The Century of the Self: Can True Democracy Exist?

This is a great video ~3hs of 4 ep, i recommend watching it all, but my post is about the first episode.

Quick Summary of the 1st Ep:
Edward Louis Bernays was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations", and creator of consumerism that we have to this day, founding on the gentle principle of the herding of the masses.

Introduction aside, i think it's important to acknowledge that, as ego-stripping it may be for some, that the knowledge to manipulate the public exists, and has existed long before we were born.

But to get to the point, what surprised me was that Sigmund Freud himself, believed that the concept of Democracy, as righteous as it was, was impossible due to the irrational and uncontrollable beast that resided within man, and was even more unstoppable within large numbers.

Leading to the belief that true democracy could never be accomplished, and that a steady hand, must always be at hand, either behind a party state, a face, a corporation or an unintelligible shadow.

And after watching the first part, i dare so say that i have become a skeptic of the "rightous" and free-willed idea of democracy that we have today.

Can there be even hope for democracy? In this dark and ugly world of man?

Or is it simply a utopia - a fairytale that is only to be believed?

first of all you have to answer the question mentioned above "what defines democracy". Democracy as it was born doesnt respect minorities for instance.

But that aside I think there are several issues one of the being freedom.
For a true utopia to work people should be free, however most people are scared of this freedom.
This freedom means responsibility, it means that you are in charge of your life and there will be no one else to blame then yourself. It also means dealing with the sometimes painfull truth for ex. you have to deal with your own mortality.
Due to this fact people seem to try to escape this freedom so, you can give people all possible freedom but how can you obligate them to be free?

The problem with "true democracy" is that people are going to try to exploit it to their own needs.

Many would want it to be 50.000001% to 49.999999% minimum to win JUST to get their own agendas out and thus paving way for a dictatorship.

I think that's why it's a good reason why it's better to go for 2/3s and 3/4s to challenge or approve something in certain parts of the law system.

Many people have already sugarcoated the meaning of "true democracy" just to make it sound better, while it's just a mob mentality they like.

a true democracy is just way too difficult to pull off in a country of the size of say the US. Making sure to count every single vote would be very time-consuming and not much would get done (even less than what gets done now). Not to mention in a democracy you get the inbred hillbilly getting the same voting power as the astrophysicist. we know for sure the larger amount in this country is.

Well I think it's more about the concept of democracy then the technicalities involved in it. Also if there are more so called "inbred hillbillies" what give the "astrophysicist" minority the right to reign over them?

Simply put, No it can not. I would elaborate but, Alexander Tytler put it far more eloquently than I ever could.

So are human beings ultimately not responsible & stable enough as a crowd to decide on majority votes?

If so, is a republic a facade for such a problem or a solution?

People are scared of the differences between them this ultimatly leads to opression of minorities.
As for giving power to a select chosen group, while giving power to a capable people is rather effective, these people often tend to forget their mission to lead the mass and resort to abusing the very people that gave them power.

More like human beings are selfish and lazy which would eventually cause the downfall of any system they have input into that is unless fear gets to it first.



Just another facade. The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves.

Elaborating moreso, if the purpose of government were to ensure the "freedom" of its people, then every system of government is fundamentally a facade. If however, one identifies a government's "mission" or responsibility as to ensuring the well being of its people then there are ways to do so.

Where a democracy fails, as noted by Fiery, as noted by the Founders is that democracy cares not for the well being of "its" people but the majority of the people.

The Libertarian position, then is one of self-apathy. The libertarian does not want to use "force"(ie: Governance) to resolve its problems but instead believes these problems can be sufficiently resolved between the conflicting parties in question.

I rejected Libertarianism, on the account that a Libertarian to me is a watchdog without a bark or a bite. Libertarianism is akin to Anarchy. Just as a political thesis cannot be agreed upon by the people it is all the moreso unlikely that the people could govern themselves.

Libertarians believe in individual conscience and individual choice, and reject the use of force or fraud to compel others except in response to force or fraud. In other words, force can only be morally justified when resisting.

Straight out of the Libertarian Party platform





Libertarians want to abolish as much government as they practically can. About 3/4 of party Libertarians are "minarchists" (such as myself) who favor stripping government of most of its accumulated power to meddle, leaving only the police and courts for law enforcement.

So please, tell us how a philosophy that still advocates for a state (even a tiny, narrowly defined one) can be Anarchist? Aren't anarchist supposed to oppose the very concept of a state?

I think thats a bit radical, given an effective system people are willing to work hard an cooperate in order to improve together. The problem is installing such a systen in a globalised world.

Democracy is not people cooperating together because democracy lacks voluntarism. Without voluntarism, there is no cooperation. Sure, in a democracy everyone is "cooperating" in the process but, the end result doesn't grant you a choice beyond do X or go to jail.

Lets say you belong in group A while I belong in group B.

Group A wants to raise taxes or impose a law on group B. For comedic sake, lets say group A wants to ban the raising of domestic chickens in urban areas while group B are people who currently raise domestic chickens in urban areas.

So group A & B will have a vote on the ordinance. If group A wins then group B will have to give up their chickens because group A says so. If group B wins however, then group A will try, try and try again until domestic chickens are banned from Urban areas.

So whose cooperating? Group A is attempting to impose it's will on group B because it disagrees with group B.

What if instead of raising domestic chickens, it was about the consumption of sugary drinks?

Group A wants to regulate, tax or ban the consumption of sugary drinks while group B wishes to remain unharnessed by such a law. So groups A&B will have another vote. If group A wins the sugary drinks will be regulated, taxed or banned and group B will just have to deal with it or risk the penalties for breaking these laws.

Democracy is conflict, not cooperation.

Final Note: "Improving together" is subjective. I would view it as an improvement if I was able to keep more of my paycheck, had to deal with fewer laws, less invasion of my privacy and more protection for my rights while people would find one or more of those as quite the opposite of improvements.

I never said this system was democracy, democracy as Rousseau saw it is full power to the majority while neglecting minorities.
As for Improving together, no there are no real objective means to measure this but the least we can do is agree to certain basic principles for ex. human rights.
I realise this is a very hard task, men still have to learn how to react to this globalized world that scares them. Still there is no other way then to keep going towards this goal, the only way men are willing to cooperate is with a strong authority that regulates them.

I drove in on democracy because it's the topic of the thread.



That still doesn't classify as cooperation. If we could count on voluntary participation, we probably wouldn’t need the government (or any authority) involved in the first place.

The cooperation lies in the willingness to accept a collective authority instead of only doing what benefits you. People will do this voluntary because in return they hope to be safe, get fed,... . In other world the fear of a cruel and selfish world drives humans to cooperate and instal authority.

Shifting the topic of discussion closer to the topic of the thread, after watching more of The Century of the Self, from my understanding there are basically two competing opinions on the state of human nature:

1. By Sigmund Freud, that people are basically animalistic and need a society and 3rd bodies to keep them in check.
2. That people are inherently good, and that it is their environment and society that forces them to become corrupt/animalistic.

EDIT: removed evil

I think its meant as slave to his own needs rathen then evil, how would you define good and evil anyway.

I think evil is standard in human nature, we're driven to commit violence without so much as an after thought in most cases.

I was reading an article which I can't seem to find anymore, about a woman who went down to a subway I believe in like new york or some big city and set up a table. This table had knives, guns, feathers, roses, and other different items on it. And for 6 hours, she stood there and anyone do whatever they wanted to her and she would not fight back.

People cut off her cloths, cut her skin, stuck the roses to her skin so the thorns pieced skin, and one person even held the gun to her head and was about to shoot her but luckly someone took the gun away from that person.

It was just a simple experiment to see what would happen without restrictions, and nobody even bothered to really protect her during this experiment.