From the Left
By Brendan LeRoy
Since the foundation of the American republic, the theory of a government by the people has permeated governments around the globe. The supremacy of the democratic system and its successes in western society has promoted the desire of the West to push the system on all other nations and punish countries that do not oblige.
Democracies are systems of government that assume the people have the proper capacity to make their own decisions. Up until the last couple centuries, humans have never been able to fully govern themselves and collectively sustain a society. It has been the obligation of a strong executive central leadership to direct society. The majority of people are not capable of making their own decisions, and a pure democracy goes against human nature. Democracy has corrupted a lineage of strong central leadership that has existed for tens of thousands of years. Only in very recent history has this social organization been disrupted to form a false and disordered perception of self-empowerment.
When every person believes they are entitled to a position of power, it devalues the strength of the government organization. However, modern governments are not pure democracies, but rather various forms of representative republics. This system remains innately flawed, as leaders simply pander to citizens to inherit power. Voters are generally uninformed on issues and vote based on a few issues of which the voter is knowledgeable. Candidates have an incentive to campaign based on social issues rather than economic issues, despite social issues playing little role in daily life. Democracy has evolved into a system of tremendous stability that allows for a greater number of people to obtain power. Leaders have happily conformed to the democratic system at the cost of being corrupted to benefit political leaders rather than the whole of society.
Regardless of the system of government, the vast majority of the population will not object, whether they are free or not. Democracy legitimizes the innate selfish desires of a person. The insatiable desire for freedom leads to a rejection of the true importance of a human life. Personal freedom is only desired because of our tendency towards disordered priorities as we crave money and physical pleasure over truth, harmony and the good of all society.
Not all politicians have a tendency towards a corrupted desire for power, but there is no way to truly distinguish. Politicians subject to the democratic system become professional theatrical liars. The system does not elect the best and the brightest minds to run the nation; it elects the most attractive, the best orators, the most extroverted, the richest and the most successful.
Then there are nations that have avoided the Western decree of democracy. The perception that China remains communist is a misconception. The country has moved towards the development of a meritocratic system, which has expanded the economic successes of the country much faster than is possible in democracies. Meritocracies are systems of government where the leaders define merit, value and virtue. The aim of the government is to assign leadership positions to the brightest minds with above average ability to make morally informed decisions and political judgments. China’s leaders are not subject to, nor care about, the people’s demands. Without any need to pander to citizens, their sole focus is on the betterment of all Chinese people, not the individual.
Democracy is not morally superior, nor is it a synonym for legitimacy. If democracy is not undeniable truth, then democratic nations cannot criticize societies that do not conform. Developing nations are being cornered into adapting democracy before they are ready for democratic integration. Authoritarian leaderships, whether under dictators such as Stalin, Mao or Hussein, have expanded economies at rates impossible in a democratic nation. At the cost of freedom, the betterment of a society as a whole is achievable. Forcing developing nations to adhere to a democracy when their economies could develop faster under a totalitarian regime is not morally acceptable.
A question remains: Why do we like democracy so much? Democracy has not benefited you. Your values and your vote have never made an impact. You are a product of a dictatorship of social science. You are only an addition to the demographic you represent. Your age group, your race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religious affiliation matter, but you do not matter. Whether 20 percent or 80 percent of voters t`urn out on Nov. 4, the results of the election will not vary significantly. We will continue to support the ever expanding oligarchy disguised as a republic, protect the rich from wealth distribution, reject social services that would benefit the poor and in the process we will feel empowered and free.
The consequence of our selfish desires is the death of internal unity. There is no point in fighting the system; we are too engulfed into a sea of technology, materialism and unnecessary information, which distort the connection between truth and lies.
The human spirit has already been corrupted.
Brendan LeRoy is a junior majoring in linguistics.