The God of the Machine - Tranche 26
Posted by mshupe 1 year, 4 months ago to Government
Chapter XII, Excerpt 2 of 3
The Structure of the United States
Democracy is collective term; it describes the aggregate as a whole and assumes that the right and authority reside in the whole. Thus, democracy resolves into pure process, and even the process is fictitious, for individuals cannot actually merge. The fictitious process imagined as operating in democracy is of a physical and mathematical and non-moral order. In practice democracy must abandon its own pretended entity of the collective whole and rely upon majority.
Personal liberty is wiped out with the rhetorical transition from particles to mass. Slavery of a minority is quite consistent with majority rule . . . it has no structure, the practical defect corresponding to the moral defect. If the works and thoughts of the men who founded the United States are examined, it is evident that they had a highly developed structural sense, a remarkable understanding of form, proportion, perspective. New Englanders habitually used the phrase, “I calculate.”
Using the materials available, in accordance with architectural and mechanical principles, the founders of the United States solved the problem on which the Roman empire had failed. The Constitution is laid out on its broad general principles. They embody relations and thus are capable of infinitely complex calculation, but the intrinsic design must always be maintained. A greater volume of energy cannot alter the necessary relations involved. The belief that it does is the fatal delusion of today.
The Structure of the United States
Democracy is collective term; it describes the aggregate as a whole and assumes that the right and authority reside in the whole. Thus, democracy resolves into pure process, and even the process is fictitious, for individuals cannot actually merge. The fictitious process imagined as operating in democracy is of a physical and mathematical and non-moral order. In practice democracy must abandon its own pretended entity of the collective whole and rely upon majority.
Personal liberty is wiped out with the rhetorical transition from particles to mass. Slavery of a minority is quite consistent with majority rule . . . it has no structure, the practical defect corresponding to the moral defect. If the works and thoughts of the men who founded the United States are examined, it is evident that they had a highly developed structural sense, a remarkable understanding of form, proportion, perspective. New Englanders habitually used the phrase, “I calculate.”
Using the materials available, in accordance with architectural and mechanical principles, the founders of the United States solved the problem on which the Roman empire had failed. The Constitution is laid out on its broad general principles. They embody relations and thus are capable of infinitely complex calculation, but the intrinsic design must always be maintained. A greater volume of energy cannot alter the necessary relations involved. The belief that it does is the fatal delusion of today.
"Democracy only works until the people discover they can vote themselves bread and circuses"
"Democracy is two wolves and one sheep deciding what's for dinner".
That's what pops into my head every time I hear some politician talk about "threats to democracy".