People have been having ideas for eons. It’s what we do. “I think, therefore I am,” as the saying goes. Literally everything we now do and have came from someone thinking it up and launching it into the world. But sometimes the best concepts don’t always remain good ideas, at least as a whole. Concepts are peculiar that way.
Take for example, democracy. What we know to be democracy now isn’t the same as it was when it was born in ancient Greece. Some democratic concepts only applied to the Greek lifestyle, others just didn’t cut it as civilization grew. So democracy morphed as time went on. Some principles stayed, some were discarded, and others were changed to suit the needs of the times.
Yet its all still good. Democracy is still the best form of social structure we’ve ever had, and will remain so if we allow it to evolve with the needs of the people. Because after all, democracy is adherence to the will of the society its put in place to fulfill the needs of.
But society changes as we all time travel from the past to the present. Democracy, by its definition then, also needs to change with society. In fact, one could surmise that a great democracy would have to change more frequently than one set too rigidly, because the better the democracy is, the more liberty it dispenses. Thus, in a democracy that gives liberties liberally, people are allowed to pursue their own preferred lifestyles, which in turn gives rise to needed adjustments in the over all concept of what democracy means to that society as those lifestyles begin to impact society as a whole.
However, when a democracy refuses to be fluid enough to fulfill the needs of all its people, other concepts begin to emerge. Socialism, Marxism, and Fascism are examples of democratic offshoots brought about because the society they were born in didn’t allow democracy to bend to the will and needs of everybody.
Conceptually these ideologies weren’t terrible, but where they went wrong was, they attempted to replace democracy rather than being used to fix the problem democracy was having with run-away Capitalism.
Now the really cool thing about society is, it has the ability to learn from its mistakes. But will it?
Apparently many European nations have, including England and France. They’ve remained democracies while injecting some socialist concepts in to keep their playing fields level. Does this make them Socialist countries? Or does it make them Democratic countries using some socialistic principles to fix their problems?
What we’re seeing now in the United States indicates there’s a need for an adjustment in how its democracy handles an imbalance. Once again, run-away Capitalism with all the greed that comes with it is becoming oppressive to many of its citizens. The administration is making attempts to fix the problem, but many on the right are screaming “socialism.”
So where do we draw the line? When does a democracy become a socialist society?
Well when does a philosophy become a religion? Isn’t it when the philosophy becomes the only guideline in a person’s life? After all, you can subscribe to some Buddhist teachings without being a Buddhist, right? You certainly have the ability and the right to “take what you like and leave the rest.”
Then what’s wrong with understanding why the philosophy of socialism came about, determining if any of it might be something we’d want to “take” and use to fix a similar problem in our democracy, and “leave the rest”?
We have to remember, democracy as it was designed in the United States, fulfilled the needs of all its people at the time. If we hold to that rigidly, even though the needs have changed, we will create an imbalance in the liberties and freedoms of all the people.
Yet at the same time, changing doesn’t have to mean “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” If an idea or concept creates a better balance and thus a “more perfect union,” rejecting that idea or concept solely because of the stigma the ideology as a whole represents, would be foolish to say the least.
But on the other hand, merely calling something a democracy when its no longer for all the people doesn’t automatically make it so either.
