- Joined
- Jan 7, 2013
- Messages
- 9,753
- Reaction score
- 5,868
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Independent
I have been reading a book by John Lukacs about Winston Churchill, and in he posits a theory that I will try not to do injustice by repeating here. (If this is tl;dr then just skip to the bolded part, though my write up will provide a lot of context.)
He says that from the beginning of the 17th century up until the Second World War, western civilization has essentially been about a struggle between two government entities: aristocracy vs. democracy. With the end of WWII, the age of aristocracy pretty much came to its conclusion, with democracy replacing it as the reference point for pretty much everything. This was good in a lot of ways, but bad in others. The bad side of democracy, according to Lukacs, is that it enforces, as its first principle, the idea that "all men (humans) are created equal."
Lukacs posits that this is simply not true. Whether it's physical strength, attractiveness - or the really thorny one, IQ - the scientific truth is that we are all in fact created UNEQUAL. Very unequal. But because democracy depends on this cardinal untruth for its existence, any democratic culture will, over time, begin to DISLIKE and DISTRUST people who actually DO demonstrate real abilities. Democracies in the ancient world fell apart for exactly this reason: they became cultures that disliked and distrusted those with great abilities; people who, to aristocrats, were 'heroic' personages, who were the founders of the State.
Democracies eventually, because of this principle, became cultures that admired ignorance more than learning, and a kind of emotional mob hysteria above a calm reverence for truth. The principle of universal equality is what gradually erodes liberal democracies into populist states, rendering them vulnerable to demagoguery - impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace - and propaganda.
This issue is taboo to address because we view inequality as being attached to issues such as race, gender, sexuality, etc. But the issue of equality has become part and parcel with holding back our most gifted as well, stifling their creativity, and creating an ignorant uniformity.
I personally find his theory hard to refute. It seems like the institutions of higher learning have come under attack in more recent years, and an unbridled egoistic ignorance is sweeping through the populace. When meeting the cultural attitude of staunch individualism, it emboldens people to feel that ignorance is their right, and the State is all too willing to use it against them. In turn, the fostered culture of depravity, decadence, and corruption become inadvertently cherished values, because the moral compass of truth is no longer collective, but subject to individual whims.
You see this manifested in people's proclaiment that the truth is subjective, or open to individual interpretation; that everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, no matter if what they believe is true or not, or if their beliefs may contribute to a culture of harm to others; that there is no such thing as ultimate truth, and nobody has any business "telling me what to believe". In matters of spirituality this is normal, but hard science is actually being ignored now in favor of personal whimsy.
One counter argument to this that I can come up with is that the institutions of higher knowledge have been manipulated and abused to prop up certain political powers; but it's not an effective counter to the fact that this wouldn't be possible if the populace accepted objectivity in the most critical areas of democratic reality.
Does the concept of unbridled equality in an individualist society lead to a breakdown in collective acknowledgment of truth? Does it pose a danger to the effectiveness of democracy which in turn permits the reigns of power to begin shifting back to the aristocracy? Must there be the notion of objective values that everyone shares for a democracy to survive? Is it advantageous for the power elites in the aristocracy to have the general public believe in equality, even though they are using the imbalances of inequality for their own benefit?
I'll end this post with a quote for consideration:
“I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
He says that from the beginning of the 17th century up until the Second World War, western civilization has essentially been about a struggle between two government entities: aristocracy vs. democracy. With the end of WWII, the age of aristocracy pretty much came to its conclusion, with democracy replacing it as the reference point for pretty much everything. This was good in a lot of ways, but bad in others. The bad side of democracy, according to Lukacs, is that it enforces, as its first principle, the idea that "all men (humans) are created equal."
Lukacs posits that this is simply not true. Whether it's physical strength, attractiveness - or the really thorny one, IQ - the scientific truth is that we are all in fact created UNEQUAL. Very unequal. But because democracy depends on this cardinal untruth for its existence, any democratic culture will, over time, begin to DISLIKE and DISTRUST people who actually DO demonstrate real abilities. Democracies in the ancient world fell apart for exactly this reason: they became cultures that disliked and distrusted those with great abilities; people who, to aristocrats, were 'heroic' personages, who were the founders of the State.
Democracies eventually, because of this principle, became cultures that admired ignorance more than learning, and a kind of emotional mob hysteria above a calm reverence for truth. The principle of universal equality is what gradually erodes liberal democracies into populist states, rendering them vulnerable to demagoguery - impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace - and propaganda.
This issue is taboo to address because we view inequality as being attached to issues such as race, gender, sexuality, etc. But the issue of equality has become part and parcel with holding back our most gifted as well, stifling their creativity, and creating an ignorant uniformity.
I personally find his theory hard to refute. It seems like the institutions of higher learning have come under attack in more recent years, and an unbridled egoistic ignorance is sweeping through the populace. When meeting the cultural attitude of staunch individualism, it emboldens people to feel that ignorance is their right, and the State is all too willing to use it against them. In turn, the fostered culture of depravity, decadence, and corruption become inadvertently cherished values, because the moral compass of truth is no longer collective, but subject to individual whims.
You see this manifested in people's proclaiment that the truth is subjective, or open to individual interpretation; that everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, no matter if what they believe is true or not, or if their beliefs may contribute to a culture of harm to others; that there is no such thing as ultimate truth, and nobody has any business "telling me what to believe". In matters of spirituality this is normal, but hard science is actually being ignored now in favor of personal whimsy.
One counter argument to this that I can come up with is that the institutions of higher knowledge have been manipulated and abused to prop up certain political powers; but it's not an effective counter to the fact that this wouldn't be possible if the populace accepted objectivity in the most critical areas of democratic reality.
Does the concept of unbridled equality in an individualist society lead to a breakdown in collective acknowledgment of truth? Does it pose a danger to the effectiveness of democracy which in turn permits the reigns of power to begin shifting back to the aristocracy? Must there be the notion of objective values that everyone shares for a democracy to survive? Is it advantageous for the power elites in the aristocracy to have the general public believe in equality, even though they are using the imbalances of inequality for their own benefit?
I'll end this post with a quote for consideration:
“I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America