On Democracy: Critiques of the Social Animal

    I recently wrote to someone who supported autocracy in lieu of democracy—or at minimum, propounded an opposition of democracy due to its ostensibly fatal flaws. As succinct as I could, I wrote: The mediocre wisdom of an accountable populace substituted for the incidental wisdom of an unaccountable individual is a disastrous system.

    Indeed, democracy in its worst manifestation entails the hemlock-poisoning death of Socrates. Democracy by definition cannot ascend beyond the rather banal mediocrity of the majority—and often requires rhetoricians to dilute the succulent fountain of intellectualism into laymen words of enticement (thus, politicians becomes almost salesmen-like in demeanor). Thus, an uncivilized society will be uncivilized and a civilized society will be civilized.

    Yet, democracy is—in the words of Aristotle—the least worst system—imperfect, but not undesirable. In democracy, leaders may be held account from being voted out in relation to their performance: usually measured with some semblance of universal benefit. In autocratic systems, one can only ever crush dissent, with the rifle substituted for the ballot box. Universal benefit at the peril of some becomes individual benefit at the peril of all.

    The proverbial objection to this is to mention the benefits of an autocracy. The so-called, "Philosopher-King," concept coined by Plato himself. Indeed, a wisely righteous ruler may rule compassionately—perhaps even more efficiently and swift than the cumbersome, slow and prolonged debates that democracy entails. Roads and bridges may be built faster. Yet, the dangers, resulting from probable corruption, are far too high to capitalize on such outlier benefits. As fast as roads and bridges may be built, a community can arbitrarily be imprisoned or massacred on demand. Therefore, there is no such place for the double-edge sword of autocracy to be whetted.