Text 21738, 170 rader
Skriven 2011-08-16 13:56:49 av alexander koryagin (2:5020/2140.2)
Kommentar till text 21686 av Lee Lofaso (2:203/2)
Ärende: Re: True Democracy
==========================
Hi, Lee Lofaso! How are you?
on Tuesday 17 of August, I read your messsage (from 14 of August) to
alexander koryagin
about "True Democracy"
AK>>Demo - it's from the word "people." People define rules.
LL> What people? Whose people?
People of a particular society. In Ancient Greece there was the ancient
Greece's democracy (for Greeks only). In modern Greece there is quite
another variant of democracy. Democracy is everywhere _where people (of the
society) believe in it_. That's a just definition. You could have questioned
most of the Soviet People in the USSR "do you believe that your country is a
country of justice and freedom?" I assure you that the answer would have
been positive. People believed in the way they lived. It means that it was
democracy also. And a bloodless way it through which the modern Russia was
born proves it. But ask modern Russians the same question.... And you
probably find democracy only in Moscow and a few major cities.
LL> "We the people" can mean many different things. For example, the first
[Skipped]
LL> property. Blacks were not part of the equation. Women were not part of
[Skipped]
Well, if African slaves and white women were out of the process it simply
means that the society did not think they were equal with white males. They
were treated as second sort beings. So they were out of that society and out
of the democracy that society had imposed on itself. But anyway, it was an
improvement of democracy because some time before people had lived under
absolute autocracy of royal court when the definition of equality was even
more narrow. But again, we can mark those societies (democracies) only from
the moral and aesthetic point of view we share now. I mean majority of us
shares.
LL> Who wrote the US Constitution? Wealthy white men. Who ran the
LL> government? Wealthy white men. The first president of the United
LL> States was a wealthy white man who owned property and slaves. In
LL> fact, slavery was legal in the United States including when Abraham
LL> Lincoln was president.
Well, but democracy started in Greece where slavery flourished. It is
nothing but a confirmation that evaluation of democracy depends on the
morals and aesthetic of the society which evaluates.
LL> It was not until after his untimely death that slavery came to an end
LL> and black folks were granted the right to vote. Women gained their
LL> freedom to vote later, in 1920. And the equal rights amendment has yet
LL> to be ratified, meaning that even today women in America remain
LL> second-class citizens.
Such views is a mirror of the society at that time.But was there democracy?
Yes it was.
LL> There are other groups as well who remain
LL> second-class citizens. Gays, lesbians, transgered folks, midgets,
LL> quadriplegics, deaf dumb and blind kids, etc.
I would not recommend you to mix all these groups together. Reading it one
may think that gays are handicapped persons from birth. But love for mixing
love and shit and abhorrence for modern women comes in other way, I assure
you. It perfectly depends on the morals and aesthetics the society lives on.
LL>>> Some are similar, others totally dissimilar, and perhaps
LL>>> even unrecognizable to one society as being a democracy at all.
LL>>> However, any democracy or form of democracy (in the way you describe)
LL>>> cannot have an inflexible set of rules, as society changes over time.
LL>>> If a rigid set of rules were set in place, it may work for a short
LL>>> while, but would lose favor later, to be replaced by something else.
To take it wider, there are not any political or cultural systems with rigid
constant rules. The main question what a direction a particular society is
going on. Do humans become better, higher, more refined?
It is easy to check. The list of things that humans consider as abomination
have been formed for thousands of years. The lower conscience the fewer
items in the list. Vise versa - this list must grow with growing of human
standards and conscience.
AK>>Yes. The main thing is that every particular democracy is defined
AK>>by majority.
LL> Tyranny of the majority is a problem in democracies.
But human civilization is like a train. If one person wants to stay and
drink beer the train cannot and must not wait for him. Majority must have
the right to decide. In opposite case the train will go nowhere.
AK>>But majority doesn't allow them to do the things out of the rules.
LL> Rule by an angry mob. Worked in the South for decades. Not
LL> very healthy for black folks, as Ku Klux Klan members sought them
LL> out wherever they could be found. It was not until civil rights
LL> legislation was passed in the mid-1960s that black folks got some
LL> protection from racist mobs. But even that legislation could not
LL> save Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from an assassin's bullet.
But Ku Klux Klan mobs cannot be called majority. The fight against Ku Klux
Klan was carried out by majority of the American people. It came time to
change morality and add some new taboos.
Also we can recall that democracy is not necessary a perfectly good thing.
Again, we can take Greek democracy, or Roman's. The level of democracy
depends of morals and aesthetics.
AK>>But any democracy has sense only if the people observe society's
AK>>taboos voluntarily and understand that permissiveness is not
AK>>necessary is a sign of good. Democracy is a mirror of a particular
AK>>country.
LL> Why is it taboo for a white man to be with a black woman in one part
LL> of a country but not taboo in another part of that country? Is it
LL> because one part of that country is more civilized than another part?
Life in a big country is like a big old river. In that river there can be
many places with slow flow. Water changing in such places far more slow than
in the stream.
LL> The USA has a president who claims to be African American. His
LL> father was black, his mother was white. Since he identifies himself
LL> as being an African American, most people (including myself) consider
LL> him to be a black man. Regardless of what criticism he gets in regards
LL> to politics, the real reason for that is not politics but race. And
LL> that is the dirty secret white Americans do not want to let the rest
LL> of the world know about.
Well, imho his race is not very important. He looks good, his English is
good etc. The hatred against him is very similar to the hatred to Bush Jr. I
know many people who compared Bush Jr. with foolish chimpanzee. BTW, indeed,
his grimaces looked very similar. ;-) But probably during hard times such
treating is inevitable for all high politicians.
LL>>> Culture and society are two different things. Societies come and go.
[Skipped]
AK>>I don't think it's correct. We can say about culture only in context
AK>>of a particular time. Take for instance Russian culture. When you
AK>>talk of it you must point a time tag, is it in 18,19,20,21 century
AK>>etc. Therefore, culture strongly depends on society. For instance,
AK>>society with christian values has becoming culture. Society with
AK>>delapidated christian values has quite another culture.
[Skipped]
LL> How did this happen? In the 1920s, Americans took over our schools.
LL> And those American schoolteachers punished children who spoke French,
LL> demanding only English be spoken. Cajun parents then decided to teach
LL> their children English rather than French so as not to get the children
LL> in trouble with the schools and schoolteachers. Schools in Cajun
Another confirmation that a notion "democracy" is very vague.
LL> How can a people preserve a culture without its heart and soul,
LL> that people's own language? Imagine, if you will, your own people
LL> forgetting the Russian language, your only means of communicating
LL> with them being a foreign tongue. It happened here, to Cajuns.
LL> Only, instead of Russian, we speak French. :)
But in America there are people from all the world. For instance, I know
that if people from Russia (who moved to the USA) want to teach their
children to speak Russian they do it. Could Cajuns children teach French at
home?
[...Once there lived an old man. He had three sons. Two clever ones and a
footballer.]
Bye Lee!
Alexander
fido7.fidonews 2011
--- FIDOGATE 5.1.7ds
* Origin: Pushkin's BBS (2:5020/2140.2)
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