By Bosco – The Irish Sentinel –
An important but potentially dangerous topic that must now be scrutinised is “democracy”. For eons the notion of democracy has been heralded as the apex of western civilisation, but is it?
In the dialogues of Plato, the founding father of Greek Philosophy – Socrates – is portrayed as hugely pessimistic about the idea of democracy. In Book Six of The Republic, Plato describes Socrates engaging with a character called Adeimantus and trying to get him to see the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship. If you were heading out on a journey by sea, asks Socrates, who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel? Just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring? The latter of course, says Adeimantus, so why then, responds Socrates, do we keep thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country?
Socrates’s point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm.
We have given the vote to all without connecting it to that of wisdom. And Socrates knew exactly where that would lead: to a system the Greeks feared above all, demagoguery.
dēmos ‘the people’ + agōgos ‘leading’
Socrates used an analogy of a ship and seafaring to illustrate the perils of democracy. By comparing the general population to a strong but near-sighted shipowner whose knowledge of seafaring was deficient, and where the quarrelling sailors portrayed the demagogues and politicians, and the ship’s navigator, a stargazer, the philosopher, Socrates highlighted dangers that are now lost in our modern society.
The waters off the Greek coast are perilous and an untrained navigator would soon run the ship a ground. Socrates believed that no ship owner would risk his cargo to such an amateur yet, we hand over a city state, or State to the mob by giving them all an equal say in the running of a country, and the many pitfalls contained within governance. Democracy derives from the greek words
dēmos ‘the people’ + kratia ‘rule by’
In its abstract conception, it sounds reasonable that everyone should have a say in the running of a country. However, the modern conception of democracy doesn’t promote this. Only later in our progression were women given the vote, not long before that only men of means and land were handed the right to vote. As society “progresses” have these avenues of opportunity and the extension of the franchise ameliorated or deteriorated society as a whole?
Voting is necessary but not sufficient for the existence of a democracy and voting can be as perilous an exercise as navigating the most difficult of waters. Right voting requires due diligence, honesty, integrity, and the exercise of scepticism and caution, as well as assessment and analysis; it also requires an open mind to ideas but also restraint, it should contain at the very least, a modicum of awareness of the frailties of mankind, his tendency for self-interest over other interests, i.e. power, and control.
Recently, the far left have proposed to expand suffrage to allow young teenagers the vote, as young as sixteen. The reason? The left will say it is to give a voice to those whose futures are settled well before they come of age. The reality however is as old as time, the youth are far more capable of being manipulated than the aged. Being older doesn’t necessarily mean one is wiser, but the chances that life gives to create that wisdom are more frequent.
The far left use the same distortion with regards to mass immigration, extending empowerment, which is partly true, but the empowerment is not to serve those they allow in across borders, but who these new migrants will vote for once they become settled in the new host country. It is the quid pro quo; we get you in and provide you with material things, you give us your votes so we can maintain power.
The other titan of Greek philosophy, Aristotle, argued that democracy is not the best form of government. In a democracy, rule is by and for the needy. In contrast, rule of law or aristocracy (literally, power [rule] of the best) or even monarchy, where the ruler has the interest of his country at heart, are better types of government.
According to Aristotle the government should be by those people with enough time on their hands to pursue virtue, a quality very much in abeyance amongst our political classes.
The political class had once (or perhaps never) a nemesis, it was the mass media, who would act as a bulwark against corruption, exposing wrongdoing for the benefit of the people who would then vote out the thieves in power. Sadly, this stand off no longer takes place. The politicians merely lead the dance now, and the media follow their lead. The media play an hugely important role for the governing elite, an elite who pretend, through the same media, that the people are sovereign. This is nonsense.
Astroturfing is the attempt to create an impression of widespread grassroots support for a policy, individual, or product. It is a device used to engineer an outcome that appears to originate from the grassroots level, giving the impression that a new idea has emerged from the people and the people, through their delegate representative, have change realised into law. The people of course make their first mistake because they don’t elect a delegate representative at all, but a trustee representative.
A delegate is someone who acts only as a mouthpiece for the constituency. If candidate ‘A’ for election, on the hustings, warrants policy X (most often contained in a party manifesto) to be implemented on his election, and’ A’ is , indeed, elected on that promise of implementation, then candidate ‘A’ has performed his contractual duty as delegate. However, most politicians don’t abide with this model of representation. Instead, he pretend to act as delegates but instead behave as trustees. A trustee representative has autonomy to vote whatever way he wishes. If candidate ‘A’ says to his constituency he will vote X, say pro life, and gets elected on that basis, but then breaches that promise and votes Y, say, pro choice, now politician ‘A’ will argue that he has maintained his representative duty. The politician will argue that he used his vote in the chamber in the interests of the people, even if it is contrary to the wishes of the people who elected him. Invariably, the interests of the people, according to the politicians, is usually the vested interests of powerful others who will offer a benefit to the politician. When it comes to re-election, the politician ‘A’, candidate ‘A’, will pretend again to be a delegate representative in order to secure the vote.
This is why the voters must be aware of how the system works in reality over how they are told how the system works.
The concept of ‘priming’ is important as it is considered as the predecessor of agenda setting, one of the theories of media effects. Priming has its base in cognitive psychology which relates to associative network model of human memory. This concept details how one thought may generate associated thoughts. Priming is a concept through which the media effects the public whereby they, the public, have their world view moulded and enhanced by methods of influence, through emotional programming utilised to manipulate the hithero preconceptions that are already been stored in our memory through strong agents of socialisation such as the education system.
It was once a fact, that the family, especially parents, were the strongest influence on children, but the State has engineered society to be influenced instead by exogenous sources, e.g, the school, entertainment etc. As both or lone parents go out to work for less and less reward, their children are being indoctrinated by the State, either in creches or schooling. Even when the exhausted and often demoralised parents returns from work, the child is still being primed by the media he or she uses for entertainment e.g tiktok, youtube, netlix, Disney etc. The children’s preconceptions of the world are already being fabricated purposely by those who do NOT have the child’s best interest at heart. It is why we see the over sexualisation of children in the media and the school system.
The children, already unconsciously primed, will then provide back a policy to the State that which that State has previously engineered, creating the illusion that the democratic will of the people must be realised (despite the fact the whole charade is combination of priming and astroturfing the constituency). Failing that, the politicians will imply delegate representation and then assume total autonomy as a trustee representative once elected (and will feign ‘best interests’, or ‘I wasn’t aware of the full scope of the issue until I became elected’ as excuses).
The problem must be stated too that the sources of the problem lies with ‘the people’ themselves. As illustrated in a previous article (‘The useful idiots’), human beings are more emotional than rational, we, as a species, as very easy to manipulate. Moreover, despite the extension of suffrage, voting, to wider sections of society, most people couldn’t careless.
During the child murdering referendum, only 53% of those allowed to vote even bothered to vote on such a crucial fundamental right. After all, if one cannot have a right to live, then all other rights become meaningless. Such a right, in practice, stands at the apex of rights discourse and implementation. Worse still, many people who voted to repeal the eight amendment provided the most absurd reasons e.g. ‘masturbation is the same as an abortion (no, a living human being materialises upon fertilisation of an ovum by a sperm, ejaculate is just sperm!), or “If a woman is raped, then the baby conceived in the rape will become a rapist too” (no, if that were the case Ted Bundy’s child, Rosa Bundy, would be a serial killer too, she isn’t, because behaviour doesn’t operate that way!). The list of the absurd reasons are many but the consequences to that absurdity, and those who didn’t bother to vote, is extreme, so extreme the far left and their globalist liberal confrere succeeded in the slaughter of the innocent (legislation is presently being prepared to get rid of any restrictions, so a baby can be dismembered soon for any reason up to birth).
We see daily, the attacks on our culture, our nation, our ancestral faith, and people fall for the lies in the media constantly. Read any twitter account and you will see throngs of “useful idiots” cheering on their own demise, captured by the emotional irrationalism of the very successful priming perpetrated by agents, the media machine, and its principal, the State.
I would wager, if an election were held tomorrow, despite the assault on our nation by traitors in government, large sections of “the people” will return the same traitors to power. I have read too that the Yellow Vests, seek direct referenda from the people, but, and I am sure they, The Yellow Vests, are well intentioned, but they still don’t get it. “The People” can have, ostensibly, all the power they want, but in reality, they, the people, will never have it, because ‘the people’ are part of the problem, they are unawares they are already primed to give back what they have been deceived into giving back, creating the illusion that democracy has spoken (or a politician will pretend to truly represent their interests, and then betray them once elected).
So carefully created has the creation been that one wholly deceive the people and morally validate any action, even the most heinous by prefacing or suffixing a claim with the words “democratic” or “democracy”.
As to what replaces ‘democracy’ who knows, that’s an altogether different debate. So either we genuinely re evaluate “democracy” or we bin it. As it stands, democracy is a sham, a con man, the greatest of all fraudsters.
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” ― Richard P. Feynman
