Durant wrote:
[snip]
> Democracy can only work if there are
> 1. People educated to be able to and be confident to have opinions
> on all decisionmaking issues.
> 2. They have all the information easily available for all
> decisionmaking
> 3. They can see the direct consequence of theexecution of their
> decisions
> 4. they have instant recall of elected representatives if their
> decisions are not implemented.
This is what I find meaningful about classical Greek
*democracy*: there were *no* REPRESENTATIVES! In "The Greek
Polis and the Creation of Democracy" (in _Philosophy,
Politics, Autonomy_), Castoriadis hammers home this
basic point: representation and democracy are *incompatible*
(p. 108). The very existence of a class of "representatives"
reduces the "represented" to an object the "representatives"
manipulate to keep themselves in power (America's "political
parties" are a good example of this; Lenin's "party" was
another).
>
> Only give up democracy if it has REALLY been tried and failed.
> even than, first weigh up the alternatives...
>
> > >Athens existed -- at least for a while. It provides
> > >"proof of concept".
[snip]
> The greeks defined their democracy and it worked for them in the set
> limitation of their times. I though history is a science that uses
> written sources as data. Why shouldn't we except this?
> Our admittedly limited bourgois democracy is still far better than any present and
> past tyrannies and leads us for better future versions. We are
> humans, we are learning from the mistakes of the past, that is what
> science is for.
[snip]
Ah! But might we not also learn from the,
admittedly rare and partial, *SUCCESSES* of
the past? The Athenian agora? The [Japanese]
Heian court? -- of which latter Ivan Morris wrote
(see my http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/essays.html
page for longer excerpt):
"For us who inhabit a planet which, at least so
far as communications are concerned,
has become a single unit, it requires a real
effort of imagination to picture a state of
affairs in which men in most parts of the world
linger in a state of cultural obscurity,
absorbed almost entirely in the brute struggle
for survival and power, while here and
there, often on widely separated points of
the globe, civilizations shine or flicker
like ships' lights on a dark ocean...."
(Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince,
pp. 11-12)
"proof of concept" -- a better world is
not only thinkable (e.g., Rabelais' Theleme),
but it has at least fragmentarily *happened*.
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
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