About our origins…
Humans have gone through innumerable stages throughout existence. Information about our origins is distorted and inaccurate even today. It’s of course difficult to determine in an objective and empirical way the advance or regression of civilisation in a relatively short time frame, but it’s a certain and irrefutable fact that we’ve notably amplified our knowledge throughout history. This must be seen as something positive given that it allows us to cope better with our hostile environment and also with ourselves.
We don’t know if we took our first steps alone, in any case, if we did and had continued to do so, norms and values would be meaningless. Man, to make life easier and to increase chances of survival, decided to set out in group, in society. Values, norms and organisational needs become essential in order to live in society in peace and harmony.
Today, without an omnipotent, omnipresent God that reveals himself inequivocally to each and every conscient being present and future indicating the “true and universal” values that we should submit ourselves to with logic, reason, knowledge and aquired experiences, we’re the only ones responsable for establishing what’s right and wrong in this continual process throughout our existence. In any case, it remains to be seen whether these “universal and true” values will come to exist, as all existence involves limitation within space-time which makes it’s universality impossible.
This is why I believe that those who criticise in a destructive way old values, norms and forms of organisation of State or government are criticising themselves too. In other words, they criticise being human and it’s innate way of learning through trial and error and forget that it will be OUR mistakes that help generations to come in the advance of civilisation. Throughout history there have been all-powerful tribal leaders, emperors, kings and “demi-gods” that have taken charge of the future of their civilisations, mostly with success (although this is subject to interpretation). Everything has an explanation, a reason, and if we take into account all the circumstances relative to different eras, we will be able to understand and respect them but also improve on them.
Thus yesterday is different from today and today is different from tomorrow. During the last thousand years the world population has grown from 310 million to more than 7000 million, according to statistics from the United Nations. The current degree of knowledge is thousands of times better and, furthermore, is shared by a much higher percentage of the population, especially in developed countries. In these countries it’s now not necessary or useful to have a “supreme leader” or “advisor” that watches over us for our best interests, guiding us down the path of life and wisdom. We’ve become adults and now we demand what we peviously renounced in order to increase our chances of survival, our freedom. Freedom to live and to die, to believe and choose, to think and write, to employ and fire…
About democracy…
It’s greatest virtue and it the same time it’s greatest flaw is “the majority rule”. It’s a virtue in the sense that it will always be preferable to carry out actions chosen by the majority than those chosen by the minority, even if the ideas of the majority are very misguided. However it’s a flaw in the sense that it doesn’t resolve the root of the problem. It’s the imposition of the wishes of some (the majority) against those of others (the minority).
Despite this, developed societies consider it the political system that best respects the rights and freedom of the people as public debate is possible In theory, power resides with the people, who choose a series of representatives for their government over practical issues. It’s based on the separation of the three powers as proposed by French revolutionaries, executive, legislative and judicial. All citizens (except one in the case of Spain) are considered equal before the law and to not bore you any further, I’ll leave the theory here.-
Given that the virtues in theory are so well known in current democratic societies, in the following part of my essay I will highlight some of the defects that can be identified in practice.
To be continued…
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