Tradition & Democracy
English Essay on "Tradition & Democracy"
The word tradition is derived from a Latin word, which means that which is transmitted. It can be both oral and written. The term covers a wide range of subjects. In its ordinary sense, tradition stands for customs, beliefs and conventions inherited from the past. However, there is deeper meaning enshrined in this term which has become oblivious in the modern world. From the metaphysical point of view, tradition is attached to a doctrine which belongs to an intellectual order.
Generally, the doctrine is metaphysical or religious. Traditional social institution, in principle, are effectively attached to a traditional doctrine. It is this attachment which essentially differentiates them from modern social institutions. The emergence of the Greek civilisation was point of departure from the traditional civilisations including those of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldae, Persia and India. The Greek or Hellenic civilisation had certain amount of originality but it was essentially a fall from the intellectual order this fall consisted in three main aspects: Fiest, the universal concepts were individualized. Second, the intellectual was displayed by the rational. Third, the metaphysical point of view was eclipsed by the scientific or philosophical one. The Greek passed on these constrictions to posterity. Rene Guenon aptly remarks: “It is almost as if the Greek, at a moment when they were about to disappear from history, wished to avenge themselves for their own incomprehension by imposing on a whole section of mankind the limitations of their own mental horizon. When the Reformation also came to add its influence to that of the Renaissance, with which it was perhaps not altogether unconnected, then the fundamental tendencies of the modern world took definite shape.
Thales, of Miletus, was the first Greek philosopher who discarded the mythological and supernatural explanations in his study of the universe and substituted a scientific or philosophical approach to the problem. Behind the multiplicity of the universe get searched for a principle of unity. He could not appreciate that tradition was qualitatively different from anthology and super-naturalism and in the absence of tradition one could never find the real principle of unity. The pre-Socratic philosophers had no inkling of raditiona1 cosmology, thus they went on repeating the same essential mistake till the emergence of the Sophists who degenerated further in discarding the very idea of studying the nature of the universe. They concentrated on the study of man and declared both knowledge and ethics. But, in the absence of traditional knowledge, his differentiation between individual opinion and rational conceptualization essentially remained normal. The supremacy of individual or human reason cut the tidings of tradition. It was in this profane climate that democracy was born in the ancient Greek city state of Athens which is the ancestral abode of the modern democratic states. The birth of democracy meant the elimination of traditional hierarchy and the instauration of the false idols of ‘majority opinion, equality and freedom. It was a direct democracy or purified one with the underlying institution of jury which purified Athens of Socrates preached reason but without the light of intellect reason remains groping in the dark. Thus, in a sense, Socrates died at his own hands. At a later stage, the Athenians wanted to confer the same honour on Plato but he ran away from Athens saying that he did not want the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy. History is replete with such notable examples where democracies have destroyed many an individuals. It is this leveling process punctuated with the law of averages and mediocrity which defines the mood of the modern man. Our criticism of democracy and its allied forms is not to strengthen the case of its adversaries for both democratic and anti-democratic forms are essentially the same since they are poised on the horizontal plane; their fruit may be sweet or bitter but they essentially spring from the same profane foot.
What is democracy? Democracy is a term which is derived from the Greek words, demos (people) and krateein (to rule). It means ‘rule by the people.’ Direct democracy in the process of development, has come to assume a representative character. Whether it is in majority rule or a proportional representation, the will of the voters remains supreme. Once the will of the voters is accepted as supreme, it amounts to the negation of the principle and the reversal of the hierarchical order. Rene Guenon says: The most decisive argument against democracy can be summed up in a few words; the superior cannot emanate from the inferior for the simple reason that the greater cannot be derived from the less; this statement is an absolute mathematical certitude which nothing can gainsay. It is obvious that the people which they do not themselves possess; true power can only come from above and this is why, be it said in passing, it can only be legitimised through the sanction of something superior to the social order, that is to say by a spiritual authority; where things are otherwise, one has nothing but a counterfeit of power, existing in actual fact but unjustified through an absence of principle, a state which can spell nothing but disorder and confusion. This reversal of hierarchical order occurs as soon as the temporal power tries to render itself independent of the spiritual authority and then to subordinate t to itself while professing o make it serve political ends; this is the initial usurpation which opens up the way to all the others.
Individualism rejects both supra-individual order and the supra-rational order and thereby the corresponding, spiritual authority. Individualism leads to division and multiplicity and in the absence of unity there is discord, divergence and ills-union. Unfortunately, the latter day representatives of the Semitic religions, for instance, fell prey to this brute individualism. Even the ignorant and the incompetent stood to interpret the Scriptures on the basis of their private judgements based solely upon the exercise of human reason...and the result was what was to be expected: dispersion in an ever-increasing number of sects, each one standing for no more than the private opinions of a few individuals,’ Protestantism, theocracy and modernism are essentially the same in that they create dispersion, division and multiplicity by ascribing to the pseudo principle of private judgement.
It is only by dint of the traditional or intellectual authority of the elite that real unity can be achieved. Democracy is based on three questionable operational axioms: majority opinion, equality and freedom. The notion of universal consent or the idea that majority should prevail can never become a criterion of truth for even granting that there might be a question upon which all men happened to agree; that agreement would prove nothing in itself.’ Agreement is the manifestation opinion and it may have nothing to do with truth. The distinction between opinion and knowledge is not created for in the very concept of democracy. Democracy installs opinion instead of knowledge for it is easy to manufacture opinion thereby creating the illusion of universal suffrage. The opinion of the majority cannot claim competence for itself, since numerical strength is no guarantee of truth. The democratic conception excludes all genuine competence, since competence always will imply at least a relative superiority and therefore must necessarily belong to a minority.
Democracy by eliminating the concept of traditional hierarchy propagates a false notion of equality. It errs in its Idea that any one individual should be accounted the same as any other, simply because they are numerically equal and in spite of the fact that they can never be equal other than numerically. A genuine elite...cannot be anything but an intellectual one; this explains why democracy is only able to install itself where intellectuality has ceased to exist, and its power or rather its authority, which it derives from its intellectual superiority alone, has nothing is common with that numerical strength which forms the basis of democracy and of which the inherent nature is to sacrifice the minority to the majority and also, for that very reason, quality to quantity and therefore, the elite to the masses.’ The principle of equality has no appreciation of the true elite. It ends up in creating false elites based upon regard for certain pre-emineritly relative and contingent points of superiority, always of an exclusively .material order.’ Further, the notion of equality coupled with the idea of freedom dupes the people to choose any profession of their choice in utter disregard of their individual natures. It not only creates anarchy in a society but deprives the younger generation of its ancestral wisdom. People choose against their individual natures and generally fail to realise the possibilities of their existence. The absence of a tradition is, in fact,, the absence of a generation from its true vocation.
Tradition simply teaches that each individual should realise the possibilities of his on individual nature. Both individual and universal realisation is possible by dint of relative and absolute freedom respectively. Democracy stops short at the doorsteps of real freedom. It has restricted view of relative freedom and has no idea of the absolute freedom. Absolute freedom belongs to the being who has become absolutely ‘one,’ at the degree of pure Being, or ‘without duality’ if his realisation surpasses Being. It is then and, then alone, that one can speak of a being who is a law unto himself,’ because this being is fully identical with his sufficient reason, which is at the same time his principal origin and his final destiny.
Generally, the doctrine is metaphysical or religious. Traditional social institution, in principle, are effectively attached to a traditional doctrine. It is this attachment which essentially differentiates them from modern social institutions. The emergence of the Greek civilisation was point of departure from the traditional civilisations including those of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldae, Persia and India. The Greek or Hellenic civilisation had certain amount of originality but it was essentially a fall from the intellectual order this fall consisted in three main aspects: Fiest, the universal concepts were individualized. Second, the intellectual was displayed by the rational. Third, the metaphysical point of view was eclipsed by the scientific or philosophical one. The Greek passed on these constrictions to posterity. Rene Guenon aptly remarks: “It is almost as if the Greek, at a moment when they were about to disappear from history, wished to avenge themselves for their own incomprehension by imposing on a whole section of mankind the limitations of their own mental horizon. When the Reformation also came to add its influence to that of the Renaissance, with which it was perhaps not altogether unconnected, then the fundamental tendencies of the modern world took definite shape.
Thales, of Miletus, was the first Greek philosopher who discarded the mythological and supernatural explanations in his study of the universe and substituted a scientific or philosophical approach to the problem. Behind the multiplicity of the universe get searched for a principle of unity. He could not appreciate that tradition was qualitatively different from anthology and super-naturalism and in the absence of tradition one could never find the real principle of unity. The pre-Socratic philosophers had no inkling of raditiona1 cosmology, thus they went on repeating the same essential mistake till the emergence of the Sophists who degenerated further in discarding the very idea of studying the nature of the universe. They concentrated on the study of man and declared both knowledge and ethics. But, in the absence of traditional knowledge, his differentiation between individual opinion and rational conceptualization essentially remained normal. The supremacy of individual or human reason cut the tidings of tradition. It was in this profane climate that democracy was born in the ancient Greek city state of Athens which is the ancestral abode of the modern democratic states. The birth of democracy meant the elimination of traditional hierarchy and the instauration of the false idols of ‘majority opinion, equality and freedom. It was a direct democracy or purified one with the underlying institution of jury which purified Athens of Socrates preached reason but without the light of intellect reason remains groping in the dark. Thus, in a sense, Socrates died at his own hands. At a later stage, the Athenians wanted to confer the same honour on Plato but he ran away from Athens saying that he did not want the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy. History is replete with such notable examples where democracies have destroyed many an individuals. It is this leveling process punctuated with the law of averages and mediocrity which defines the mood of the modern man. Our criticism of democracy and its allied forms is not to strengthen the case of its adversaries for both democratic and anti-democratic forms are essentially the same since they are poised on the horizontal plane; their fruit may be sweet or bitter but they essentially spring from the same profane foot.
What is democracy? Democracy is a term which is derived from the Greek words, demos (people) and krateein (to rule). It means ‘rule by the people.’ Direct democracy in the process of development, has come to assume a representative character. Whether it is in majority rule or a proportional representation, the will of the voters remains supreme. Once the will of the voters is accepted as supreme, it amounts to the negation of the principle and the reversal of the hierarchical order. Rene Guenon says: The most decisive argument against democracy can be summed up in a few words; the superior cannot emanate from the inferior for the simple reason that the greater cannot be derived from the less; this statement is an absolute mathematical certitude which nothing can gainsay. It is obvious that the people which they do not themselves possess; true power can only come from above and this is why, be it said in passing, it can only be legitimised through the sanction of something superior to the social order, that is to say by a spiritual authority; where things are otherwise, one has nothing but a counterfeit of power, existing in actual fact but unjustified through an absence of principle, a state which can spell nothing but disorder and confusion. This reversal of hierarchical order occurs as soon as the temporal power tries to render itself independent of the spiritual authority and then to subordinate t to itself while professing o make it serve political ends; this is the initial usurpation which opens up the way to all the others.
Individualism rejects both supra-individual order and the supra-rational order and thereby the corresponding, spiritual authority. Individualism leads to division and multiplicity and in the absence of unity there is discord, divergence and ills-union. Unfortunately, the latter day representatives of the Semitic religions, for instance, fell prey to this brute individualism. Even the ignorant and the incompetent stood to interpret the Scriptures on the basis of their private judgements based solely upon the exercise of human reason...and the result was what was to be expected: dispersion in an ever-increasing number of sects, each one standing for no more than the private opinions of a few individuals,’ Protestantism, theocracy and modernism are essentially the same in that they create dispersion, division and multiplicity by ascribing to the pseudo principle of private judgement.
It is only by dint of the traditional or intellectual authority of the elite that real unity can be achieved. Democracy is based on three questionable operational axioms: majority opinion, equality and freedom. The notion of universal consent or the idea that majority should prevail can never become a criterion of truth for even granting that there might be a question upon which all men happened to agree; that agreement would prove nothing in itself.’ Agreement is the manifestation opinion and it may have nothing to do with truth. The distinction between opinion and knowledge is not created for in the very concept of democracy. Democracy installs opinion instead of knowledge for it is easy to manufacture opinion thereby creating the illusion of universal suffrage. The opinion of the majority cannot claim competence for itself, since numerical strength is no guarantee of truth. The democratic conception excludes all genuine competence, since competence always will imply at least a relative superiority and therefore must necessarily belong to a minority.
Democracy by eliminating the concept of traditional hierarchy propagates a false notion of equality. It errs in its Idea that any one individual should be accounted the same as any other, simply because they are numerically equal and in spite of the fact that they can never be equal other than numerically. A genuine elite...cannot be anything but an intellectual one; this explains why democracy is only able to install itself where intellectuality has ceased to exist, and its power or rather its authority, which it derives from its intellectual superiority alone, has nothing is common with that numerical strength which forms the basis of democracy and of which the inherent nature is to sacrifice the minority to the majority and also, for that very reason, quality to quantity and therefore, the elite to the masses.’ The principle of equality has no appreciation of the true elite. It ends up in creating false elites based upon regard for certain pre-emineritly relative and contingent points of superiority, always of an exclusively .material order.’ Further, the notion of equality coupled with the idea of freedom dupes the people to choose any profession of their choice in utter disregard of their individual natures. It not only creates anarchy in a society but deprives the younger generation of its ancestral wisdom. People choose against their individual natures and generally fail to realise the possibilities of their existence. The absence of a tradition is, in fact,, the absence of a generation from its true vocation.
Tradition simply teaches that each individual should realise the possibilities of his on individual nature. Both individual and universal realisation is possible by dint of relative and absolute freedom respectively. Democracy stops short at the doorsteps of real freedom. It has restricted view of relative freedom and has no idea of the absolute freedom. Absolute freedom belongs to the being who has become absolutely ‘one,’ at the degree of pure Being, or ‘without duality’ if his realisation surpasses Being. It is then and, then alone, that one can speak of a being who is a law unto himself,’ because this being is fully identical with his sufficient reason, which is at the same time his principal origin and his final destiny.
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