Quality or Quantity: The Problem of Democracy

From the so-called “Enlightenment” onwards, democracy has become an increasingly common form of governance, to the extent that almost all present-day regimes are democracies of some sort. The supporters of democracy laud its triumphs as marks of human progress toward equality and a fair world. Unfortunately this mistaken view of democracy has corrupted the Left, to the extent that support for democracy is the cornerstone of most False Left ideologies and the idealistic leftists they fool.

In reality, the advent of democracy has meant little for ending the daily violence faced by humans, sentient beings, and the environment as a whole. In reality, not only has violence increased, but it has become more difficult to spot due to simple yet thorough brainwashing of the masses through ridiculous yet effective abstracts mottos (e.g. “majority rights”, “free speech”, etc.). And, for the most part, increased violence has not been used toward noble ends, but to serve the slavish desires of the masses and elites. Any mass impetus toward a better world is a product of the bitter struggle of an idealistic few, not of mass nobility.

The fate of minorities in a democracy….

Has democracy ended Grindadráp? Has democracy destroyed slaughterhouses?

 Can problems be solved through the same means and by the same people they were created?

The Not-So-Critical Criticisms

Despite the general triumph of democracy, an increasing number of people are willing to criticize its shortcomings, but very few of these criticisms are aimed at the roots of democracy or offer radically different alternatives. These criticism either fail to condemn democracy as a whole, or they criticize democracy but agree on its fundamental principles. To understand the True Left’s revolutionary alternative to these protests, we must first know what they are, what they have in common with democracy, and thus where both are flawed.

The most common contemporary “criticism” of democracies can generally be reduced to the claim that so-called “democracies” are not democratic enough. According to such critics, so-called “democracies” do not live up to the name as government, and society as a whole, does not truly tailor to the decision of the majority. Common arguments include:

• leaders elected every few years cannot truly and fully represent the will of the majority

• victory in elections does not necessarily mean majority approval (such as when somebody is elected by having the highest vote count rather than majority vote, or in democracies with elections based on constituent representation)

• there is not enough public involvement in and knowledge of government policies

• financial elites use their money in the favor of select politicians and parties, disadvantaging alternative groups not receiving such funding & media attention, and thus limiting majority choice and opinion to a few options

• politicians do not look after the interests of the majority, but after their own interests and those of their group and/or financial masters

(Besides these there are claims that leaders act unjustly and, thus, undemocratically; but since when is democracy just?)

In a variety of circumstances – perhaps even in the majority of them – all or some of these claims are certainly correct, and the alternative democratic forms they offer may indeed be more democratic. However, all of them assume and believe that moral good is the same as what is good for the majority.

Another group of critics can be called political paternalists (or maternalists, as the gender may be); they are people who support the use of state power (perhaps monarchically, but definitely in elitist fashion) to further the interests of the majority. Political paternalists are created out of the same belief as democrats that the goal of government is to look after the interests of the majority (whatever they believe those to be). The only difference is that paternalistic politicians, unlike democrats, believe that the masses are too stupid to govern themselves – that they do not truly know what is good for them, and so cannot choose and act in their own interests, thus needing more intelligent governors to choose for them.

A similar group of political paternalists are traditionalists. Where they differ from more reform-minded paternalists is in the belief that tradition is paramount for the good of the majority. According to them (and often in fact), tradition may provide safety, order, identity, and (self-referential) guidelines in life for the majority; in other words, it is officially justified on the ground that it gives something “good” to the majority, and perhaps a larger group as a whole. Furthermore, given that tradition is largely the product of the habits, beliefs, and desires of the majority of a group’s ancestors, tradition is arguably a form of democracy that cuts across time, and thus traditionalists are merely ensuring the preservation of ancestral democracy; in the words of traditionalist thinker G. K. Chesterton: “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.”

The Tyranny Of The Majority

Essentially, all the individuals mentioned earlier are not different from each other: they do not differ in their primary interest, but they differ on how to attain it. The supporters of status quo democratic forms believe their current system is appropriate for the good of the majority, and so all reform is to be done within their system. The supporters of alternative democratic forms argue their preferred forms are better in fulfilling the good of the majority. The political paternalists believe taking control of the state in the masses’ place will be more helpful to achieving the good of the majority. And the traditionalists believe a state and society run in traditional fashion with traditional values is the best way to achieve the good of the majority.

The response of the True Left is: numbers do not determine what is morally good. The idolatry of the majority and its happiness must end. Essentially, any democratic state or organization whatsoever is one run by the principle of Might Is Right, where might is determined by numbers. Considering that an individual guided by this principle will live his life to pursue his own interests, and use others or treat others violently to fulfill his ambitions, as well as being enslaved by his desires, why should we expect anything different from a larger group of people (especially when they’re stronger as a group)? In fact, democracy’s record and its very foundations show that the troubles of minorities are secondary, if not completely irrelevant, so long as the select majority is satisfied. All leftists should ask themselves: is this something beautiful and noble and which I can fully support, or is it an evil which I must reject from the bottom of my heart?

Furthermore, not only is democracy operationally ignoble, but its very purpose is also. If the purpose of a government were to make the most noble decisions and the most noble society, power would in the hands of the most noble. If the purpose of a government were to look after the interests of the rich, power would be int the hands of the rich and those they’ve bought. Along similar lines, if the purpose of a government were to look after the interests of the majority, power would be in the hands of the majority. In other words, democracy is nothing more than a political means for the majority to satisfy its desires, and otherwise has no important goals beyond it. This is commonly known as hedonism, whereby one sells one’s soul for pleasure. Democracy is nothing other than majority hedonism or mass hedonism.

Democracy, in theory at least, stands against the majority being run tyrannically by any other individual or group. On the other hand, it does not question the tyranny of the majority. Through democracy, the minority is enslaved to the desires of the majority. Furthermore, through democracy, the majority is enslaved to its own desires, becoming incapable of knowing and fighting for any higher purpose.

The Root Of The Problem & The Solution

If the majority were noble, it could and would easily reject an ignoble way of life. We would expect mass action to end all forms of slavery and violence. In fact, we wouldn’t have these problems in the first place, as the majority would have never tolerated their existence and would have easily eliminated any barbarian outliers who did long ago. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in. In the world we live in, not only does the majority not fight slavery and violence, but often does not see or comprehend them. And, in the world we live in, should most individuals even acknowledge those evils, they will often turn a blind eye to them or even approve of them.

The root of the democratic problem is not that the majority does not have enough power or the right guidelines for action. The problem is that the majority is of too low a quality to put it to use justly even if it were to have them. Interaction with most people does not show radical ignobility, but it does not show radical nobility either. What it does show is an apathetic mediocrity, a general contentment with one’s and others’ lot in life so long as one does not have to sacrifice and endanger oneself too much. (The recent far-right fearmongering, unfortunately, is making this even worse.)

History itself is a testament to the quality of the majority of humanity. In so far as history is not driven by abstract forces beyond control, but by the ambitions of real humans, its general quality is in line with the general quality of humans (i.e. the quality of the majority). Indeed, extremely barbaric individuals are culprits for extremes of slavery, violence, and suffering, but it is not every day that a Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. Dracula) is born. The pages of history are not filled with incredible monsters, but with rather ordinary individuals with self- and group-interests, and with enough power to fulfill these interests. The pages of history are filled with slavery, violence, and suffering, not because of monsters, but because of average-quality people – the majority – being too concerned with their own livelihoods to constantly struggle in a revolution for a radically different world.

And, yet, occasionally, a light shines through the darkness….

The Rule Of The Noblest

The constitutionalist response to the flaws of history (and of humanity as a whole, according to them) is to create a constitution for people to follow and through which no individual or group (including the majority) may have too much power (in theory and if, and only if, the constitution is actually followed). Their rationale is that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, so that if nobody has an excessive amount of power, nobody will be able to do an excessive amount of evil.

We disagree.

“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.” – Frank Herbert

Looking at history, constitutionalists will observe that many excesses of evil were possible only because unregulated power was in the hands of individuals or groups. They claim power corrupted them, but to us this claim is clearly erroneous: it is not power that corrupted them, but power which made their corruption visible and influential. The rare individuals of history, as well as those of the present day, who remained uncorrupted despite their absolute power, and who sought and used this power to better the world and to make their noble visions a reality, are proof of this claim.

Power is not the problem. Power in ignoble hands is the problem. And power definitively in noble hands is the solution to the problem.

External Link:  The Edicts of King Asoka

Leto can be trusted to lead!

“My kingdom is not of this world.” – Jesus

History and our present state of affairs are ample proof that the majority is not ethically qualified to rule. Nor is the democratic form fundamentally ethical, in that individuals cannot choose which leaders to follow, but must obey the ruler the majority chooses, no matter how ignoble. The constitutionalist response to the first statement above is inadequate, in that a constitution, no matter how excellent, can only be enacted by an imperfect majority in a democratic state, in that the constitution itself may be the product of mediocre and ignoble minds, and in that the constitution may improve average quality people while at the same time preventing high quality, noble vigilantes from always acting in accordance with their own conscience. The constitutionalist response to the second statement above is nonexistent.

Despite the quality of the majority, to claim that humanity as a whole cannot rule justly is not only incorrect but also insulting to the few individuals who are of high enough quality to not be corrupted by power, who know we will not be corrupted by power, and who vow to not be corrupted by power. We have no desire for power for its own sake or for the sake of fulfilling ignoble desires. We genuinely wish there were no need for it in the first place.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.” – Jesus

Yet, however much we would rather be spared from power, we hate the evil in this world, and the evil of those thirsty for power, even more. In good conscience, we cannot let the world continue as it is. In good conscience, we cannot let our romantic visions of a noble and beautiful world die with us. Therefore it is our duty to take power and end the world’s evil through it, and so either take leadership ourselves or find high quality individuals worth following. The solution to the democratic problem, the problem of ignobility, is aristocracy, the rule of the noble.

End Game

The present-day rise of the far-right will lead to immeasurable amounts of violence and suffering, and to the enslavement of all individuals who oppose them, as well as of all future children treated as slaves to the perpetual preservation of the “white race” or Western “civilization” with all its hubris and pompous materialism. However, all this evil is not exceptional in history, where depravity is the rule. The rise of the far-right is a continuation. And it is a democratic continuation, where the majority is (not necessarily inaccurately) identified with “whites”, “indigenous”, “natives”, or “Westerners”. The far-right is the democracy of “whites” and of Westerners. And so it is opposed to genuine aristocracy. And so it is opposed to the True Left.

To ever achieve freedom, including freedom from the need to use power against evil, we will first have to end all corruption step-by-step. The far-right, and the Right in general, is not standing in the way of our perpetual progress in gaining more power. Rather, the Right is an evil we will have to end before we can relinquish our power. The Right is an evil we will have to end before we can end our miserable struggle. Only when all evil has ended, only when ignobility is nonexistent, will we no longer have a need for power or for rulership of any kind, including aristocratic. Only then will we have peace. Only then will we have freedom. And we long for that day. Are you with us?