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Sunday, September 19, 2004 |
I've started rereading Eli Sagan's 1991 book The
Honey and the Hemlock - a view of the ancient Athenian
democracy from a sociologist. He talks a good deal about paranoia and
the paranoid position; democracy is, in his view, a more advanced
system of government because it makes people overcome the paranoid
position, and enforces tolerance and respect for others' independence.
It's probably six or seven years since I read the book last, and it's
interesting how much more up-to-date it seems now than it did then.
This is both good and bad. The <a
href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk">media</a> is a stronghold of
paranoia at the moment, as are many <a
href="http://www.migrationwatchuk.org">single interest
groups</a>. But I also think that there has been a cultural shift
- perhaps due to the rise of the Internet - towards greater awareness
of independence and interdependence. Although the first has poisoned
the political debate, at least in the UK, the second gives hope for a
ground-up revival.
11:51:40 AM 
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