2 April 2008
The Future of Democracy
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: Constitution in Peril; Judaeo-Christian Values Under Attack .
This op-ed piece is a fascinating combination of truth and fallacy. I want to break it down and will comment throughout the parts of the article that I’ve decided to share. One thing does stand out that I think is very valuable information. It takes a special kind of education to create a mindset for freedom. For those who have learned the warning signs of political oppression, we can see the escalating encroachment of the right kind of education and thus the resulting loss of freedoms.
Is democracy a natural state of mankind?
Maybe Alexander Hamilton, not Thomas Jefferson, was right after all.
Fayetteville, Ark. - Sixteen years ago in this newspaper, I tried to answer a perennial question about American politics. Does the United States look more like the country predicted by Thomas Jefferson, or by his rival, Alexander Hamilton?
Jefferson asserted that ordinary people with sufficient education and virtue can govern themselves wisely, that liberty is the natural desire of all mankind, and that the world’s monarchs and dictators will ultimately be overthrown. Hamilton, on the other hand, claimed Jefferson’s view was folly, based on wishful thinking, because human nature itself precludes the kind of wisdom necessary for self-government.
In short, Jefferson speaks to our hopes; Hamilton speaks to our fears.
Jefferson said that we need sufficient education to govern ourselves. I would add that it has to be the right kind of education. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:7 about the conditions that would prevail in the last days that the people would be: “Ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth”.
We can learn two things at least from the above verse. First, learning does not guarantee understanding. Also, truth does exist if we put in the effort to find it. As we have discussed before on the blog, secular education distorts truth.
Before the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, Hamilton observed the activities of a few state legislatures and concluded: “The inquiry [of legislators] constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people.” But he went a step further: It’s the people themselves, not the legislators, who are to blame. The people, he said, “murmur at taxes, clamor at their rulers” but then elect demagogues who appeal to our worst instincts.
… I think most of us have moved at least slightly toward Hamilton’s darker view of human nature. Can we still believe, for example, that Jeffersonian democracy will one day arrive and then survive throughout Africa and the Middle East? The painful failures of the Iraq war have sowed substantial doubts: “Looking back, I felt secure in the knowledge that all who yearn for freedom, once free, would use it well,” wrote Danielle Pletka in The New York Times recently. “I was wrong. There is no freedom gene….”
I disagree with this. I believe we do yearn for freedom. First and foremost, people seem to have a deep seated desire to follow Deity. If they do not formally choose a god, then they usually choose a substitute like science, secularism, or a method of trying to transcend the world. Those who fail to find something to hold to usually indulge in self-destructive habits.
After this need for Deity is filled, mankind then yearns for the freedom of self-expression. So if this is correct, why do so many cultures reject freedom? Two things easily come to mind. The first is fear and resulting apathy brought on by hopelessness. This can be seen in communist and socialist countries. The second is fanaticism stemming from the first desire to follow Deity as can be seen with Muslim extremism. The misconception that God would want to force us to dictatorial conformity shows a lack of understanding of Deity. The Founding Fathers were able through intensive study, to delineate God-given rights that produce a climate of freedom. They knew that personal development was one of the purposes for being in mortality.
We in the West take the Enlightenment for granted. But it took centuries of brave, stubborn people, beginning in the 16th century, to push back against the ignorance and superstition in which all mankind had lived, to bring forth in isolated centers of learning a world based on reason and logic.
Here is a thought experiment to put things in perspective. Imagine a map of the world in 1800. Color in all the countries that took part in or were directly influenced by the Enlightenment (let us say, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, the US, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries).
Now jump forward two centuries and color in all the countries with working democracies (as defined by the Economist Intelligence Unit). It is virtually the same map. Every one of those 22 nations (or their derivatives) today has a working democracy. And how many countries have a fully functional democracy but were not among, or did not spring from, those 22 countries? Just one – Japan.
What does this tell us about the Jefferson versus Hamilton question? In a Hamiltonian world, democracy will always be a precious commodity – sustained, and even desired, only by people whose cultural history includes an enlightened viewpoint, or something close to it. The Enlightenment was a kind of miracle, and not one we should take for granted.
Indeed, if Jefferson returned today, he would be shocked by the reemergence of self-styled Christians hacking away at the wall between church and state. Hamilton and Jefferson were both deeply affected by the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason, but Hamilton believed reason would always be under attack by demagogues who know hate and fear are stronger motivators than reason and rationality.
I strongly disagree with Jefferson being shocked about Christians hacking at the wall. Indeed, I am certain he would be shocked at the opposite; no prayer in schools, the attack of Christmas, the ten commandments deemed unfit for public consumption, abortion, the list goes on.
…Why do I take a darker view than I did 16 years ago? Today, we have a coarser public discourse and lower standards, and we have suffered the consequences of a political party that quite openly set about to divide Americans into hostile camps because it believed that strategy would give them a narrow electoral advantage. The result is an atmosphere in which it is almost impossible to have a mature, adult, logical national debate about important issues.
The above paragraph is one of my favorite parts of the article. I’ve said before and I’ll continue to say that history has shown that those civilizations that lose their manners, when politeness is not the norm, that culture is on the verge of chaos.
Maybe Hamilton was on to something. Is democracy a natural state of mankind? Is the survival of democracy assured even in the United States? It is a sign of our times that we cannot be sure the answer to these questions is “yes.”
The natural man is an enemy to God and unless we can put off the natural man and yield to our higher nature as a follower of God, we won’t gain the virtue necessary for self-government. We won’t yearn for freedom and the responsibilities that that entails. Unless we begin a vigorous dialogue of freedom, as did our forefathers, we will lose these hard-won liberties.
6 Comments so far...
Angela Rogin Says:
2 April 2008 at 10:19 am.
This was long and when I first glanced at it I didn’t know if I wanted to read it or not but when I did, it was an easy read and went fast. It was fascinating and I would recommend reading it.
I never knew that about the history behind countries with working democracies. I wasn’t sure about what I thought about people here saying Iraq wasn’t ready for a democracy yet. It didn’t make sense until I read this. Culture is deeply ingrained and new ideas take time to grow.
Benjamin Says:
2 April 2008 at 10:47 am.
Interesting point about the things that drive us. We do yearn for freedom like you said but even stronger in people is a desire to follow deity. For humanists that deity is ’self’. For Muslims their desire to follow deity can become so strong that it buries the natural instincts for freedom and they want to be told every move to make by their religious leaders. I know they aren’t all that way, especially the ones living in democratic countries but their culture in the Middle East with their laws based on the Sharia is definitely that way. So when things get out of balance like that, then the “freedom gene” is stifled.
Saddened Says:
2 April 2008 at 1:31 pm.
Learning sure does not necessarily bring understanding since most of the college professors are liberals. Big difference between knowledge and wisdom.
I found this fascinating.
Nalvy Says:
2 April 2008 at 2:19 pm.
Change does not happen like a lightening bolt. Change is more like a soft slow drizzle. It has taken a long time to get where we are and it will take and even longer time to change course from where we are headed (which I personally think is not the best place to go). For years rights have been taken away and oppression has been growing more and more. It is like that leak in a pipe that is not noticeable until it is to late and it takes a lot of hard work and money to fix.
No matter how much one learns about something there is still room for more knowledge. Change occurs with learning that is very true but change can not occur with out taking action upon what one has learned. If there is no will to act than no chanage will happen. Simple as that. Forcing something to change will only worsen the situation.
Do I make any sense?
Matt Says:
2 April 2008 at 2:56 pm.
Nalvy, makes good sense. That’s what we are all trying to do here. Learn more so we can make the right choices and share with those close to us what they need to know. It is great to see someone as young as you starting now to make a difference.
HerculesMulligan Says:
12 July 2008 at 8:51 pm.
I skimmed this post a while ago, but at the time I never had the time to respond.
I agree that we need to have adequate virtue and education for government — and that most definitely. However, I think Hamilton, and not Jefferson, was correct in asserting that virtue, and discovery and embrace of the truth, does not come easily or naturally. True, all men WANT freedom — Jefferson was right about that, and I think Hamilton recognized that too. However, that does not mean that all men, or even most men, are willing to pay the high price that comes with such a great reward. “To whom much is given, much will be required” Luke 12:48.
Of course, the price for freedom is greater than military service, or public service (although they are great services, and require great devotion). The price for freedom is the willingness to live a life of virtue, rather than licentiousness. The reason why we see the experiment of self-government failing around us, is because individuals and communities in our nation, are licentious in their morals and in their habits. People no longer exercise modesty and self-control regularly and as a majority. Rather, our whole society revolves around “what pleasure you can get now.” Hamilton recognized that it is the nature of man to be licentious, and therefore, that self-government woudl require a continual striving against the tide. He knew that Jefferson’s idea that all government and all societies would eventually become free was a daydream, because Hamilton was familiar with history and human nature.
While this is where I agree with the author of the quoted Times column, yet I disagree with him in saying that our freedoms are the result of Enlightenment philosophy. While most of the Enlightenment thinkers from which our Founders drew were (at the very least) respectful of the Scriptures and of Christianity, there were many other thinkers who were hostile to Christianity, and who had a very optimistic view of human nature. Jefferson was influenced by these thinkers, and that is why his view of human nature was more utopian. Hamilton’s view was based upon history, upon the Scriptures (which make it clear that man has a licentious fallen nature), and upon his own observation of human behavior. The quotation below is an enlightening recount of a conversation that Chancellor James Kent had with Alexander Hamilton, at Hamilton’s home The Grange, in 1804. Kent wrote:
“He [Hamilton] was satisfied, from profound reflection and from the uniform language of history, that all plans of government founded on any new and extraordinary reform in the morals of mankind were plainly Utopian. The voice of history, the language of Scripture, the study of the nature and character of man, all taught us that mankind were exceedingly prone to error; that they were liable to be duped by flattery, to be seduced by artful, designing men, to be inflamed by jealousies and bad passions … This I know from repeated conversations with him to have been one great ground of uneasiness and apprehension with him as to our future destiny.”
~Memoirs of James Kent, by William Kent; page 330
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