There, I finally finished The Case for Democracy. Only 279 pages, but when my reading gets limited to about fifteen minutes a night, I fall back on weekends for catch-up.
This was a fairly easy and interesting read. Sharansky makes his case not from abstract theoretical arguments but rather from his experiences as a Soviet Jewish dissident in the USSR and as a statesman in Israeli politics.
I could quote a few sentences that very nicely sum up the book's thesis, which is just why I won't do it. Go read it yourself. However, the following caught my attention:
When some questioned why Israel was not using information [Peace Watch papers keeping tabs on Palestinian compliance] that could be very helpful in exerting diplomatic pressure on the Palestinian Authority to comply with its agreements, Israeli officials scoffed that it was the government's role to determine whether the Palestinians were fulfilling their commitments. (pg. 158)
So where does the informed citizenry of a democracy come in? Where government bureaucracy leaves off, I suppose... which would seem to be wherever the informed citizenry doesn't come in.
I do not believe in an end of history. The diversity of the world ensures that there will always be argument and conflict. (pg. 278)
Not sure that I would define history as "argument and conflict." And I do believe in an end to history; at least, an end to recorded time. Then again, who really knows?
But as "the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is [definitely] wearying to the body" (Ecclesiastes 12:12), I am off to bed. Goodnight.
6 comments:
The "end of history" here, I'm guessing, is the one described by Francis Fukuyama.
His "end of history" thesis in the early 90s held that the global political divisions we have known for centuries are disappearing. After the fall of the USSR, there would still be isolated authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, but the globally accepted theory of government is the democratic model. It would just be a matter of time before everybody fell into line. Hence, an end to geopolitical history as it had been defined up to that time.
I don't think anybody -- including Fukuyama -- ever thought this meant Utopia had arrived. But the thesis is holding true in a sense; even many people of Bin Laden's sensibilities tend to espouse democracy as an ideal. And note that today, the greatest perceived threats to the West are not nation-states but independent groups; that also marks a fundamental change in the way we view the world.
Thanks, Wilson. I was going to comment, but decided to think more first.
... And I thought of something to add to what I said before. :-)
If we take "history" to mean our various records of the past (rather than the past itself), then I think it makes sense to define history in terms of conflict. Traditionally, all narrative is defined by the conflict between the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s). An end to conflict is an end to the story, whether it ends happily or unhappily.
In a more objective sense, of course, people keep having experiences even after victory or defeat. On that basis, we could say that no story or history ever really ends. But we typically end a narrative when a particular conflict ends. If we want to keep talking about a particular character, we begin a new story.
By the way, I am somewhat skeptical of Fukuyama's thesis. I'm just noting why I think the title works as a metaphor.
You've explained everything so well that I really have nothing to say. Just some mere comment. :)
I do see much better how the "end of history" metaphor works, especially when I think as a humanist. If God doesn't exist and man isn't fallen, we may get there yet. Two conditions that are meaningless to my mind.
You know, defining narrative as the conflict between a protagonist and an antagonist sounds like a literary definition. I wonder if there could be other definitions of a story... like an entire life. No one writes books that way, but if I could somehow experience a story in real time, that's how I would define it. Of course, then it might not be exactly a story.
In a sense, I suppose, biography tries to do that. However, we only get to read biographies of people who fit into some larger story (i.e., "important" people) and then we only get to read the interesting parts.
Besides being boring, a minute-by-minute log of someone's life would also be meaningless to other people. I would not be enlightened at all by the fact that Winston Churchil brushed his teeth at 9:06 p.m. on April 23, 1944 -- unless perhaps I were putting together a story about humanity's long conflict with tooth decay and halitosis. Even if such information were interesting as mere whimsy, it would become tiresome by about April 26.
So even in the most mundane history, I think conflict is necessary for not only interest but also meaning.
Oh... well... by "entire life" I didn't mean such detail, and wasn't necessarily referring to recording history - merely reconsidering the definition of a narrative.
All this reminds me of one of my professors at Grace, who likes to say, "God is writing a cosmic drama."
Post a Comment