Author: M. Farahi Tujegi
Islam and Democracy (part 6)
Democracy in the scales of criticism of Western scientists
In the previous discussions, the merits and demerits of democracy were discussed, but in the next few topics, the issue of criticism of democracy will be discussed in the balance of criticism of new and old western scientists. What is the dignity of democracy from the Viewpoint of Islam and what is it like, will be discussed in detail in this context later. Political science scientists have put the democracy system under the microscope and have introduced problems to it from various aspects and have questioned the lofty claims that have been made for it, some of which are mentioned below.
Socrates said: “Isn’t it a superstition that the mere number or the majority will lead to wisdom?”
Socrates, who died in 399 BC, is the most famous philosophical figure in the world, and it is unlikely that anyone does not know him. Some call him the first teacher. He believed that when moral and religious restrictions are removed in a government like democracy, everyone is free to do whatever they want; The result is that instead of healing the society, education worsens social conflicts and conflicts, and this is the disease that democracy suffers from. Therefore, Socrates compares democracy to the rule of ignorance and selfishness.
“Isn’t it a superstition that just the number or the majority will cause wisdom? Don’t we see that all over the world the masses of people are more stupid, violent and cruel than the few and scattered people whose education and knowledge have separated them from other people.”
Plato said: “Democracy is the symbol of the government of the ignorant.”
Plato, who died in 347 BC, is a student of Socrates and is famous like him. Plato considers democracy to be the government of ignorant people, in which people lack justice and moderation and have moods and whims and become opinionated. The result of such a government is the execution of wise men such as Socrates and the selection of members of the five-hundred-member council of Athens by lot; While the lottery is a stupid method and just as you cannot make someone a doctor or a cook by lottery, you cannot and you should not consider people to have the profession of politics by the lottery method. Plato’s criticism is that he says that when you get sick, you don’t ask the majority to gather and see what kind of disease I have, but you go to a doctor or someone who specializes in this; So why should we pay attention to the opinion of the majority when governing? “Democracy is the symbol of the government of the ignorant.”
“Democracy fulfills the desires of the people and its leaders make the popular desires the criterion of politics.”
Thomas Aquinas, who died in 1274, is one of the most important figures of Christian political thought. Because monarchies are closer to the order of nature, while democracies are far from this order.
Niccolò Machiavelli, who died in 1527, is a famous Italian political philosopher, poet and playwright, who is most famous for his pamphlet “The Mayor”. Francis Bacon says: “We owe it to people like Machiavelli to show us the world of politics and its leaders as they are, not as they ought to be.”
“Democracy is an unstable system and does not maintain the power of the government; While a strong government needs a leader who organizes political life.
Hobbes said: “Democracy is unworkable; Because people are deceived by promises.
Thomas Hobbes, who died in 1679, is one of the most prominent European philosophers and political theorists, who played a large role in the formation of new knowledge of politics. He preferred a “monoarchy” monarchy to a democracy. Because he considered the monarchy to be the guardian of the comfort and security of the society more than other governments. According to Hobbes, democracy means the direct government of the people through an unexecutable parliament; Because the general public is only thinking about their own personal desires and therefore they are seduced by the promise of this and that. So those they choose are not their true representatives; They are the ones who only fulfill the wishes of the people.
John Locke, who died in 1704, although Locke is considered the designer and father of democracy in its modern sense and is one of the most important political philosophers of the West, in his works and those of his followers, we can see the opposition between liberalism and democracy. That is, liberalism and democracy cannot be satisfactorily combined, and moreover, the plan of liberal democracy cannot be successful in the end. [Levin. Design and review… He considers two types of dictatorship formed within democracy. The first type is the influence of the thoughts of the majority in the law to limit the minority, and the second type is the opinions of the majority, which causes restrictions for certain groups.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who died in 1778, is a very famous French-Swiss philosopher and writer, some of his words can be found in the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and even in the constitution of many countries. Rousseau is one of the fathers of the French Revolution. He is of the opinion that only the correctness of the method of direct and universal voting (direct democracy) can be proven and nothing more; It means to get people’s votes for anything.
“Democrats cannot justify representative government, or indeed anything less than direct democracy.”
