Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve updated here. My apologies to my loyal readers, real or theoretical. I’ve been immersed in several projects, most notably my senior research project. In the course of this project (You can find the topic proposal posted a few months ago) I’ve come face to face with quite a bit of republican legal theory, and American constitutional structure. There’s quite a bit to be said about it, and I’m sure much of it will be apropos following the election. However, what I’m thinking about is not America, but rather the third world.
Bill Maher is fond of saying on his frequently insufferable HBO talk show that if you give an arab man the choice of freedom and his sister in a miniskirt or neither, he will choose neither. Although this always provides harrumphing from the guests, it is more or less true. This got me thinking…what are the fundamentals of democracy?
Notice that I did not say liberal democracy. This is because I think that ultimately conservative democracy is impossible. This does not mean conservative in the republican sense…it rather means in the fundamentalist sense. In a system in which the people are swayed by a fundamentalist cleric, democracy is a meaningless notion. The voice of the many requires freethinking, otherwise it is merely the voice of one with a megaphone.
Although this is mostly a problem with the Muslim world nowadays, it is theoretically by no means unique to that belief structure. Indeed, Catholicism is the system in which this is the most real danger, in which centralization is the strongest. It was only the blunting of Catholic power in the 12th century by the monarchies which were just beginning to flex their muscles which led to the renaissance. It was only the repudiation of the catholic church in the 15th century that led to the Newtonian enlightenenment, which those countries that remained staunchly Catholic notably did not follow (Spain and Italy).
Essentially, the fundamental of liberal democracy is a weak organized religious structure, or none at all. This incidentally has nothing to do with religious belief…it is about religious establishment. If someone can invoke a divine power whose authority is unquestioned to political aims, they will be followed blindly by their followers, and democracy is a meaningless notion. I don’t hold out much hope for Iraq and Afghanistan in the short term.