Morning Comrades.
I am trying not to get caught up in the rapid fire of total insanity that are our “current events”, just in the past 48hrs and react unprofessionally, and truly, unnecessarily to them, even though there are plenty of temptations.
Something I wrote for Monday’s dispatch has remained in my head and has been bothering me, in the sense that I, myself am trying to get to the bottom of this, that I wanted to throw in the mix here.
Why is it that “we”1 naturally assume that democracy and operating democracies are inherently “good”?
Obviously, a lot of this was prompted, in the short term, with yet another fascist party being democratically elected, this time in Italy and more specifically, the insane takes from all spectrums of the brainwashed. Of course, however the question goes a lot deeper than that and has multiple angles.
If you, like me, grew up here in the “west”, I am going to assume that your socialization is centred around the idea that “our way of life” is the best there is, that our democracies protect our freedom and thus not only need to be defended against and any all authoritarian opponents but more importantly, that the “free will of people” should be the status quo for everyone around the world.
Right? Doesn’t sound too far off.
By this point, I am sure most of you are seething as none of this is clearly the case, and I am certainly not here today to point out the billion reasons why “the west” is anything but democratic. That can be a bed time story for another day. No, rather, let’s have a deeper think about this.
Even though it has now been proven to be false, generally speaking we are all taught that “democracy” started in Ancient Greece2 and that despite all its apparent flaws, such as no voting rights for women and slavery, it is generally taught that this was the kick off point for all “modern” republic, as first witnessed in France and the newly created U.S of A. Additionally, most of that assumption is based on a wonderful book, called “The Republic” by Plato, which is where the problem starts already. Not only does what we know today as “The Republic” really get into the morality of democracy - i.e., is it good or bad, the book, written by Plato were recorded talks by Socrates, recorded as in, Plato, his pupil, remembered them in 375 B.C. Some 300 years later, a Roman / Latin translation appeared through Cicero, or so the story goes. The English title of Plato's dialogue is derived from Cicero's De re publica, written some three centuries later. Cicero's dialogue imitates Plato's style and treats many of the same topics, and Cicero's main character Scipio Aemilianus expresses his esteem for Plato and Socrates.
Res publica is not an exact translation of Plato's Greek title politeia. Rather, politeia is a general term for the actual and potential forms of government for a polis or city-state, and Plato attempts to survey all possible forms of the state. Cicero's discussion is more parochial, focusing on the improvement of the participants' own state, the Roman Republic in its final stages.
This goes on, from Arabic to Latin for another bloody 1600 years until some of the first English translations appear round 1704/1780 and who knows what the original scripts actually said at this point, I need not mention the reality of the King James Bible etc at this point. The point being is this, not only do we not have any clue what the original ideas were by Socrates and later Plato, any and all philosophical ideas are subject to interpretation that are massively influenced by timely and regional, material and socio-political realities of not only the translator but the people paying them to do so.
Same goes with “The Republic” - by the time the idea got to Hegel, and it did, the European order was in fucking uproar - we have had the French Revolution, the U.S. War of independence and almost a century of Philosophy prior by giants such as Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau, who all debated the nature or rule, power, systems and what to do - as Feudalism clearly was becoming a thing of the past. What is odd is that none of the above, and especially Hegel thought that “democracy” had anything to do with “The Republic” and that “mob rule”, essentially, how they saw “democracy” was to be avoided at all costs. It goes as far as Mussolini actually referencing this modern interpretation of “The Republic” to build modern Fascism.
Mussolini admired the book, which he often read for inspiration. The Republic expounded a number of ideas that fascism promoted, such as rule by an elite promoting the state as the ultimate end, opposition to democracy, protecting the class system and promoting class collaboration, rejection of egalitarianism, promoting the militarization of a nation by creating a class of warriors, demanding that citizens perform civic duties in the interest of the state, and utilizing state intervention in education to promote the development of warriors and future rulers of the state. Plato was an idealist, focused on achieving justice and morality, while Mussolini and fascism were realist, focused on achieving political goals.
Nonetheless, the book, or rather the romanticized idea thereof made it across the pond to the early days of the English colonies in North America, where it took an even more perverted turn. In essence, the founding of the U.S. preceded the reality of how Mussolini saw “The Republic” in the same sense as the above, and not much has changed since them. What did change is that the romanticized idea thereof was used as a marketing claim by the capitalist class to ensure total obedience to an undemocratic state and zero question of their crimes against humanity, in every regard for a singular purpose, increasing profits.
Truly, even by the most conservative definitions, “democracy” is not an autocracy or dictatorship, where one person rules; and it is not oligarchy, where a small segment of society rules. Properly understood, democracy should not even be "rule of the majority", if that means that minorities' interests are ignored completely. A democracy, at least in theory, is government on behalf of all the people, according to their "will". Again, this is is the most conservative definition I could find before deep diving into Fascist territory.
As it stands, “democracy” is an idea, one whose roots go back far further that Plato’s Republic, and I think, in principle it is an extremely good idea. We just so desperately need to come to the realization that it has never existed in the “West”, even though we have started countless wars in its name, and quite frankly, have done even worse things. We urgently need to realize that we have been sold an idea to hide the ugly reality that we live in a brutally violent system ruled by an even more ruthless minority and that all pretence that we are free is a beautifully woven marketing scam of the highest order.
Most importantly, we urgently have to remember and realize that all these ideas, all these constructs, all the laws are man made and thus, can easily and be undone, re-made and made to work for us, not just the majority, but everyone. It just takes Democracy to do so.
Food for thought.
Yours, eager for the revolution and warmly,
V.
By “we” I am generally proposing to me us here in the “west”.
Fun fact, it didn’t, but it made for good book sales.
Neo-fascist illiberalism is neatly defined in your rendition of The Republic. It inspired me to write 'The Mission of the Right' on my Substack Acorn Archive today.
Thanks masked stranger (than fiction).