western saying: terrorism is the main threat for all western democracies Might the egoist 'rational violence' in western democracy be unacceptable ??

Definition / Western Democracy exposed as Conflict Model / Meaning WE use 'rational' violence for 'The Greater Good'. Aristotle: WE make war that WE may live in peace

Capitalism = Herds of Competing Individuals; Communism = Herds of Puppets on a String ;

'Power' is the IDEA: "growth works" (indeed, until the finishing 'exploded tyre' = 'recession')

Common Sense = Herds as Families

Capitalist/Communist Democracy is the IDEA Law is Reason free from Passion (Law and Order, Rule of Words)

Treating social oceans (cultures) as as consisting of countless Descartian drops of water (votes)
Capitalism of The Votes
'Rational' Myth: Until today, no other form of government has been invented that could regulate public affairs better than democracy
'Rational' Myth-making : Calling people terrorists who out of UTTER frustration use violence, defending War on Terrorism as War for Peace.

Fairytales

21st Century Fairytales = Dictatorship of 'The Individual' or 'The Party' (both Extremes of Western Democracy)

Fairytale World 1

The country United Prejudices

in The New World.

Many millions of 'individuals' addicted to 'the united prejudices' . Who express their conflict-worship in 'voting' for an almighty emperor ('President') from the conflict party of the temporarily dominant prejudices
The Kingdom of Heaven Killer Angels then unite behind their 'President' in an Empirial War war on terrorism against the Poor Devils in the Axis of Evil.

Fairytale World 2

The countrywide sect CP of C.

in The Old World.

Billions of inhabitants, who learned to behave like friendly zombies. And express being obedient zombie in 'voting' for The Communist Party. The CP Hammers (with cap) then unite behind 'The Party' in unscrupulous re-education of all non CP members.

Welcome scenario: Back to the common sense 'jungle' and HOWLING retreat of Human Stock Exchange Hyenas (Western Colonization Units). If 'stocks' go up, environment bleeds. It is positive for poor people anywhere if stocks go down worldwide, then evolution is rebalancing resources. 1 Example: lack of leadership (hiding behind 'democracy') is seen in tolerating the fascist regimes of Sudan and Zimbabwe. This time by Arab League, South African government, Communist Government of China, Communist Government of Russia. Even assisting fascists by selling weapons. Didn't learn ANYTHING from WWII.

Intro 2

What is democracy in a useful variant : My own version of the Democratic Ideals of all ages.

1. Everybody Equal RESPECT 2. Respectful leadership 3. Having Fun TOGETHER Example: Chinese and Tibetans respect each other; Communist leaders respect a Dalai Lama; Chinese and Tibetans have fun together.

Already Plato said: The fittest politician in a democracy must be a beast who knows how to please sizable crowds. Think of the actor and very popular US president Ronald Reagan, and the mess that he made in South America, Africa, Middle East and Asia. Reagan was a skilfull beast in manipulating 'the sheep', allways 'friendly' showing his teeth (laughing?) on photo's..

There are enough alternatives for 1 man 1 vote democracy. Leaders weighing the opinions of their followers show wise behavior, when this results in leaders taking independent DECISIONS. Equal Rule by the Many, is weighing an individual-liberty freedom of speech 'motive' equal to common sense intuition. 'The Many' are murderous sheep.
Anyway LEADERship is taking responsibility, and NOT hiding behind 'the votes' (of 'the sheep').

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How did this myth get accepted? In ancient Greece 'democracy' meant the rule by the 'freemen'. Contrary to what is supposed in Western Society nowadays, the form of government in and some other ancient Greek city states was not called 'democracy'.

This system, ruled by freemen, was generally called a 'polity'. Polity was a mixture of democracy (rule by all freemen) and rule by the elite. Writers from Greek elite did not regard genuine democracy as being in any way positive

Polity transliterated as Politeía or Políteuma) is a general term that refers to political organization of a group. It is often used to describe a loosely organized society such as a tribe or community, but can mean any political group including a government or empire, corporation or academy. It was also used in ecclesiastical polity: meaning 'church' or 'government'.

Polity was decribed as rule by the many, neither wealthy nor poor (but all of them 'freemen'), in the interests of the whole community (not only 'freemen'). A form of government where 'the talented' with open debate guide 'the gang-leaders'.
Certainly not: Rule by The People (stampede)

Power is like in ancient armies still based on having more strength based on more zombies or votes, the system and/or decision prescribes some kind of dominance. Feodal cultures already used to have a much better working method, based on wisdom and respect. And it was proven through the ages as reliable, by people like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Powerfields like cultures move to where they are taken by the relative ethics ('voltage' of a cultural powerfield, within the field the ethics is felt as absolute). To express in a voting process once more power as voltage reinforces only the already existing movement. So '1 man 1 vote' is a voting system that floats 'blown by the wind', and it is based on compromise instead of real leadership. Such a rigid system to allow change, is like trying to move an iceberg. It needs a shock similar to the one that Jesus gave the Roman Empire. Jesus and Buddha showed that a notion 'power' just like 'love' in essence is relative, all you need is only a firm believe in it to have it. Warm grateful feelings are a natural result of through respect acquired leadership.

The famous philosopher Plato for instance, after experiencing the bad side of democracy, probably wrote part 8 of The Republic, amongst others a criticism of the system of '1 man 1 vote'. His teacher the equally famous freethinker Socrates was executed by having to drink poison (the ancient Greek variant of the electric chair), as being an enemy of democracy. A splendid way to get rid of annoying critics.

This happened after a campaign of rumors that could be used as an example for the present tabloids. Socrates was NOT against democracy and was NOT killed for that. On the contrary he was killed for NOT being conservative, teaching the sons of the leading families to doubt the official religion and the official political institutions.
Because Socrates realized that you have to point at weak spots before they are discovered by an enemy.

weak side

The 'stubbornness' of Socrates made sense. All through history kingdoms and empires were sold for whatever was considered valuable. So the pilar egoism of capitalism is a dangerous trait, and however disguised easily to recognize and to exploit. Egoism should be 'erased' by preferring individual death (being a hero) above collective death (being victim: cultural extinction). That's not unique. Red Indians forced the American whites to buy negro's by refusing slavery. The very honorable ultimate Buddhist defense in Japan was "Kamikaze". Allowing its members to prefer slavery above individual death is a weak point of rational culture. Accepting compromises is SIMILAR.

Plato was a republican but certainly NOT anti democracy, only saw '1 man 1 vote' as a bad point. He compared a theoretical form of democracy with anarchy (not in word, but in an analogy). Not really surprising if you read how I picture the '1 man 1 vote' element of democracy. In case of equal weight after weighing professors and apes I ask what this means. It says nothing about the usage of their brains.

Some say Plato preferred nobility (aristocracy = followers of Aristotle = believing in supremacy) , being himself of a noble family. But this 'noble' claims leadership needs capable men and in stead of noble men. And in that time like often today capable meant often from 'noble' family. I.e. being familiar not only with history but with taking responsibility. Democratic leadership doesn't differ from common leadership.

Anyway, let's not judge Plato according to present day democratic principles, and instead only make use of 21^first-century common sense.

Trying to prevent painful mistakes such as the execution of Socrates led to the introduction of 'freedom of speech' (1776 in the US in Virginia, 1789 in Europe in France). The ancients Greek surely didn't possess such a rule, but this at first sight sympathetic modern invention was NOT MORE than just a clever way to make persons dependent of judges and juries appointed and paid by governments. Many of them are honest, but the principle is wrong essentially. The inventors were clearly honest, but transplanted a healthy heart in an already infected body.

Such judges and juries recently in 2001 experienced enormous social pressure as a consequence of the for death fearing Western eyes SHOCKING attack on the Twin Towers to condemn any suspicious Arab.

The U.S. government and its allies declared war to the Arabian sjeikh Bin Laden. Sure this person is seen in rational terms a terrorist and an Arabian, but in common sense terms a decent guy. And there was NO OPEN EVIDENCE connecting him to the crime. So the war to restore image took place under the veil of an impossible war on terrorism. The US rule is in this aspect a rule of terror and is still quite alive (in many ways this young culture is refreshing though).

Many analyses of Greek democracy go meticulously into detail. They only show that their authors are perfect scholars, but lack a helicopter-view. Of course as we all know Athenian democracy was a representative democracy in a shape quite different from modern democracy. In Spartan culture for instance, though also defending slavery, women had much more rights. Anyway theoretical democracy is very different from practice

Ancient Greek governments misused the '1 man 1 vote' part of democracy to suppress the masses without killing and torturing, by giving them the idea that they themselves choose governments. A splendid way to express power, but obviously it's NOT suited to picture equality.

In practice '1 man 1 vote' was only used when the predicted result was favorable. The old leading circles kept power and the people got the illusion to share in it. In really important cases usually most trust was still given to the advice of specialists.

The ancient Greeks were not really sweeties and for them any life had little worth. In this attitude they equaled Westeuropean rulers in the early Middle Ages. The cheep way of silencing the masses by the ancient Greek appealed to most of the leaders in medieval Western Europe. The reason is straightforward: with the nickname Charles the Weak you too want to govern without worries and without spending much money on campaigns. So this part of the world in the spotlight acquired the habit to suppress the intuition that someone like Charles the Weak was not fit for leading jobs. Instead just like the ancient democratic Greeks one respected the votes.

Everybody knows how frustrating it can be to be forced to respect ignorant people, in some way it doesn't seem righteous. That an important part of people lost faith in this shape of democracy, can be seen by the rapidly lessening at present of the percentage of voters.

Push F5 to make this critic shake his head

As everybody knows in simple arithmetic any gorilla and any professor are both counted as only one. In the present shape of democracy each has 1 vote. Respecting the opinions of each doesn't involve that AS A HUMAN you consider both equally important. In expressing power FOR HUMANS the number of puppets for thousands of years used to be a good measure, BUT electional quality asks for different concepts.

Common sense discovers a difference, because you want to elect the most suited person. That's why gorillas don't appeal long-lasting as lecturers (I trust). I'll explain this using a picture. Ask yourself what is a justifiable conclusion when a gorilla and a professor have the same weight.
Weight gives some clue about the nutritious value of a fruit, animal or lecturer, but nothing about the (relative) taste.

On screen on television you see much more professors than gorillas. A gorilla on screen is often used as a kind of King Kong. What makes professors valuable for humans is that they puzzle about all kind of things. But weight is not the way to measure that property. Female gorillas luckily still prefer male gorilla partners. Professors act in another Zoo.

The Pope and several local royal families represented in early Western Europe Christianity in its most common appearance. This hierarchical way of thinking merged wonderfully with the dubious '1 man 1 vote' system of Greek democracy.

So Western Europe became the center of democracy as basic system of government.
The dominant Catholic Church of Rome accepted democracy as a way to control power and this way prevented discussion about it that could have lead to a schism in the church. As such democracy became a paradigm shift that influenced all aspects of life in the Western world and through export in many other countries.

Mainly the purpose of this article is to show that this forced choice for the present shape of democracy leads to strange brain gymnastics.

Elsewhere one considers some people more suited than others, and those people are given the lead. That's in itself far from being undemocratic, but only shows that here experience gets a strong say. You can't deny that this habit makes sense, because leaders don't grow at trees.

Big differences in suitability were accepted even in Western Europe. Intelligence and suitability were for Ages points of discussion. Everybody agrees that there are big differences. It's odd that modern justice accepts the view of specialists, but that in elections any nitwit has a vote equal to a professor.

It is common knowledge that Western European leaders for a long time used the stakes as a cheap and easy way to get rid of opponents. That immediately stopped the long lasting and difficult to cheat conviction that such rivals were a better choice than they were themselves. Voting about the matter in fact had no real use, but it was easy to influence. This proved Democracy good as a way to justify the torturing of people before burning them in a sauce of honesty.

The total of rules that constituted democracy appealed to most rulers in the early Middle Ages as a suitable way to cheat the masses.

The notion of respect plays an important role. Many non-Christians consider this trait absent in rational Christianity. Be aware, that's not the same as saying that Christians can't show respect, only assuming that this trait is not caused by their being-Christian

Rule of the Numbers

I proved to be able to survive easily in a world full of economic rules. But I refuse the dominance of a course that is mainly based on the power of numbers and on influencing.

The English word businesslike shows exactly the dominant attitude in present western societies. Many people act like sharks looking for business, and mainly rely on their rational side.
If some being arouses the intuition 'shark' (body ethics), then be sure that in some way there is danger. The technological tool 'abstract thinking' CAN be a help in valuing moods, but as often by comparing apples with pears creates confusion. Bodies don't lie.

The system of voting is not even part of US-law, and as far as I know not of any democracy. This explains why it never was discussed. It should be part of laws because it is decisive. Let's try to introduce something better. That's NOT really difficult, only never attempted.

In Western Democracies the system counts the number of votes (rule of the masses, law and order, counting the anti-bodies of change). Subcultures easily accept the dreams of some kind of dictatorship. In Asian societies 'families' lead by anonymous leaders fight other 'families'. Fighting of subcultures easily results in some kind of autoritairianism. Evolution combines both methods in common sense, and optimizes following dynamic 'wisdom' within some total society. Balancing 'power' (tradition, but also conservatism) talents and 'creativity'. Resulting in valueing 'wisdom' (tradition combined with creativity). 1 Example: the 1 man-1 vote votes might result in sub-society-1 60% versus subsociety-2 40%. Fighting families might en up in a draw, or civil war. Measuring accumulated wisdom might suddenly feed the insight that subsociety-1 risks ending up fighting subsociety-2 because of conservatism, and that in terms of wisdom the balance of the votes is 10%-90%. Subsociety-2 is small but wise, and brings a leader (prophet) that is acceptable for both societies.

(scale from 1 till 3)
Experience can be introduced as follows: In a certain range of ages consider voting experience (number of taking part in elections). I propose to give voters extra voting power (from 0 to 1) relating to their voting experience.

Introduction of   social wisdom: At every election let voters forecast which party will win. If after 5 or more elections this number is equal or higher than 5 than this is a reasonably good measure of political insight. It takes taking part in at least 5 elections before you can get the maximum bonus. I propose to give voters extra voting power (from 0 to 1) relating to their political insight.

In the system that I propose (not more than just a proposal) a vote can range from 1 to 3 (the basic right is always 1). Young people with little political insight have a voteright = 1. More experienced voters with good political insight can reach up to a voteright = 3. Experienced voters with little political insight will have a voteright that is around 2. Anyway it makes elections not less fair and far less predictable and more difficult to influence. To get a high voteright someone needs to vote and someone who rarely votes has a voteright = 1.

At present political parties spend most of their time and money trying to influence the group with little voting experience and little political insight. That would be the group of people with a voteright between 1 and 1.5. That will remain an important group anyway but not able anymore to decide elections.

Any democracy forbids discrimination (stands for equality) and promises specific equal rights. One of such rights is freedom of speech. The freedom to communicate openly is ridiculous, more sense makes 'freedom of thought. What if a member of such a democracy discriminates, in using his or her freedom of speech?

It's not that difficult. This member uses a lower rule to express freedom of speech and violates the basic right equality. Even stronger: any democracy will defend its basic rights and take offensive action in case of violation.

Problems arise when freedom of speech is not only a specific right but is particularly mentioned as basic one, like in the US in the Bill of Rights. In that case anybody can freely say horrible things and invite followers to act like it, without fear for prosecution. Fertile ground for all kind of weird sects. First one is invited to say wrong things, but as soon as action follows words this ends in punishment.

A denial of the fact that an idea exists, or that brains need morals. This line of thought favors a rational world dominated by computers.

Let's see it we can improve democracy without destroying it.

This improved democracy should:

All these mentioned items are part of really stopping discrimination:

If you want to diminish inequality than don't distinguish groups when you talk about privileges. I.e. consider only 1 society in which apart from experience everybody has the same rights. That stops nationalism at the same time.

That includes also making one system of health care. To improve general life expectancy stop distinguishing people on anything else than proven experience.

In the end wise decisions are needed about directions of research. Use common sense in stead of the blind power of 1 man 1 vote. Common sense is a good way to get rid of most rules too.

It is a lot cheaper to acknowledge people in their own surroundings than inventing laws to prevent fugitives in 'rich' countries.

Within the present twosided system the world population is split in (1) toys and (2) players. It's costly for the powerful players to share their wealth with 'the toys'. To distinguish only players in the end is a cheap solution, but includes leaving the conservative system of '1 man 1 vote'.

I trade the present two-way system for a new one that is one-way and in which is only room for experience. So the power is NOT for the rich, the noble or the white, BUT for those who translated experience into wisdom.

In practice that would mean bringing all countries in one hierarchy. The United Nations assembly proved that this is a tough job that takes many years.

Very few present world leaders would be prominent people too in the new system.

It safely means staying within democracy, but within this system departing from the practice of 1 man 1 vote. That system is considered normal, but forces your brains into peculiar ways of thinking.

Luckily democracy in politics shows that many democratic leaders are wise men and women. That is truer though in Europe than in the States, not because of individuals but because of differences in law. The United States is in many ways the New World, but in democracy it took a dangerous turn.

Don't get me wrong. Out of experience I believe in the necessity of rules. Lots of people need rules based on the chosen basic ones, to stay within the margins of society.
And related to that: no doubt the are individual differences in levels of general intelligence (though for sure smaller than in only IQ). I think those differences need a 'better' translation into shapes of power. It's ridiculous that a high IQ garantees a high salary. Small differences might be necessary, but there are other and equally satisfying reward systems.

A large quantity of rules indicates that the basic set of rules doesn't fit anymore, and obeying them has become complex. Time for cultural change. Then afterward for say 1000 years the new rules might be stable

I wouldn't have written this article without a strong conviction of possible improvement in the present shape of democracy. I still think the course will change.

.

Training of Use of Emotion

1) Teaching 'democracy' through understanding is swindling creativity. In a family every member contributes according to talents.

Students (like all young animals) look at examples how to become happy as part of the family (learning by doing)
Students need different examples to steer reactions without prejudice with emotion, instead of relying on the myth 'understanding'


2) Parents and teachers are examples

A student strike is practicing of social behavior, by stretching social rules
Parents and teachers giving different examples is fine. Life is a social lab.




If you arrived directly on this site, then have a look at original thoughts of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein about democratic values.

I used referential internet articles only to check my points of view, never to copy pieces of it. Anyway I hate articles with miles of references. In case you have a question just send me an e-mail .

This paper I produced using the basics in: Visionary Philosopher, applying the method described in Fractal Philosophy

© Henk Tuten, June 2002 ( ), the Netherlands

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