placetobe
08
So, is democracy failing? According to Michael Fuerstein of St. Olaf College it might be. Not only do modern philosophers think democracy might be failing, but one of the most influential philosophers of all time, Plato, has actually been warning everybody about democracy for thousands of years. Although Plato inclined to turn his back on politics after Athens was defeated by Sparta, he had strong opinions on oligarchies (a small group of people having complete control over a country) and democracies – before declaring politics a hopeless mess. He had little faith in the rich ruling, nor did he have confidence in the ability of ordinary people to run a city. Plato believed oligarchies were bad because the people running the government typically had their special interests in mind, and would do anything at any cost to defend these advantages – even at the liability of their own people. He believed that democracies, however, were no better because ordinary people get swayed too easily by deceptive politicians. Not to mention that democracy was the reason for Socrates’ (his teacher’s) death. Michael fears that democracy has ultimately failed to the same reasons Plato warned. Ordinary people were swayed into voting for a deceptive politician - Trump.
Ultimately, nobody really knows if Trump’s victory will be the “downfall” of democracy to the extent that modern philosophers describe today. What we do know is that as painful as Trump’s victory was for some people, we must continue pouring efforts into perfecting democracy. After all, according to Aristotle, we have logically not experienced true democracy. Although it is obvious that democracy is vulnerable in certain scenarios, we must not give up our hope on the democratic system.