Wednesday, August 31, 2011
"Democracy leads to Despotism" -Plato
Before one dissects such a statement and pulls every possible reference to cloud the original point, the value must be recognized. Although I disagree with that statement in relation to my time, it is irrational to prove fault through an example in the modern age. The basic structure and view of a government at that time was vastly different to what we can relate to. During that era, it is clear that if one individual were to gain control of such power through the respect of the population, despotism was generally the norm. The transformation of a democracy to a despotism requires an abundant amount of corruption and lack of sufficient judgement to allow one to rule without the ability to impeach. As a species we have evolved in logistics through thousands of years of development; the citizens that emerge in modern era have a better understanding of the democratic structure, and have more power as a group that has sufficient force to regulate what is efficient. The most recent example of the "power of the people" would relate to the "president" Moammar Gadhafi. Regardless of his specific title, he was the epitome of what despotism represents; one man rule, with a lack of power distributed to the people. However, the lack of power that was presented the citizens of Libya only forced each individual to radiate will and strength for what is right, against all opposition. As a result, the once tyrant reign of a despot came to a dramatic end as the democracy that once instated such a leader, over through and expressed the power of a democracy, and the voice of the people. To illustrate the power of the individual, Gandhi said that, "you can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind." With the will of a population, change is imminent.
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I like the first point you make about how applicable Plato's statement is to his own time versus our modern era. That's a view that I had't even considered and I agree that the will of the people, something that can and has obviously strengthened over time as evident in your example of Libya, does power change even in the presence of despotism.
ReplyDeleteThe Gadhafi conflict shows that democracy leads to despotism and back again with the help of other democracy
ReplyDeleteAgain, I agree with the idea that Plato's statement was said in a time when democracies were far different. Using Gadhafi and the situation in Libya as an example was well executed, because it shows that the idealism of democracy is not well executed in corrupt governments.
ReplyDeleteAfter consulting with Jas's approach, I would disagree that "the Gadahafi conflict shows that democracy leads to despotism..." As Jas had said in his post, despotism could be derived from democracy only "if the democracy were a poorly run operation." In that case, it couldn't be considered a democracy in the first place. Yes, the classification is there, but does the original government structure have the substance of a fully functional democracy, to the finest detail? "Building a democratic nation is no easy task and it is assumed that a finely tuned democracy has surely backed itself up with plans to keep equality the main focus." -Jas Davis
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