Does Democracy ever not degenerate from its conservative morality?
- Thread starter desi
- Start date
More like - more and more laws until you need a permit to take a shit in your own house. That's my personal limit; when I start whacking heads of state.
is that so? :bugeye: Because it seems to me it reflect the will of the selected majority...
Or, looked at another way, given the chance people gradually shake free of the assholes who like to run other people's lives, until the fates arrange some kind of disaster (or a series of them) that the assholes can use to grab power again.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, and sometimes people get behind on their bills - and the freedom is repossessed.
Or another angle: in a democracy people usually become more prosperous, and rich people often have looser morals than people who can't afford what they want to do. In monarchies the King and the Nobles often exhibit "loose morals", because they can. In a democracy everyone is a little bit of a King of their own life, and in the common prosperity of the democratically governed they tend to behave as prosperous royalty always has.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Countries that had kings, military junta leaders, dicatators, and committees in charge had loose morals. People were killed for saying the wrong thing. People disappeared at night. Attacks on minorities and homosexuals were often approved and encouraged or performed by the government. Genocide has been one of the loose moral projects of non-democracies. Suppression of sexual expression and the oppression of women are a couple of loose morals many non-democracies have performed.
Stealing from the poor. Perpetrating wars that primarily hurt the lower classes. Crushing taxation. Classism.
I mean one can go on and on about the loose morals of non-democracies.
Your OP implies that once democracy comes into action some early more moral period starts a decline.
This is so ignorant of history that I have to restrain myself to be polite.
desi,
Excellent point, desi. In any democratic state, the people within stride gleefully toward constant liberalization; that is, the path leading to more "freedom" is always sought. Of course, the problem with "freedom" (in this case, the polarization between the public and the standards of conservative morality) is that there is such a thing as too much of it. To put it simply, the majority of the public tend to blindly support hazardous causes, both toward themselves and the speechless minority. Ultimately, when a true democratic system is established, the majority of the public will undertake formidable strides in directions never trodden before. By this, of course, I mean new lifestyles will be introduced, advertised, and supported, until such unprecedented concepts become commonplace, replacing the so-called "strict" morals which, in a way, stifled the public. Of course, the public must be stifled to a certain degree in order for society to sustain itself; the erosion of understood morality and widespread traditional values leaves in its wake anarchy and despair.
Look at the past half-dozen decades, if you will: alongside legitimate protests such as racial equality came bizarre notions such as "feminism", "gay/lesbian rights", "abortion rights", etc. To elaborate on one of many issues, the concept of feminism destroys necessary gender roles, which is a direct byproduct of conservative values. Feminism woefully equates the two genders, and erases the traditional fabric of a household - breadwinners as men, child bearers as women. Going back to your initial point, desi: democracy does, in fact, render conservative values of morality and tradition inert. In its place, democracy inserts highly transparent, volatile concepts of liberalism, and undermines age-old concepts of authority and discipline to the point of extinction. When loose standards of morality usurp conservative morality's grip on the public, it is only a matter of time before children are routinely born out of wedlock, adulterers run amuck, homosexuality and lesbianism are accepted and tolerated, abortion becomes a casual decision, cannibalism is legalized under shaky regulations, necrophilia is legalized under shaky regulations, bestiality is permitted, incest is slowly welcomed, sex is practiced in public, etc. Think I'm crazy? Well, you shouldn't. How many of these practices and events are witnessed today? Children born out of wedlock are considered normal occurrences, are they not? Homosexuality and lesbianism are continuously gaining acceptance and prominence, are they not? Look at Sciforums, for example: the members who eschew conservative morals and values are the ones advocating the legalization of necrophilia, cannibalism, and incest. Crazy, isn't it? These are the type of downright terrifying things that arise from democracy. For what it's worth, democracy has the potential to be scintillatingly effective; the problem, however, is that most people don't know what's good for them.
Kadark the Sage
Excellent point, desi. In any democratic state, the people within stride gleefully toward constant liberalization; that is, the path leading to more "freedom" is always sought. Of course, the problem with "freedom" (in this case, the polarization between the public and the standards of conservative morality) is that there is such a thing as too much of it. To put it simply, the majority of the public tend to blindly support hazardous causes, both toward themselves and the speechless minority. Ultimately, when a true democratic system is established, the majority of the public will undertake formidable strides in directions never trodden before. By this, of course, I mean new lifestyles will be introduced, advertised, and supported, until such unprecedented concepts become commonplace, replacing the so-called "strict" morals which, in a way, stifled the public. Of course, the public must be stifled to a certain degree in order for society to sustain itself; the erosion of understood morality and widespread traditional values leaves in its wake anarchy and despair.
Look at the past half-dozen decades, if you will: alongside legitimate protests such as racial equality came bizarre notions such as "feminism", "gay/lesbian rights", "abortion rights", etc. To elaborate on one of many issues, the concept of feminism destroys necessary gender roles, which is a direct byproduct of conservative values. Feminism woefully equates the two genders, and erases the traditional fabric of a household - breadwinners as men, child bearers as women. Going back to your initial point, desi: democracy does, in fact, render conservative values of morality and tradition inert. In its place, democracy inserts highly transparent, volatile concepts of liberalism, and undermines age-old concepts of authority and discipline to the point of extinction. When loose standards of morality usurp conservative morality's grip on the public, it is only a matter of time before children are routinely born out of wedlock, adulterers run amuck, homosexuality and lesbianism are accepted and tolerated, abortion becomes a casual decision, cannibalism is legalized under shaky regulations, necrophilia is legalized under shaky regulations, bestiality is permitted, incest is slowly welcomed, sex is practiced in public, etc. Think I'm crazy? Well, you shouldn't. How many of these practices and events are witnessed today? Children born out of wedlock are considered normal occurrences, are they not? Homosexuality and lesbianism are continuously gaining acceptance and prominence, are they not? Look at Sciforums, for example: the members who eschew conservative morals and values are the ones advocating the legalization of necrophilia, cannibalism, and incest. Crazy, isn't it? These are the type of downright terrifying things that arise from democracy. For what it's worth, democracy has the potential to be scintillatingly effective; the problem, however, is that most people don't know what's good for them.
Kadark the Sage
desi i dont know wether you have thought of this but even if your right is that actually a bad thing?
lets look at what has happened in the last 500 years or so from apsolute rule in the west to democrasy for the underclasses
pensants were treated as slaves
women were treated as slaves
other races were treated as slaves, against the law to marry interracially ect
children were forced to work in dangorious jobs like mining with exstream mortality\morbidity rates
homosexuals were killed
healers were murdered as witchs
all the money was in the hands of a few
now lets go through all these points indervidually
pesents gradually became moden farmers, owning there own land and able to make money to feed there families, give there kids an education, get decent medical care ect.
womes rights have come a HUGE way, women can vote, hold public offices, and aspire to whatever they want to be. They are no longer the slaves to there fathers or there husbands, rape and wife beating are treated as genuine issues and mortalility and morbidity have decreased for women
racial discrimination is illegal, marrage between peoples is acceptable and most importantly slaverly is an international crime now
child labor is now a crime so children can be educated and actually aspire to whatever they want rather than being locked into the under class of there parents. again mortalitiy, morbidity rates are much lower for children
women especially but also male healers are alowed to help which has lowed mortalitiy and morbidity rates across the board, people no longer need to fear being burned alive as witches
now the last two are where the gap is currently homosexuality and wealth distribution but even these are slowly being fixed
homosexuality has gone from something punishable by death, through being concidered a mental illness and a crime to something which is accpted and as this increases so does there mortality, morbidity rates lessen
and slowly wealth is being redistributed to the former underclasses rather than just being held by the ritch elite with the acompining access to essential services like health and education which in the end helps us all
lets look at what has happened in the last 500 years or so from apsolute rule in the west to democrasy for the underclasses
pensants were treated as slaves
women were treated as slaves
other races were treated as slaves, against the law to marry interracially ect
children were forced to work in dangorious jobs like mining with exstream mortality\morbidity rates
homosexuals were killed
healers were murdered as witchs
all the money was in the hands of a few
now lets go through all these points indervidually
pesents gradually became moden farmers, owning there own land and able to make money to feed there families, give there kids an education, get decent medical care ect.
womes rights have come a HUGE way, women can vote, hold public offices, and aspire to whatever they want to be. They are no longer the slaves to there fathers or there husbands, rape and wife beating are treated as genuine issues and mortalility and morbidity have decreased for women
racial discrimination is illegal, marrage between peoples is acceptable and most importantly slaverly is an international crime now
child labor is now a crime so children can be educated and actually aspire to whatever they want rather than being locked into the under class of there parents. again mortalitiy, morbidity rates are much lower for children
women especially but also male healers are alowed to help which has lowed mortalitiy and morbidity rates across the board, people no longer need to fear being burned alive as witches
now the last two are where the gap is currently homosexuality and wealth distribution but even these are slowly being fixed
homosexuality has gone from something punishable by death, through being concidered a mental illness and a crime to something which is accpted and as this increases so does there mortality, morbidity rates lessen
and slowly wealth is being redistributed to the former underclasses rather than just being held by the ritch elite with the acompining access to essential services like health and education which in the end helps us all
oh a nice video on the subject
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HyK5rB9jY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HyK5rB9jY
The government system never had much of an effect on morality. People were pious in public, and did what they wanted in private. The only think enforcement does is force these behaviors underground. Besides, the peacefullness of society depends more on prosperity and a middle class than a personal moral code. If people are stressed, they will do crimes out of necessity, even if they know it's wrong.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
I'd be interested in your posting examples of what you feel is a degeneration and in which countries they occurred.
If you mean sexual morality (which in my mind should be considered "morality" at all), then there are cases when societies veered in a conservative direction. The most notable example was Victorian England. Before that time sexual morality was a lot looser, and suddenly sex entered the realm of the undiscussable taboo.
How do you know it was looser before the Victorian time?
Long ago God flooded the world when morality got so bad.
Not so long ago Rome fell when morality became optional. I'm not saying Romans were moral saints but they were morally astute.
Now we have a lax morality in US, Europe, and UK and the populations there are falling except for the immigrant ones who have their morality and are increasing. Lack of morality seems to cause its victims to wither on the vine.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
First, British sexual morality post-Restoration is often described as being defined by (or at least "bounded by") the extremes of Puritanism and Libertinism, with the Puritan sexual ethics and the idealization of the purity of women and the corruption of sex eventually winning the day. The Victorian Era sexual morality is often thought of as the long, but slow ascendancy of the prudish ideal. It was an age when it was impolite and scandalous to speak about the body in frank terms. The word "leg" was considered risqué (I am not kidding) they preferred the less sexually provocative term "limb." Even within marriage sex was supposedly (at least openly in polite circles) treated as if it were an obligation to be detested, hence the story about Queen Victoria telling her own daughter about sex on the night before the daughter's wedding where she supposedly advised, "Just close your eyes and think of England." It was also the age that invented this little lovely, to prevent nocturnal emissions:
Just slip that around your little friend, and the "sin" of your nightly erections would be held at bay.
Second, consider England during the Renaissance and earlier. In those periods most families had one or two beds, and most only one. (Indeed, throughout much of the medieval period serfs and yeoman had only a single room for them, their families and their farm animals.) You had to be reasonably well off to afford multiple beds and multi-room houses (though they were more common in towns than in the countryside, most people lived in the countryside). For those with one bed, all the family slept in the same bed, and many families were large. It's fairly well known at this point that there was no taboo on parents having sex while in the same bed as their sleeping (and likely not quite sleeping) children. When the taboo developed I am not certain, but it was well in place by the time Victorian Era was in high gear.
Not to oversimplify, though, as even in Victorian England, the "working classes" tended to live in one or two rooms and likely has similar social norms to those who came before them. The wealthier chroniclers of the period, who noted the poverty of the working classes, were often quick to note that the working class neighborhoods and lifestyle were havens of "sin" precisely because the poor did not live up up the standards of the bourgeois (and only the wealthier bourgeois had any time to take up "writing" as a significant pastime. Still, over time, even amongst the poor the Victorian zeitgeist descended over most people in England (and many beyond it, including in America, where "legs" were so scandalous, that reports were that Americans invested table skirts to cover them and thus prevent impure thoughts that might come from looking at curved and shapely table legs. (I am still not making this up, though the reasons for the invention of the table skirt may be apocryphal, that explanation as in circulation in England.) The lower classes may not have lived up to teh ideals to the same extent as the upper classes, but they were influenced by them.
In fact you can find entire books and articles about the views of sex and sexuality in Georgian and Regency England that are clear that it was a progression of social attitudes that led to what we tend to think of as the Victorian attitude. Georgian and Regency London, for example, were awash in brothels and pornographic bookstores that were chased away by the Victorians.
It was definitely not a long-standing attitude that later came to be called "Victorian" yet existed all along. It was a developing social trend that, only at its height, became what we call "Victorian."
The reasons for the decline of Rome are too complex to deal with here (indeed there are hundreds of volumes of books on the subject). But I think you may misunderstand the "moral decay" argument, which originates (at least the phrase does) with the renowned historian Edward Gibbon.
I also think it's a mistake to assume that it was some "deviancy" of Rome that led to its downfall. The Romans were, by Christian standards, far more deviant in the early Empire and during the Republic, than they were in the late Empire...as by then they *were* Christians. It was Christian Empire. Western Rome fell for a variety of reasons, but the power of "Rome" the Empire had long since moved to its new capital in Constantinople (and the "Eastern Roman Empire, the real heir of the strength of "Rome," lasted until 1453 A.D.).
Gibbon felt that the "moral decay" was a loss of "civic virtue" led to the decline (not sexual virtue or even "moral virtue" in a broad sense, as he was well aware the Romans were Christians...indeed he felt that was a large part of the problem). By that, he meant that they started entrusting others to do everything for them, like fight in their military and tend their fields and build new buildings. Gibbon's theory of moral decay blamed (in part, at least) Christianity for the problem, as he felt it may have led the Romans to care less about their Empire and common, work-a-day concerns than they were with getting into heaven and living their lives for God before the end of the world, which many early Christians thought was coming in the near term, rather than millennia after the death of Christ.) In Gibbon's view, the "moral decay" was a lethargy that he felt became pervasive. As he wrote:
The "moral decay" of Rome was there were too many people who were abstinent and chaste, and too few who were able to wield a spear.
To take one quick look at another of the (many) theories for the decline the western empire apart from lethargy, the barbarians had been pushed systematically west and wanted to settle on Roman land, and the eastern empire increasingly found that the western empire was costing them more money than the land was generating. The Eastern Empire became less and less engaged with the west over time, and the east had all the money and power. The result was that the western provinces of Rome *had* to fend for themselves, because the western empire had no resources to spare for them. They were increasingly being run by former generals, who were generally German barbarians, but that is not to say that they were not a part of the Empire. The barbarians definitely thought of themselves as local rulers tending to a part of the Empire. Even Odoacer, who deposed the last generally recognized western emperor pledged himself to the eastern emperor and thought of himself as ruling, in essence, a client state in orbit of (eastern) Rome. At least some of the successors of Odoacer thought the same thing.
The odd truth is that the west didn't seemingly realize that Rome "fell" for a couple of centuries. It seems clear that when Charlemagne was crowned emperor that he and many in his court were not necessarily aping some long vanished tradition of the Romans in hopes of evoking its spirit. Rome was a still existing entity in the minds of many at the time. All that had vanished was the western Emperor, but he'd always had limited power and really was subject to the stronger Eastern Empire. By invoking the imperial title in the minds of some he was arguably reestablishing an office in the still existing empire, not forming a new empire in the image of the old one. In retrospect, he was forming a new empire, but Rome vanished so gradually, that there were those who didn't see that at the time.
So goes the theory, at least, and there is at least a solid argument for it.
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superstring01
Moderator
Really? True democracy has only been around for the past two centuries (and even now, it's not really all that true). Show me a case where this has happend, again and again, throughout history.
~String
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Ideally..
Really? True democracy is one man one vote on everything. Ancient Greece from thousands of years ago is where this came from. What we have now is a representative democracy where you are told who you can vote for and once they are elected they vote on behalf of you regardless of what you want.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Unless you were poor, a slave, a non-Athenian or a woman, then it was NO VOTE FOR YOU!