Agony of Hercules or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger)

By Alexander Maistrovoy

Democracy: From Triumph to Suicide

What type of society most corresponds to the ideals of justice and rule of law? The answer seemed obvious: democracy. Today it seems a paradox, but ancient thought, humanism, as well as rational thinking with undisguised skepticism are related to democracy. They knew how easy and quickly it transformed into ochlocracy.

However, founding fathers of Liberal Democracy, like de Tocqueville, thought that rationalism, combined with a compulsory educational system, improvement of living standards, and an advanced legal system, would become a guarantee of democratic development. Unfortunately, these supporting columns are fatally destroyed today.

The idea of equal opportunities was changed by unrestrained craving for consumption and hedonism. We see people completely disconnected from their culture, their own country, or the world. The Principle of “the art of goodness and fairness” by Celsus the Younger, the Principle of “pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety” of The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, and the Principle of Utility by Bentham and Mill have been perverted and emasculated to the extent that they have just stopped working.

The growing “Red-Green-Brown Alliance” threatens not only Democracy, but states of the West.

But the most sinister metamorphosis has occurred to the concept of “human rights.” Human rights organizations have become the "new church," following own ideological orientation and financial interests. It canonizes "human rights," but despises the “human” as a creature that is creative, intelligent, and responsible for its own destiny. It has a distinct racist odor and shows contempt toward minorities—religious and sexual.

Astonishingly, having lost its internal stability, democracy seeks for an unrestrained expansion. We observe the silliness worthy of new Moliere's pen: "democratic elections" between tribes practicing a ritual cannibalism, as in Papua New Guinea; between tribal clans like in Pakistan; between religious zealots, as this happened in Egypt.

Wasn't it a cruel mockery of History that the EU that was on the verge of collapse virtually awarded itself the Nobel Peace Prize, as it was done by senile Soviet leaders; that the President of USA got the same prize just for empty slogans, like Leonid Brezhnev?

As it often happens in History, the most pure and noble idea degenerates into its opposite, turning into a parody of itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514444016

Alexander Maistrovoy

He is stranger in this country and doomed to be stranger till the end of his life. He is traveler from the past, from Terra incognito, which lay on the other side of the Iron Curtain from Democracy. It was an odious, twilight world isolated and immersed in itself—a world of gray cities, gray streets, gray squares, glum men, and exhausted women; a world of censorship and uniformity, where most natural things were banned and those that were not were subject to strict limitations. He got lucky. He left the Evil Empire forever, and his meeting with the new world dazed and besotted him. But he can't conceal a strange forgotten feeling. What strange reminiscences. Is it chimera, delusion, self-hypnosis, an echo of the past? Maybe. He watched the system collapsing, its foundation eroding, its fastenings cracking, its rods bursting at the joints; he watched the monumental decorative structures fall, burying millions of lives under a cloud of dust. It is not from the history books that he learned how flame leaps up from smoldering conflicts, and ugly, dark hatred erupts, and how long-festering wounds begin to bleed. But how can he explain this instinctive feeling of a deadly threat here, in the realm of freedom, universal contentment, and emancipation? Are there answers to these questions? Any civilization—the Roman Empire, Christianity, communism, or liberal democracy—can be assessed and understood only in its original coordinate system, retrospectively, and through the prism of the initial idea. Alexander suggests joining his exciting and at same time frightening study that he made.

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Copyright © 2016 by Alexander Maistrovoy.

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Rev. date: 11/11/2021

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CONTENTS

PART 1

1-1 Equal before Fate: Searching for Daimonion

1-2 Harmony of Virtue: Without Philosophy, There Is No Man

1-3 John Mill: Freedom for the Enlightened; Despotism for the Barbarians

1-4 De Tocqueville: In Search of Homo Democraticus

PART 2

2-1 You are what you have, or a Discourse on excess

2-2 Zombies on the Conveyor

2-3 An art of goodness, but not fairness

PART 3

3-1 A country without liberty, liberty without virtue, virtue without citizens

3-2 The red-brown bacillus

3-3 The Voice of Blood

3-4 It’s will of God!

PART 4

4-1 Church-of-no-freedom or Human rights against human beings

4-2 Human Rights in the service of tyrants

4-3 The sensitive hand of the artist

4-4 Feminists and gays on guard of cruelty

PART 5

5-1 The Battered Woman Syndrome

5-2 The Munich Syndrome

5-3 Firmament in the substantial void

The Epilogue

About the Author

I ’m stranger in this country, and doomed to be stranger till the end of my life. I’m traveler from the past, from Terra incognita , which lay on the other side of the Iron Curtain from Democracy.

It was an odious, twilight world, isolated and immersed in itself: a world of gray cities, gray streets, gray squares, glum men and exhausted women; a world of censorship and uniformity, where most natural things were banned, and those that were not were subject to strict limitations.

It was a realm of eternal suspicion, senile leaders and secret jokes; queues for cheap sausage and rations for war veterans, required registration in the cities, and devastated villages with eternally drunk peasants. It was impossible to buy a pair of jeans there, but only to nick them.

That world was as familiar to me as it was hateful. Nobody knew what life looked like on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and those who were lucky enough to have dealings with the bounds of the outside world were affected with a strange mixture of sadness and anxiety for the rest of their lives, like heroes of Bradbury, who had touched something amazing and wonderful.

I got lucky. I left the Evil Empire forever and my meeting with the new world dazed and besotted me. Like a fish finding itself in fresh water, supersaturated with oxygen, after a musty aquarium, I was gasping and gulping the air.

There was everything that one could wish for, and even things that were hard to imagine in the wildest dreams of a homo soveticus. The Communist slogan Everything for the sake of man, everything for the benefit of man has been embodied here in its entirety, in a paradoxical way.

People here have been uninhibited and friendly; the soap you used to buy after standing in long queues over there was used here to wash the streets; dog food here could be utilized there as an excellent appetizer to accompany a cheap port wine.

The facade was magnificent. It impressed and attracted us, causing an uncontrollable yearning to be inside this amazing country, nothing like it on Earth. But what happens? With time you begin to experience confusion and perplexity. Everything is for show, a sham: podiums and prize-fighting rings, life behind glass, cybersex. Excess to the point of paranoia and ugliness; a cult of luxury to the point of gluttony and exhaustion; spiritual narcissism and physical exhibitionism; samba, in which grace, insolence, and obscenity, taken to their extremes, complement each other.

An upside-down world, a country Through the Looking-Glass; philosophers whose French has to be translated into French; paintings of freakish figures in art galleries and drawings on the pavement and the bodies; sects leading to spirituality through group copulation; divine revelation about ways of reducing the budget deficit; The Diary of Anne Frank as an app, and a calendar featuring topless beauties, advertising Lindner coffins. Wars broadcast live with talk shows during the breaks; calls for violence as freedom; freedom as the right to strip in public. It’s Liberal Democracy: an amazing world, bustling, lively, and mad.

What a strange forgotten feeling… As if an unknown conductor were directing this motley orchestra from behind the scenes, while an invisible censor steers the pens of his chroniclers. Vast multitudes chant the same clichés and platitudes, either pompously or lugubriously, either mumbling or at full volume, but almost always automatically and vacuously. The words democracy, human rights, social justice, liberal values, humanism, freedom, and equality rain down from all sides like a swarm of buzzing insects: they are repeated like a spell, a magic mantra, a prayer. You hear them from people who have never read a single book in their lives – or even worse, they read only one book, a comic book. They think Bismarck was a Founding Father of the USA and Confucius a Turkish president. These words are repeated by pedophiles and prostitutes, by Wahhabis and scientologists, by traffickers in human beings and crime bosses, by Satanists and exotic sects’ gurus, by nudists, militant feminists, and apologists for polygamy. They are repeated by churches that promote gay marriages, and by homosexuals who support communists; by actors who talk with tyrants about freedom and equality, and by tyrants who lead international organizations for human rights. We hear these mantras from professors calling for anarchy, and from anarchists announcing the Day of Judgment; liberals praising imams, and imams patronizing socialists; trade union bosses acting like moguls, and tycoons subsidizing revolutionary movements.

And more… You can’t escape the feeling of decay, collapse, and impending nothingness; hidden fear; a close and attentive gaze that scans gradually over this whole rampage from the secret lowlands of the world. It’s as though the Eloi are flittering in the last rays of the setting sun, while the shadows of the Morlocks are already looming.

What strange reminiscences. Is it chimera, delusion, self-hypnosis, an echo of the past? Maybe. I watched the System collapsing, its foundation eroding, its fastenings cracking and rods bursting at the joints; I watched the monumental decorative structures fall, burying millions of lives under a cloud of dust. It is not from the history books that I learned how flame leaps up from smoldering conflicts, and ugly, dark hatred erupts, and how long-festering wounds begin to bleed. But how can we explain this instinctive feeling of a deadly threat here, in the realm of freedom, universal contentment, and emancipation?

Are there answers to these questions? Any civilization – the Roman Empire, Christianity, Communism or Liberal Democracy – can be assessed and understood only in its original coordinate system, retrospectively, and through the prism of the initial idea. Only knowing the fundamental principles underlying the system, will we be able to tell whether it is comprehensive, authentic, and viable. Or, on the contrary, how distant it is from its own ideal, how distorted and out of balance. It certainly requires our returning to the past, some diligence and knowledge of fundamental truths, but we have no other way. So before we dive into the stunning world of modern democracy, we should take a journey in a Time Machine…

PART 1

1-1

Equal before Fate:

Searching for Daimonion

B oth interest in man and the humanistic ideal have their roots in the same source as belief in reason. Supporters of anthropocentrism view Man as sort of a creator, whose intellectual and spiritual development led to harmony, spiritual freedom, and happiness.

Humanism extended beyond the narrow framework of a current human rights narrative. First of all, humanism was the science of human nature, the way to achieve Aristotle’s Good (Bonum).

What forces determine a person’s behavior? What is the ratio between virtue and vice? How does the degree of personal freedom reflect on social well-being? How, and by what means, does one escape from the chaos of passions and natural desires? Finally, what type of society most corresponds to the ideals of justice and rule of law?

These are questions people have confronted since time immemorial. The answer to the last question seemed obvious: democracy, the rule of the people. That was logical, since all tyrannies inevitably led to suppression and distortion of the human personality, of its development, its moral and spiritual capacities. But is democracy a panacea for human misfortunes and idiocies? Can it spread to all nations and the whole population? How can we prevent the transformation of democracy into ochlocracy – mob rule?

Today it seems a paradox, but both ancient thought and humanism, as a philosophical doctrine, as well as rational thinking with undisguised skepticism, are related to democracy.

Athenian democracy had undoubted advantages over current democracies. It was limited to a polis with a population of ten thousand people at most, of which only six thousand men, citizens of the polis, participated in public decision-making. It was not a representative democracy, where people elected their representatives to a legislative body, as happens nowadays, scarcely understanding whom they are voting for, and the moral and intellectual abilities of those they elect.

Given the abundance of different kinds of institutions, as well as the elections by drawing lots, almost every citizen of Athens got an opportunity, one way or another, to participate in governance. As for women, slaves, barbarians, and aliens, the only option for them was to submit to the will of the majority of citizens. Thus, Athenian democracy was more like an ethnocracy – i.e., rule by the dominant ethnic group.

However even in such a restricted form, ancient philosophers viewed democracy as excessive and sometimes fraught with more dangerous consequences, than monarchy.

The ancient philosophers were realists. They recognized the power of the spontaneous and unpredictable nature of man, its dependence on the outside world and temptations, fears, and attractions; they doubted that any system, even a theoretically perfect one, could allow the crowd to rise above its passions, aspirations, and the herd instinct.

Equality was a two-fold concept for them. They viewed all people as equal a-priori – regardless of origin, gender, social status; equal before the gods and fate. Every slave and merchant, barbarian and alien, plebeian and aristocrat, man and woman, elderly person and child, was part of the Cosmos and its miniature reflection. On the other hand, it was absurd and even criminal to speculate about universal political equality, because people who are incompetent, let alone ignorant, couldn’t participate in governing society. To be able to govern others, one should first be able to govern oneself: to know human nature and use this knowledge for the benefit of others.

Democracy based on simply counting votes was viewed by Socrates and Plato, Thucydides and Aristotle, with a mixture of undisguised contempt and suspicion. They were afraid of tribunes of the people and cheap demagogues; they believed that the surging will of the people can lead either to chaos or to tyranny.

Socrates, who forfeited his life for his views, was convinced that electoral democracy in its purest form is by drawing lots, but that the selection of a ruler could not and should not be determined by lot. If it is inconceivable to choose a ship captain, a carpenter, or a flutist by lot, then it should certainly be even more unthinkable to let Fortuna choose the head of state.

Democracy to Socrates meant the power of the aristocratic elite, people endowed with a sense of responsibility, knowledge, selflessness, and courage. He was echoed by Plato, who made no secret of his contempt for the demos. He saw the people as vulgar and unbridled plebs looking for a whip, a harness, and a leader.

The way out of this miserable situation, driven by human nature, did not lie in total and impersonal equality. Universal recipes for happiness for all in a designated timespan would have seemed ridiculous. But the ancient philosophers did believe in spiritual improvement through the accumulation of knowledge and self-education. The personality should strive to recognize the inner moral voice (the daimonion) of Socrates; the tranquility of the soul (ataraxia); and the apathy (inner peace) of the Stoics.

Stoics taught that the source of good (as well as evil) was in the person himself, and not in the outside world. Or, according to Epictetus, who had experienced both slavery and freedom, a slave is one who cannot control himself. He was an adherent of the Stoic school, but perhaps an Epicurean would readily agree with these words.

They believed that the laws were to be equitable, humane, and reasonable, but legislation should not be given over to the crowd. On the contrary, the enactment of laws is not so much a privilege, as the destiny of people who are educated and noble, as the Stoic Posidonius emphasized.

Practically, this meant the acceptance of elite democracy or, in the best case, a limited class democracy, even though the ancient Greeks and Hellenes did not overindulge in illusions about this, knowing how often noble men turn into slaves of their own desires.

For the Romans –a very practical and highly organized nation – the issues of governance, combining legitimacy and justice, were even more important than for the Greek thinkers. However their approach and value system remained unchanged.

Cicero, a champion of the Senate and Republic, believed that democracy was possible and even necessary, but only for people dedicated to their homeland, its ideals, and their ancestors’ legacy, rather than an arithmetic calculation of the votes of all the Empire’s subjects: slaves, aliens, barbarians, the mentally ill, criminals, and vagrants.

Tacitus, a Stoic and a follower of Cicero, had no sympathy with democracy. He did not conceal his contempt for the crowd and even his fear of it, although his was no less frightened by despotism. Tacitus preferred an aristocratic republic, but the subservience and mercantilism of the Senate aroused such strong disgust in him, that he recognized the instability of republican democracy.

The Meditations ("Thoughts/writings addressed to himself) of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher on the throne," were filled with bitterness and pain when he wrote about the moral degradation and degeneracy of Roman society. Being a follower of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius tried to resolve the almost insoluble puzzle: to achieve the maximum balance among the law, the interests of the Empire, and the personal liberty of each of his subjects. He would prefer to see a monocracy, which fully