Which invalidates Fukuyama and anyone who rests their ideas on a pro-liberal democracy deterministic view of history - if people need to be convinced that democracy will benefit them and assured that chaos and instability won't ruin the lives they already have - IOW, as long as a choice exists - then there can be no "natural progression" toward liberal democracy.
Human history is not the result of mass societies changing in response to sweeping, impersonal forces, as determinist historians like Fukuyama suggest. Rather, is is the sum of individual descisions in response to situations created by other individual decisions. Human societies will therefore only "tend toward" liberal democracy as long as people the world over continually decide that liberal democracy is what they want, and then decide to get up and do something about it. Without that individual action, Fukuyama's progress won't happen.
A historical precident which ended up as a complete disaster for the people who were conducting it.
Hardly. History doesn't end in 404. The following year the Spartan backed "thirty tyrants" were deposed and democracy restored. A second league was formed in 378 which lead to the defeat of Sparta and Thebes in 371. Of course history didn't end there, Athens decided not to back democracy with force of arms, the second league fell away, and that lead to the wholesale conquest of the Hellenic world by Phillip and Alexander.
Not the plague that destroyed a fourth of the Athenian population. That was brought on because of the Athenians evacuating the Attic countryside because they couldn't possibly defend the population against the Spartan army with much of it outside the city. So they brought the population within the city walls and as the war dragged on and on and on, population density and poor sanitation savaged the population.
Which came about because Megara was not forced into a democratic position to gaurd the Attic flank as she had done so in previous history. Leaving Megara to the oligocrats would seem to be a more direct cause than the inevitable clash of the two major power blocs of the Hellenic world.
It was still sort of a democracy that Pericles was part of when the war with Sparta started and the massacres in Athens that followed were of their democrats and suspected democrats.
Concession accepted the defeats you attributed to forcible democracy happened under a psuedo-democracy. Even at that it took the combined might of Persia and Sparta to do so.
We could look at other points in history. The Athenians did help fight in the Ionic colonies to establish democracy in Persia. This lead to Darius, who never heard of the Athenians by that point, to swear revenge upon them. However, you'll not that those Ionic colonies were swiftly recaptured by the Persian armies and it was only on the mercy of the Persians that they were allowed to keep their democracies, so long as they paid their taxes. In much the same way the Persians sent the Jews home from Babylon and let them practice their own religion.
By 395 Persia was funding Athens against Sparta. Persia was strictly an oppurtunistic player of the Great Game and it was only after Athens let the second league crumble that Persian and eventually Macedonian hegemony ruled.
As a historical precident, it's demostrates that you need rediculously good luck to survive implimenting democracy by the threat of force or by force. It very nearly ended up with Athens being another Persian territory.
It also very nearly ended up with Persia reliquishing the majority of its holdings on the western sea. Which is bloody remarkable considering how heavily the odds were stacked against Athens.
As a matter of fact, it was a religious thing in Japan and the fact they have nothing else, do to strategic bombing. And Germany did have a prior history of democracy, which in fact lead to National Socialism. Hell, you are ignoring the fact that half of Germany went communist at the end of the war, not exactly a stellar example of a triumph of democracy by force.
Matter of fact Japan could easily have amended their constitution at any point in the last few decades, it isn't going to happen. You wish to tell me that actions taken by Athens
generations before her defeat are proof that one cannot establish democracy by force, even noting that Athens when she was reduced in 404 was ruined by far more than Japan ever was. You can't have it both ways.
As far as the DRG, that was strictly due the Red Army having the boots on the ground which in turn was due to political decisions made during WWII; at a point when the big three were carving up European spheres of influence without regard for democracy.
The fact is that because it's rare and difficult, not every country and situation is democracy through force even applicable in the same way that you can't fix every problem with a hammer. However, neocons don't see it that way. You heard President Bush EVERYONE wants to be free and EVERYONE wants democracy and we should spread it by hook or by crook.
Ignoring the trouble with blanket universal claims, that is largely correct. Most people want to be free or at last enjoy the fruits that modern freedom brings. Democracy through force is not always an applicable option, true, but sometimes it is. In reality Iraq was not a terrible candidate; it had a popular uprising in the south, it had a quasi state in north run along democratic lines, and there was rampant repression by the Ba'athist regime. That is far more than many successful installations of democracy have had.
Does that Shi'ite bloc that supports democracy want it for Sunnis?
Yes. Look this is a friggen parliamentary democracy. The major parties as reported in the western media are actually umbrella groups which have their own factions. This has lead to all manner of strange political beddings, and at times is quite ugly. However the Shi'ites did open negotiations for forming the new government with both Sunni Kurds and Arabs.
Then take their democratization of the Ionic colonies from under the nose of Darius, if you want.
Was largely an issue of the Greeks not having a good notion of geography and demography, much as was the invasion of Sicily. Again the point is that Athens broke democracy by force, and those democracies outlasted many modern ones. From Europe to Latin America to Africa, precious few democratic states have had as long a run of democratic tradition as those brought into democracy by Athenian force.
Simplicius:
Hence my suggestion that as social engineering goes, Iraq represents the shoddiest possible work.
And hence you suggestion is fallicious. Without planning, active control, etc. it isn't social engineering. Government may take actions without the specific goal of engineering society.
No, those things are not prerequisites of democracy. But, you'll note that in countries where democracy exists, the structure of government was carefully planned to make sure that the system would prevail despite any divisions in the population.
BWhahahahaha.
That was a good one. In the United Kingdom, argueably the most longevitious democracy in the world there was no planning of the state, rather a series of parliamentary acts, not to mention wars and rebellions lead to an ad hoc organization of the government. One which continues to see significant changes, in many cases being completely beyond the intents of the initial enactors (i.e. the sequential enfrachisements). Likewise one can look to Israel where there is no wealth of traditional custom, no written constitution, and a good deal of stuff made up on the fly (which does lead to its own problems, such as the lack of secular marriage). Need I really continue? Yes some democratic nations sit down and hold constitutional conventions and deliberate extensively to perfect their preferred form of democracy, however numerous groups having not done so remain staunchly democratic to this day; others who argued over prepositional phrasing in their consitutions have gone through multiple lapses and several distinct documents.
That kind of careful planning, as far as I am concerned, consitutes social enginnering. If Iraq's government is arranged to provide stability in the face of ethnic and sectarian divisions, it is engineered. If it is not, then the likelihood is that any liberal democratic state will be undermined by conflict before it has time to establish itself.
Iraq's government contains little formal protection to preclude ethnic and sectarian divisions. These may be prevent by the fractured state of the electorate and the balance of power (both political and military); there are not extensive protections in the Iraqi constitution.
As I was taught, part of the philosophy of conservativism as it is traditionally known is that society is an organic thing, which is too complex to alter by active policy. That justifies a government that avoids interfering in social affairs except to ensure the liberties of the individual. That state of being, where social change occurs, if at all, by the sum of small individual actions, is one in which no social engineering exists.
And whomever taught you was a moron. Conservatism follows three broad philosophies. What you describe is quite Burkean, actually going farther than Burke who merely said attempts to change society by active policy should be minimal and slow to implement. The traditions of Hooker and even more modern conservatives is not nearly so sweeping. Neoconservatism, in general seems to follow the Hooker tradition rather than the Burkean.
To me, social engineering is the attempt to remedy a perceived problem with society directly, rather than waiting to see if it irons itself out. If Iraq was to be a situation devoid of social engieering, the approach on the part of the US would have had to have been "Let's sit back and wait; Hussein won't reign forever and hopefully something good will rise once he's gone." Instead, the US decided that it needed to help to process along by ousting him, and then remain to assist in creating a new government - and a particular form, at that - afterward. In other words, the US saw a problem with a society, and took direct action to try and remedy it. It may not have been social engineering to the hilt - I don't contest the expectation that the Iraqis would tend toward a democratic society on their own - but it is a small amount of engineering nonetheless.
Wonderful you uniformed opinion and thirty five cents can let me make a phone call. According your analogy hiring police officers would be social engineering, rather than waiting for the citizenry to make their own course of action.
Frankly not all action taken is engineering. I can build a bridge without engineering it, egineering is a specific procedure; not every policy action taken follows it.
My point, perhaps poorly stated, was that societies cannot do anything - only individuals can. To convince an entire society to act in a certain way, one must convince every member of that society to do so.
Which is essentially fallicious. One can compel members of society as well as expel them.
Human history is not the result of mass societies changing in response to sweeping, impersonal forces, as determinist historians like Fukuyama suggest. Rather, is is the sum of individual descisions in response to situations created by other individual decisions. Human societies will therefore only "tend toward" liberal democracy as long as people the world over continually decide that liberal democracy is what they want, and then decide to get up and do something about it. Without that individual action, Fukuyama's progress won't happen.
Actually I would bet that Fukuyama agrees that action must grow up from below to some degree. However it is fallicious to say that merely because behaviour occurs individually that broad sweeping forces cannot exist. Like systems of particles in chemistry, the behavious of individual molecules can be choatic and turbulent; yet the substance as a whole will act uniformly in accordance to known laws.
In other words the choatic nature of human behaviour averages out in some cases and that average responds to some broad sweeping forces.
Which invalidates Fukuyama and anyone who rests their ideas on a pro-liberal democracy deterministic view of history - if people need to be convinced that democracy will benefit them and assured that chaos and instability won't ruin the lives they already have - IOW, as long as a choice exists - then there can be no "natural progression" toward liberal democracy.
Please. Problems between perception and reality can easily see progress. in the 18th century it was a far easier sell that democracy was inferior at protecting life, dignity, and property. As time has gone on the superior average performance of democracy becomes continiously harder to deny. The more non-democratic regimes that go tits up lend credence to reality and change perceptions. To whit there is a time lag between reality and perception. Eventually the two will converge, but at present delays can occur which can even be reduced by active intervention.
Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.
