2000 years ago, the great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, did not give democracy a high grade to survive over the long term where implemented because democracy, they projected, did not have the capacity to mature. Up until the mid-1900s democracy was not possible in most of the world as monarchs and dictators were pretty much in charge most everywhere, but then for the first time in written history during the last half of the 1900s, democracy finally started to take hold in many parts of the world, and the world today looks to America for what democracy and freedom really means and delivers.
Today, with Americans so divided, fractious, breaking into warring pieces and hostile toward one another in their public discourse through politics and social media that we should all be reminded of what Plato and Aristotle predicted about democracy being unable to mature. Plato and Aristotle wrote 2000 years ago, all discussion and discourse, to mature, should be respectful of differing opinions and tempered with kindness toward one another no matter what your views are; and in a democracy the final word on the issue is through the vote.
The U.S. constitution, written by the framers of it only around 240 years ago, has the fundamentals and structure for a mature democracy but the ‘intent’ of the constitution’s words is the hardest part to determine what the framers meant who wrote what they handed down to us around 240 years ago.
What is really interesting is what the great minds were discussing 2000 years ago that we have only had in place a couple hundred years now, and before this we were basically ruled by a ruling class instead of ruling. In the past 100 years or so we have just walked out of the woods from behind a plow, knuckles essentially still dragging the ground and now that we are all connected through technology, as a society we are really nothing more than riding on the backs of the hard work and success of our ancestors and others, like Gates, Jobs and many others, and now all of sudden with all the interconnectedness most of us all go around thinking we are all-knowing, full of ourselves, convincing ourselves of that which is questionable; and now with the USA being the only truly free, taxed-less country on earth, as a democratic society too many of us have turned hostile and disrespectful of others’ views which brings us back full circle to the question posed 2000 years ago…..does democracy have the capability to mature to survive?
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: ANONYMOUS INDEPENDENT THINKER 5/1/19