Democracy

The Romans had a vision of world domination that, I think, is difficult even to imagine in our post-Judeo-Christian-Islamic ethos. They probably thought they were better than everyone else, true; but if all the conquered people should choose to hold inferior values, that was their prerogative. Today, if we see people living worse than ourselves, we refuse to rest until we've made them like us (with or without military conquest). On the one hand, this is a good thing, cf. hunger relief squads in third world countries. On the other hand, we have a thousand years of crusades, missionaries, persecution, censorship, Nazism, etc. to make us think that maybe the rich and powerful don't have all the answers, and maybe it's better to err on the side of keeping our nose out of other people's business.

There seems to be an illusion in our day that we are past this history of fanaticism, and that we can administer right alongside tolerance to the end of doing what is best for the world. While most of us are no longer wedded to the notion of the Jealous God, I think we are equally as fanatic as we have ever been. Today's analog? Democracy.

Americans cannot endure the sight of a non-democratic regime, ostensibly because it means that a population is being oppressed by some government they did not choose. But I contend that democracy is not right for everyone; like any other ethos, it has to evolve organically in order to fit the culture it serves. South Korean society, for example, fits uncomfortably in a democratic system, in my opinion. It's a thousand times better than communism, Japanese subjugation, and probably even the old monarchies; but nevertheless, Koreans generally continue to exercise their old tried-and-true system of nepotism, which more or less puts political ideology at odds with social practice.

But then there is the macro consideration of doing what will make the world as safe as possible for everyone, vs. the micro consideration of attaching an organic ideology to a small group of people. That is, we Americans will never feel safe as long as Iraq or Afghanistan are not democratic (or as some would say, American puppets). There are success stories to this side of the argument. For example, the democratically elected Palestinian prime minister Abbas is doing a better job at the peace talks with Israel - probably since Israel is bringing a democratic ideology to the negotions table, so when in Rome...

But when you see the low voter turn-out in Iraq's election last month, you start to wonder if we're imposing our notion of right onto a peoples who clearly believe it is wrong. Are we really tolerant, or is this a second medieval crusade? Has democracy replaced the Jealous God?