# The Trouble with Democracy



## JM (Aug 11, 2009)

Wow, so far so good. 
Amazon.com: The Trouble with Democracy: A Citizen Speaks Out (9780978440237): William D. Gairdner: Books
A requirement of virtue is the willingness of the people to both devote themselves to and sacrifice their own private interests, if necessary even their lives, for the noble and difficult and very public ideals that energize their civilization. When all is said and done, the presence of such a shared transcendent ideals is the surest, maybe the only mark that a true civilization is present. And this leads me early in the book to conclusion that will shock any modern liberal, but one that I believe is the core conundrum of modernity – namely, that there can be no moral framework, and therefore no true community, without a judicious public intolerance. In other words, there can be no public sense of virtue without a public sense of vice. In the end, what marks any civilization is a conscious and clear set of widely accepted “shalls” and shall nots” that constitute an ideal way of life. A folk vision of the good. Without this, a civilization soon deforms and despiritualizes; it ceases being a home and becomes a motel to the extent that people check out of any deep concern for the whole. I think we have a least one foot out the door.​
And latter:

There is just no escaping the uncomfortable fact – the first paradox – that ancient democracy, what we think of today as a cherished philosophy defending individual freedom, was in fact something else. It was a slaveholding, class-based oligarchy that specialized in sophisticated legal and constitutional methods for depriving large groups of human beings – slaves, women, the foreign-born, the poorly born – of what we today would describe as their most basic “democratic” freedoms and rights. ​


----------



## Brian Bosse (Aug 11, 2009)

If some kind of humanistic freedom is the guiding principle or ideal, then the logical outcome is the very undermining of a “conscious and clear set of widely accepted ‘shalls’ and ‘shall nots.’” I am not nearly as enamored with democracy as C.S. Lewis and others were. Any government not founded upon immutable absolutes cannot stand. (Yes, I know ‘immutable absolute’ is redundant.) At the core, the motto of the human race is “You’re not the boss of me,” which I believe is the assumed motto that underlies the founding of the United States (“Don’t Tread on Me”). I believe Americas’ best days are behind her. I thank God my true citizenship is elsewhere. 

Brian


----------



## Hamalas (Aug 12, 2009)

Brian Bosse said:


> If some kind of humanistic freedom is the guiding principle or ideal, then the logical outcome is the very undermining of a “conscious and clear set of widely accepted ‘shalls’ and ‘shall nots.’” I am not nearly as enamored with democracy as C.S. Lewis and others were. Any government not founded upon immutable absolutes cannot stand. (Yes, I know ‘immutable absolute’ is redundant.) At the core, the motto of the human race is “You’re not the boss of me,” which I believe is the assumed motto that underlies the founding of the United States (“Don’t Tread on Me”). I believe Americas’ best days are behind her. I thank God my true citizenship is elsewhere.
> 
> Brian



So I'm curious, what exactly makes you pick C.S. Lewis to mention here?


----------



## Archlute (Aug 12, 2009)

Brian Bosse said:


> I believe Americas’ best days are behind her. I thank God my true citizenship is elsewhere.



Oh. For a second there I thought that you must have made that last statement as a resident of Texas.


----------



## py3ak (Aug 12, 2009)

Brian Bosse said:


> If some kind of humanistic freedom is the guiding principle or ideal, then the logical outcome is the very undermining of a “conscious and clear set of widely accepted ‘shalls’ and ‘shall nots.’” I am not nearly as enamored with democracy as C.S. Lewis and others were. Any government not founded upon immutable absolutes cannot stand. (Yes, I know ‘immutable absolute’ is redundant.) At the core, the motto of the human race is “You’re not the boss of me,” which I believe is the assumed motto that underlies the founding of the United States (“Don’t Tread on Me”). I believe Americas’ best days are behind her. I thank God my true citizenship is elsewhere.
> 
> Brian



Enamoured does seem a bit strong for a man who held that if democracy was extended beyond the political realm it was poison, and who viewed it not as intrinsically desirable but as a form of diluting power so no one evil person could have more than a moderate amount.


----------



## Brian Bosse (Aug 12, 2009)

Hello Gents,



> For a second there I thought that you must have made that last statement as a resident of Texas.



It's the Republic of Texas, and don't forget it! 



> Enamoured does seem a bit strong for a man who held that if democracy was extended beyond the political realm it was poison, and who viewed it not as intrinsically desirable but as a form of diluting power so no one evil person could have more than a moderate amount.



I humbly retract the use of the word 'enamoured'. 

Brian


----------



## JM (Aug 12, 2009)

The other day I was unpacking books (I work in a library  ) and found the following title.

Amazon.com: The Book of Absolutes: A Critique of Relativism and a Defence of Universals (9780773536197): William D. Gairdner: Books


----------

