gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) (08/05/85)
> What makes anyone think that the rest of the world wants or even cares about > democracy? .... > We've shown enough arrogance in our history. Let's not compound it by trying > to impose democracy on people who don't care about it. [CARL DEITRICK] I think this is completely backwards. It is the height of arrogance to pretend to know what people deprived of the right to free expression want or do not want. It is even more arrogant to claim that civil liberties, consent of the governed and popular sovereignty are principles applicable only to our little corner of the universe. 'Imposing democracy' is a loaded term: we are not in a position to impose democracy on anyone. When an exceptional historical opportunity to do so presented itself in 1945, in Japan and Germany, the result was an unqualified success. The transplanting of democratic institutions was successful because the powerful local elites blocking democratic change have been swept away and discredited. Democratic procedures can be learned, like literacy or agricultural techniques. Democratic change in the third world is being blocked by the moral and physical pressure of entrenched local elites, not by some mysterious cultural aversion to democracy. ----- Gabor Fencsik {ihnp4,dual,nsc,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor
ray@rochester.UUCP (Ray Frank) (08/09/85)
> > > What makes anyone think that the rest of the world wants or even cares about > > democracy? .... > > > We've shown enough arrogance in our history. Let's not compound it by trying > > to impose democracy on people who don't care about it. [CARL DEITRICK] > Tha tha tha tha that's easy for you to say, living comfortably and freeeee in a democracy. With your belly full it's easy to say "what makes anyone think that the rest of the world wants its belly full too." When's the last time you went without democracy for a while?
tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger) (08/13/85)
The analogy of lack of democracy to empty belly falls rather short
of common sense and logic; were it to stand, we'd have to assume that
all living creatures of all species need "democracy" because they do
after all need full bellies.
What Americans find difficult to grasp is that democracy, despite
the rather defective civics books, wasn't created by the constitution
just 200 years ago, and doesn't depend on a "system" just being
instituted. It is the very gradual cultural product of the hundreds of
years of Western traditions brought here by the settlers which then
culminated in the Constitution and even then, most importantly, in the
interpretations, such as the rather recent 14th Amendment!!!, placed
on that document in the ensuing years.
While it may well be true that most human beings would prefer some
form of participatory government, i.e. a say i how decisions about
their lives and their society are made, it is in my view also, just
ethnocentric hubris and selfserving to our interest to wish to "bring"
to others our particular ways and definitions of participatory
government. In fact, just because we happend to be rather fat and
content with it after our 200 years, doesn't mean by a long shot that
the last word is in about how well ours really does work for us!! It
has not been severely tested... when it was, we fought the bloodiest
and most brutal war in the 19th Century on the surface of the earth,
from 1861-1865 and settled the matter by brute conquest! It then took
another 100 years to more or less enforce the other major decision of
that war besides secession, i.e. equal rights for blacks.
Our "democracy" involves extreme forms of individualism and of
resulting alienation from society which are very repugnant to the
cultures of many peoples around the world. We call Japan a "democracy"
for very superficial "system" reasons, butany careul reading will show
that the cultural base, the understandings of how behavior is limited
and what "free speech" and "dissent" mean, are totally different from
ours.gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) (08/21/85)
I agree with Dr.Schlesinger's main point about American-style
democracy being a culturally embedded product and therefore non-
exportable. I would quibble with the assertion that the system
has not been severely tested. It was subjected to the same kind
of stresses that broke other political systems: economic depression,
attempt at secession, a lost war, major loss of influence, regional
conflicts, a 'nationality question' of sorts and decolonization.
Many of these led to temporary bouts of hysteria but the political
system on the whole did what it was supposed to do, i.e.,
isolate, canalize, dampen and dissipate conflict by creating
or adapting institutions. The apparent lack of severe testing
is in itself a sign of success.
-----
Gabor Fencsik {ihnp4,dual,nsc,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor