocracy ---> Republic ---> Ecclesiocracy ---> Monarchy ---> Democracy.
I have, of course, omitted the fact that during Middle-Eastern theocratic reigns, there were two simultaneous ruling systems with the Romans (Republic) and the Greeks (Democracy). Neverthless, coming out of the middle ages saw a divestiture of centralised power being turned back to the people who were once governed by a single entity, the King.
This is another rather common fatal flaw whenever I mention Monarchy. Monarchy was never actually Centralised in the Middle Ages. The idea that all power rested in the King who held absolute power, and whose word was law, didn’t exist in the Middle Ages. The Kings had very limited Powers, and had to constantly balance themselves against the Church and the Lords. The Local Aristocrat had far more powers than the King over his specific Domain, and on occasion had more money or manpower than the King, a position that often threatened the Kings Supremacy. History is filled with such intrigues.
Power in the Feudal System was highly decentralised, not centralised in the person of the King. The idea that somehow all power was vested in the King and centralised, and later divested from the King and given to the People, is just not reality.
Heck, in today’s Democratic world, power is more centralised than it was even in the early modern era Kingdoms such as France or England. The Democratic State will always claim more power unto itself in the name of the People than ever did a King or a Lord.
What was once the king's power, has now (at least as far as voting is concerned) become the people's power.
Not really. The Monarchies in the Middle Ages tended o serve as supreme Judges of conflicts beteen Local Lords, and as those who would have the responsibility to defend the realm. They held little real power.
In today’s Democracy, though, “the people” rule only nominally. The Truth is, all this talk about the people picking leaders is hogwash. For 8 years Bush was President an we had 8 years of people who hated him, who happened to be half the country, complaining about it.
they didn’t vote for him, so somehow he
wasn’t their president. Now, Obama is President and we’ve had two years of exactly the same sort of thing. The half of the population how didn’t vote for him rejects him.
The idea that “We, the people’ pick our leaders is an absurdity. We hold a massive popularity contest and however gets the most votes at that Moment wins and leads everyone. There is no such thing as a General Will of the people, just competing factions that continually divide against each other and attempt to quell each other, and their too busy fighting each other to really come together and fix the problems our society faces.
This allows the Politicians to intentionally highlight tout social differences to Galvanise their base to defeat the other party’s base, by telling how Threatening they are.
In the end, the Wealthy politically connected individuals will get into office a sour “Public Servants” who basically set laws and lead us, making them really Rulers who pretend to be Servants, whose power rest son that Social Division and having 51% of the vote.
“The People” is a joke of a concept.
It also violates the Principle of Individuality that is suppose to be Paramount to it as Democracy is inherently about communal power over the individual, just as Voting will never bring Unity as its divisive by its very nature. This is why Aristotle hated Democracy.
Unfortunately, I don't see it staying that way for too much longer. The rest of the world seems intent on some shade of socialism that really does not bode well for any of us. Truth be told, I would prefer a Monarchy to Socialism any day.
You do realise that Socialism is a higher form of Democracy, right?
Communism is the Highest Form of Democracy.