English
The boorish debauchery of the electoral campaign (which in actuality has been going on for years) and the unsatisfactory quality of the supply of candidates in yesterday's elections, heavily emphasized by the tens of arrests of ministers and politicians executed as the term of Traian Băsescu is nearing its end, reveal the chasm that separates the citizens from the politicians, which distances the regime from the definition of democracy.
In the end, it's not the fact that the people chooses one politician over the other that defines democracy, but whether the elected president truly expresses the interests of the people during his term.
But yesterday, the electorate (probably only about half of it) has perhaps experienced just the satisfaction that Băsescu will be leaving from Cotroceni; since it was bound to happen anyway, the citizens' votes did not matter in that regard.
In turn, the electorate did not get to experience the satisfaction of finding a candidate that would represent our interests.
Why should I vote?!
I am the prisoner of a political class that minds its own interests, to the detriment of my interests as a citizen.
The party doesn't matter, the change of the president will not bring any change for me.
My vote matters, but for them and only for them, not for me.
I refuse to legitimize them.
The cynical undertone of the quip which states that "Democracy is a lousy political system, but it is the best that humanity has been able to come up with so far" immediately assuages citizens, by conditioning them to accept (on an intellectual level) a series of unpleasant things, even going as far as losing their freedom, their equality and the rule of the law, due to the shaky consideration that they are inherent to democracy, paradoxically so, because it is precisely these three aspects that define democracy.
Upon its examination (and not necessarily a very thorough one), the quip attributed to Winston Churchill (which is currently part of the political semi-ignorance) starts sounding whack, because the notorious cigar smoker did not bother to mention which type of democracy he was talking about and how bad the system can get before it can no longer be actually considered a democracy.
In a democracy, which is on principle the opposite of absolute monarchy, tyranny and autocracy, where the decision making power is centralized in the form of a pyramid, democracy distributes the decision-making power of the voters across several centers, assigning it to the majority, (with adjustments, to avoid generating the dictatorship of the majority over the minority).
Of course democracy is a lousy system political system, because it sacrifices certain qualities that monarchy and elitism has (I won't mention that dictatorship also has qualities of its own, to avoid shocking you; frankly speaking, it doesn't have many, except when it comes to general mobilization).
The decency limit of the freedom of opinion
The three democratic fundamental rights - the freedom of political option, the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press - generate a haze, out of which those who are in quick to judge get the conviction that "anybody has the right to an opinion", not just when it comes to politics, but also those who have to deal with the polycentric decision.
Just to give you a striking example, a master who would dare to have an opinion that contradicts that of Bobby Fischer, would only demonstrate that they are retarded and cheeky.
Just to get your attention, I will say it again: "and cheeky".
Why do I emphasize this?
Because the lack of decency is a sign of the lack of awareness of ones' value.
The hierarchy of values gets completely messed up, through the chaotic extrapolation of the principles of democracy, in an area where the hierarchy is clearly determined, and political democracy does not apply: when late Bobby Fischer snatched the world title away from Boris Spassky, in Reykjavik, in 1972, he only showed up with one so-called "consultant", who in actuality did nothing more than bring him a towel, whereas Spassky was being counseled by an exceptional team, made up of ten former Soviet world champions.
Their number didn't matter; what did was the fact that Fischer knew every game any of them had played in the previous five years and that his thinking was strategically superior.
This example from the game of chess is striking, but it is not the most fortunately chosen; in reality, the most delicate aspect of the polycentrism of the democratic decision process resides in the different foundations of the citizens' opinions, (on a scale that goes from a conception that is coherent, deep and based on comprehensive analysis, to incoherence, superficiality and narrow-mindedness), even though the principle "one citizen, one vote" is indisputably a characteristic of democracy.
Access to knowledge, morally conditioned
I will resort to another example, to illustrate the damage that democracy has caused, by providing widespread access to education and by democratizing the access to information.
Hold up, don't jump up from your seat!
Sit back down!
Please save your cucumbers and rotten eggs until after you're done reading, if you still think it would be the right thing to do!
Do you know how long it took to study in the medieval European universities in the first centuries of the previous millennium?
About twelve years, in a regime of twenty hours a day, without breaks, seven days a week; only four hours a day were reserved for sleeping, eating and other needs.
A letter written by a professor, addressed to the parent of a student in his fourth year is still around:
"I regretfully inform you that your son is not cut out for studying, because after sixteen hours of study, he falls asleep".
Why such a superhuman regime of study?
Because all the human knowledge created up until that date, and I repeat all of it could be assimilated by one man in twelve years of such harsh study.
The spiritual difference (European universities originate from monasteries) between a student and just about anybody else made democracy unimaginable, even though humanity had already experienced democracy: remember!, the transfer of knowledge was conditioned by the consolidation of the set of moral and belief values of the student, carrying forward the tradition of the Greek antiquity of the seven liberal arts, organized into the "trivium" (the first level: grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the "quadrivium" (the second level: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy).
Neither the Middle Ages nor the Greek antiquity have ensured the "democratic" access to knowledge, but not necessarily due to elitism (the elites were a result, not a cause), but because according to the mentality of the time, knowledge grants power over the others and therefore such power should not be granted to just anybody, without authentic moral and spiritual guarantees.
Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) was said to be in the middle of a military campaign, in Asia, when Aristotle, who had been his teacher, gave students the "Organon" (which is mistakenly considered to represent the unprecedented birth of logic) which caused Alexander to send him a reproachful letter:
"How dare you give the public the knowledge reserved for kings?!"
Aristotle is said to have responded to him:
"The book is written so that only kings can understand it".
Why is not only a shrewd and diplomatic answer, but also truth: the ultimate principles of Aristotelian logic require spirit, they are not mere equations.
And let's not forget, logic was part of the "trivium" (which is where the term "trivial" comes from).
The schools of democracy, in service of exploitation
Nowadays, no one is capable of assimilating all of the world's knowledge, meaning that Romanian higher education (and others countries' too) has been reduced to three years of specialized superficial sheen and two years of master's studies, because colleges no longer seek to form spirituality in their students, for their benefit, by teaching them the paths for elevating their life, but rather more meat for the grinder of exploitation.
Morality is out of the question.
On one hand, the democratization of the access to information and of the transfer of knowledge makes us gain efficiency and scope of research, but on the other hand, rather paradoxically, education has lost its spiritual attribute, meaning we can invent dynamite and then, faced with the crimes our invention has occasioned, to set up the Nobel prize, to repent for our guilt, just like we would buy papal indulgences.
After all, if anybody has the right to an opinion, that means they can change it anytime.
We are living flatly, without depth, without height.
Without miracle, without magic.
Without mystery.
Socialistically.
And if, like Ceauşescu did to us, you uproot the population from its traditional village culture and drag it into the city, without inculcating them with the urban cultural values, amid the demographic explosion of caused by the ban on abortions (even though the schools don't have enough teachers for all this flood of offspring), then you will get an enormous mass of individuals, on the edge between two worlds - neither villagers, nor city dwellers - the definition of the boor.
Mass media, summoned to manipulate the masses
The theory of manipulation and the practices of education in democratic systems converge into the procedures of personality "standardization", creating human typologies that have been deprived of any sources for exaltation or anxiety (which are part of the human condition), in order to make them resemble as close as possible the sociological abstraction of "the average citizen" (by the way, sociology is concerned not only with the absence of the instrument of the experiment, in the absence of which nothing is "science", but also with the fact that it doesn't study humans, but rather an artificially created abstraction through mass education and manipulation - if you don't take that seriously, then take it as a joke, but it will cost you!).
The manipulation of the masses becomes possible only when the individuals are all made to be similar, so that the manipulators can treat the masses like just one individual, with a conscience that is diminished by the ceremonial of the discourse and the collective chanting of slogans.
The masses become permeable to political, as well as commercial and cultural worthless elements.
The mass-media is called upon in both stages of the manipulation: to cooperate with the schools in the mutilation of the spirit, through the robotic and over-the-top humorous entertainment it provides, by validating boorishness, which it supplies with the anthems (the Romanian gypsy songs) and the heroic stories (the South American soap operas); and at the same time, to promote the political and commercial jackstraws.
Adrian Năstase is a textbook example: first of all, the "sophisticated intellectual" with a refined humor, declared himself a friend to Mugur Mihăescu (who played the character Garcea), the actor of the crude baboonery of comedian group "Vacanţa mare", who had the benefit of a huge popularity, and then Garcea himself entered politics, by becoming an executive president of the Green Party.
Is it any wonder that Năstase later decided to shoot the skin off his neck off?!
Nowadays, the kitsch and the boorishness of the Romanian political "class" taint anyone who tries to get involved in politics (to say nothing of the generalized corruption).
The abolition of monarchy causes globalization
Hold on a little longer before you start throwing cucumbers at me!
What qualities of hereditary monarchy does democracy do away with?
First of all, dynasties claimed that their authority came from God, with kings frequently rising to the status of anointed by God.
This aura of sacredness which surrounded monarchs has required they be shown a reverence that was different from the one of meritocracy, plutocracy or technocracy, leading to ceremonies (that were always the object of envy for presidents that were democratically elected) which made him different from the rest of the people, so that the authority of the king would be indisputable, and he would become a symbol himself.
But his symbolic nature also had another source: as the representatives of a dynasty, monarchs guarantee the permanence of national values, through heredity - they are their symbol.
That is why some of those who were sentenced by the queen to be guillotined would yell "God save the Queen!", before they were executed.
They weren't speaking about the queen that was temporarily a queen, but to the national values.
But, national values are somewhat of an obstacle to the financial push for globalization, so that, on the road to pyramidal continental and global integration, we first of all go through a process of "democratization", by diluting the permanence of national values: some of them now, others later, according to the party that gets the power.
In turn, the dimming of national values weakens the cohesion and collective experience, making it easier to uproot us and turn us into "universal citizens" of the "global village" - dazed ants, lost on the surface of an unimportant planet, pen to any suggestion, just to find a purpose for ourselves.
Both Christian churches (I want to mention that I am an atheist), the Orthodox and the Catholic church alike, have caught on to the fact that they are no longer successful in serving their function of of helping us in find the purpose of our life; the dogmatic crisis ("dogma" and "kerigma" - the experience of the sacred and the guide to the quest) that we are going through right now can only be matched by that of the first centuries of Christianity, from the period of the canonization of the Holy Ghost.
The loss of self-respect
Seeking our particular image as a nation, at first by using our specific cheeses and then our brandy, an advertising firm has delivered it to us as the picture of a leaf, plagiarized from another commercial.
No one had the time to remember the deep influence that the Orthodox beliefs had on our nation's identity, nobody realizes the heroism of this subtle, minority faith, in a Christendom that is overwhelmingly catholic and is superior in terms science and technological effectiveness, because no one resonates with the motto of the Romanian Royal Family Casei Regale "Nihil sine Deo".
One Romanian historian even had the audacity to say that we don't have and never had an identity as a nation, but the sad thing is not how he hurt our country (which he belongs to as well), but the major success that his opinions had among the intellectuals, the shallowness of the people with education, who did not understand his insult - the sign of the degradation of self-respect, a degradation which the book encourages.
With an education system that does not cultivate spirituality, just people ripe for exploitation, under the pressure of the media manipulation ordered by the political and commercial entities that promote nullities and generalize the theoretical and practical lack of self-respect and the inferiority complex, the national sovereignty becomes all the more vulnerable to the abuse of integrism and globalization, making us forget that the ritual of our traditional hospitality and the war-like ritual described in the Romanian traditional ballad called "Mioriţa" (which the literary critics mistook for fatalism, when it is nothing more but an extreme preparation for a victory in the fight) are legacies that create a unique pairing in Europe, (that pairing is only found with Bedouins), of a refined, humanistic culture.
Sovereignty, endangered from inside
When speaking of sovereignty, one usually thinks of foreign threats, but ours has regressed to the point where it is being threatened from within.
In a democratic regime, we consider the people to be "sovereign".
In our case, politics has become autonomous, setting its own filters for promoting "new members" - people that are malleable like putty, due to the absence of the backbone provided by moral principles.
Migration from one political party to the next and the wheeling and dealing that parties do together are actions that prove that the members of political parties, regardless of any political affiliation, have one essential characteristic that they share: they are idiots.
In this particular case, the word "idiot" does not mean stupid and, even though it may upset you, it does not represent an insult, because I am using it with its old meaning, of the ancient Greek language: "idiotes", one who works for their own benefit, unlike "demiurgos", who works for the benefit of the community.
The ruling class is disconnected from the interests of the community and when its own interest demands it, acts against the interest of the people, which is, theoretically, the "sovereign".
Tomá¹ Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), the first president of Czechoslovakia, is mistaken, in our case, when he claims: "Democracy has its flaws, because people have their flaws. The store resembles its owner".
Masaryk may not have heard of store clerks that rob their boss blind, but to us it is a common fact.
Representative-based democracy creates idiots
Democracy in itself, wouldn't have been so harmful, had it not evolved from the stage of "representational democracy", but instead had remained in the form it had in ancient Greece, as "indirect democracy", where idiotization was prevented by the gradual shortening of the term of public servants, as they rose higher in the ranks, meaning that the head of the city (the equivalent of today's president) had a term which lasted only one day, and they would be constantly rotated.
But a presidential or parliamentary term that lasts four or five years for the president and the members of the Parliament gives politics the time to become a universe in itself, a cesspool - meet the old boss, same as the old boss.
Churchill should have mentioned which one of the forms of democracy he is referring to when he said it was a bad political system, because representative democracy is undoubtedly a far worse system than direct democracy, which does not allow the confiscation of the sovereignty of the people to the benefit of idiots.
In the 17th century, when democracy was once again implemented, representation solved the issue of the impossibility of the entire nation gathering in a single area, whenever decisions which concerned the national interest were supposed to be made, which led to the creation of the Parliament, which is not just a building, but more importantly, the assembly of the representatives of the people.
A few centuries later, the Romanian socialist democracy invented the quip: "The Romanian people drinks champagne, through its representatives".
Let's imagine the direct contemporary democracy
Today, the technical development of communication would allow direct democracy.
Americans have already brought up the issue of legalizing voting via the web.
The internet, mobile phone networks, even voting through the TV set's remote would cover the electorate of the country, even in Romania, not just in the case of the Americans.
And yet there isn't even one politician that says anything about moving to direct democracy.
The clever Traian Băsescu has focused his effort on "renewing the political class", with zero results, (even though he did get his way with the Referendum to change the structure of the Parliament), but he never once considered disbanding it.
The country can, in fact, be led through an ongoing referendum, in which case the press would play an essential role in disseminating the issues and crystallizing opinion.
Politics would include every citizen and only then would Masaryk be right.
Instead of a conclusion: the Constitution of the Spirit
It is troubling that a simple issue, like the political system, resorts to so many subterfuges, by developing complex and sophisticated theories simply to prevent the obvious solution for it from being found.
After all, the problem is whether to respect spiritual freedom or not, with all the material and legislative means of action that would lead to that result.
Nowadays, democracy's territory has been encroached upon, by being mixed up with monarchy, plutocracy and technocracy, under the pretense of collecting the qualities of opposing political systems, and in a manner that would be ridiculous if it weren't tragic, democracy itself has actually been forced upon the Arab tribal societies, in contradiction to its definition.
Choosing the political system would not be a very complex intellectual problem, if spiritual freedom were respected.
This latter statement brings politics, which should actually be a marginal issue, closer to the territory of spirituality - a topic which is essential.
In closing, I would propose to you, that you evaluate the notion of a constitution which has as its main and fundamental statement the following:
"Man has the status of spiritual being".
Now develop the remaining articles of the constitution on your own.
And now, all of you who were patient enough to read everything I had to say, can start throwing cucumbers at me.
Euro
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Liră sterlină
Gram de aur
