A few days ago something occured to me while I was watching an episode of the West Wing and the show was waxing patriotic about the glory and pride of democracy, American gift to the world. This happens on the show every third episode or so, and most of the time it tugs my humanitarian heart strings. This time, however, I was struck with a touch of irony. Democracy prides itself in that people get to choose their own ruler, and if we don't like the ruler we have chosen, then we can pick another one. But the idea is that we rule ourselves, sort of. For some reason the passionate speech in this recent episode made me think of the Israelites' choice to anoint Saul as their ruler and king instead of keeping God as ruler and king. They doggedly decided that they wanted a man to rule over them, so they picked the most comely among them (or Samuel did, I guess, or God did, depending on how you want to look at it).
I guess it just makes me skeptical of all the freedom we champion here in the US. Not that I want to live under a tyranical, genocidal megalomaniac. I just wonder a little if "self rule" is really something as grand...or safe... as we're programmed to desire and believe. All of humanity wants it because it's the only way we all get to rule: "you can have yours but don't touch mine" at its finest. But as history unfolds and time passes, I find mself wondering if democracy will make any practical difference in the world at all. The world keeps turning, people keep living and dying, same as we have made a habit of doing. The same, if not more, evil and cruelty happen in the world today than ever before, and I'm often torn as to whether democracy (particularly coupled with capitalism) helps or hurts more. We'll see, I guess, as the great human experiment continues, with and without us.
2 comments:
If you're asking whether we as a people are more or less godly because of democracy, I'm not sure either is necessarily the case. Leaders throughout history have made claims to divinity, just as Americans as a people have made the "self" god through democracy. Like you were saying, God's intent was not to be supplanted by a human leader at all. Yet, in this day and age, I'm not sure how a country as large as ours would function without central leadership so it seems like a necessary evil.
Good call, Seth. And I s'pose if I were allowed to choose (get it?) between someone forcing fallible human misery on me or choosing my fallible human misery, I'd at least like to have a say in it. Control freaks, we humans...
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