“Democracy is like the tram you drive until you scope your destination” (Recep Tayyip Erdogan)
"Democracy on the pavement, or become king" is the title of another book by Marcin Masny devoted to the challenges of today's universal crisis. This time the author focused on 1 of the most sacred and at the same time falsified concepts utilized to justify the strategy of the wider West. It is the democracy that emerged in the late 18th century. Apart from the name, this strategy differs from its Greek predecessor in a fundamental way. This was a direct democracy, while in its contemporary – typical variety the people can only talk erstwhile all fewer years by putting a cross on the ballot card.
Further levels and blockades built by those who exercise real power make even the elected representatives thus carefully selected, and erstwhile they pass the election sieve, then their power is strictly limited and controlled. 1 of the reasons why we consider specified a strategy to be apparent is many times greater than in Greek cities-states the population that lives in their modern counterparts. However, Masny clearly points out that the real motive behind the creators of the strategy was the belief that average subjects, who were named citizens to keep appearances, were not mature adequate to participate in the exercise of real power. In proof of this, he cites the statements of the creators of this system. The first is the “godless” priest Emmanuel – Joseph Sieyes, “ France should not be a democracy (in the old sense) but a typical government, ” he stated in the French Revolution. The choice between the 2 methods of legislating raises no uncertainty among us. Firstly, the vast majority of our fellow citizens have neither adequate education nor adequate free time to want to deal straight with the rights that should apply in France...”
Period over and placed 30 years later Benjamin Constant Writing, “Poor people take care of their own affairs; the rich employment the rulers.” Another crucial figure mentioned in this context was Thomas Paine, Englishman active in creating the United States strategy and then active in revolutionary France. Another origin importantly different to modern democracy from the Greek first is what, according to Masny, Aristotle did not foresee, namely the situation in which the oligarchy pretends to be democracy. Although it should be added that the Stagirite described in “Politics” the variant erstwhile “the oligarchs practice demagoguery towards the people; the example of Larys, where alleged civilian guards flattered the people due to the fact that he chose them.” In post-revolutional times, as the author rightly points out, this situation has taken place from the very beginning, mainly through secret societies, among which the masonry and plutacracy of selecting those who have the chance to choose for a visible section of power are on the forefront.
Masny besides describes historical changes in the very center of the power elite. Initially, they were mostly white Protestants, racists dividing the planet into white, civilized West and barbaric rest. It was inactive a missionary-less liberal democracy of the old type. But what more insightful observers as quoted in the book Alexis de Tocqueville They had already predicted that: "Despite the political rights of people in the age of equality, we can foretell that religion in the common opinion will become a kind of religion, the majority of which will be a prophet." The acceleration of this process took place at the beginning of the 20th century, erstwhile another pillar of the strategy was created, which was a cartel called the perverse national Reserve, and then through the president Woodrow Wilson, which brought the U.S. into war justified the mission which lies on a good, democratic America and is to liberate Europe from the evil autocracy symbolized by the evil due to the fact that imperial Germany. Political postulates followed by the increasingly progressive philosophical theories preached by John Dewey, a Frankfurt school and their perfect allies, who, in addition to increasingly aggressive action for demoralization, were possessed by judaic ancestors with hatred of Christianity, Islam, and “a fascination with instincts”. Finally, there was another crucial mutation of the democratic forerunner, the “expert democracy”, whose tragic effects we experienced late during the alleged pandemic. Here the subject is immediately discussed – the task to do is to analyse the function of organization discipline as another idol and support of the system.
Democracy is presently in a crisis, which is besides affected by the financial crisis described in another book Masny, the most crucial manifestations of which are the gigantic supply of money without covering and the equally gigantic debt of the hegemon strategy as they were, and possibly yet the US. Also, the US Army is no longer able to enforce acceptance of papers printed in America as a credible means of payment. From myself, I would add here that he created in his masterpiece “A Journey to the End of the Night” an excellent metaphor based on specified values of the system. Louis — Ferdinand Céline In a scene erstwhile American dancer Lola brutally ends her relation with the main character, holding a $50 bill in 1 hand and a pistol in the other.
Without financial and military hegemony, it is increasingly hard for the West to impose ideological supremacy on the outside and inside. And this second situation is the starting point for the most crucial part of the author's consideration. It wonders who, after the collapse of democracy, will, in accordance with the cycle already described by Aristotle, scope for tyrannical power or possibly in a milder authoritarian version. In his opinion, the effort to lead tyranny by the ruling oligarchy on a global scale, under the pretext of fighting a dangerous virus, has failed due to the opposition of business, governments and parts of societies. Another artificially created pretexts are climateism and war, but after elections in the US there is no longer a chance of their global use, but there may be a local “green” or war tyranny in the European Union.
As quoted as the motto for Stanislaw Bieleń The question of the president of Turkey is: who will first halt playing democracy and introduce more or little public authoritarianism, caesarism, tyranny, or possibly a miracle monarchy? According to Masny, it could be either a fragment of oligarchy or alleged populists, or more or little rebellious elements of the system. In Poland, it seems likely that either the creeping authoritarianism already started in erstwhile governments, and at this phase called the "democracy fighting", which is increasingly openly breaking the constitution without its formal overthrow, or the little likely strong man, who, like Napoleon III in France or Piłsudski after 1926, will lead to a change of the basic law and will appeal, for example, to the tradition of the April Constitution with a strong president and having only a ritual importance of elections. However, as Masny writes, the Polish elites are presently unaware of the breakthrough minute of history, hence the form of a fresh strategy and the choice of an autocrat or a group holding power will most likely be decided by 1 of the abroad embassies. This reminds us of the situation in Russia after the fall of the Tsar, but without Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Masny seems to suggest: it is not democracy as the title of the book says, but power is on the pavement and waiting for who decides and dares to lift it. It better be a king, not a tyrant.
But why not do so to the people and lead to actual democracy? Firstly, this is indeed technically difficult. The case of Switzerland, to which the author devotes quite a few space, is unique for many reasons. Direct democracy was built there for hundreds of years and included men who were head of the family. Notabene is worth adding that among the 2 out of 26 cantons that voted against the Covid panic in 2021, 1 was the 1 in which only men gathered on the marketplace made decisions until 1991. Cantons are tiny communities where everyone has known each another for generations, and yet there is simply a process of moving distant from ancient and proven practices due to the constant force of globalist control elites towards integration with the bureaucratic pier that the EU is.
The reasons for this are deeper and broader. Therefore, Masny consistently devotes quite a few space to changes that have taken place throughout civilization and affected the general western societies. In fact, Aristotle besides belonged to him. It is crucial to callback the Arabic classical Ibn Chalduna, The author of the assabija theory, which about explains the declines of all civilizations in which people fall into hedonism and selfishness. They can be replaced either by arabian thinker desert tribes who have not lost a sense of solidarity and healthy instincts or little than the inhabitants of the metropolis demoralized contemporary German counterparts from Muslim countries or the destiny of biblical Sodom.
Rebirth, but besides genuine due to the fact that direct democracy on a tiny scale should be based on spiritual rebirth or at least the establishment of a "common moral system", the return of tiny and medium-sized communities where democratic, but besides informed decision-making and economical freedom. An autocrat or a king could reign over specified a constructed world, not having much influence on the regular life of the inhabitants. Again, there is an “assignment”, this time in the form of the results of investigation by an outstanding Polish sociologist prof. Stefan Nowak, who revealed the existence of a sociological vacuum phenomenon in Poland in the 1970s, which the sociologist in Polish society called the deficiency of group recognition on an intermediate level between on the 1 hand the primary group which is the family, and the widely and rather vaguely understood nation on the other.
At the core of Masny's proposal is simply a imagination of civilization that existed in Europe for over 1,000 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Returning to it so seems so unlikely, due to the fact that in his opinion conservatives and another opponents of the position quo lost the memory of those times and as long as they preach any form of return to the past, it is only a return to erstwhile versions of the strategy that dominates today. More deficiency of imagination, cognition and courage. In Poland, an example of this is the nostalgia behind the times of the late Polish People's Republic, which we associate with good music and good girls in mini skirts. I would add from myself that specified a lame solution is the apology of capitalism in the 19th century version.
Massotually, he devotes much more space to Aristotle than to Plato, but it is worth remembering that the second more decisively pointed to the influence of technology on man in his mythical tale of King Tamuza and God Teuta, in which he pointed out that even the finest inventions, specified as writing, could be both a cure and a poison. It is impossible not to mention the full work in this context Neil Postman, Jacques Ellul, present in Poland Jan Białek and many another thinkers, including neurobiologists, who pointed out that technology affects what kind of people we are. However, Masny writes: “Masny’s advancement over the millennium did not harm spiritual advancement and inactive does not gotta harm. Our ancestors from a hundred, 2 100 and 5 100 years ago did not reject inventions, fresh therapies, communication facilities and sewers, but were completely different in the spiritual sphere, and above all they had developed spiritual power called will, which is uncommon today.” However, all journey by tram and the sight of young people looking at smartphone screens makes me convinced that it is simply a diagnosis besides hasty. Our attitude to inventions, all kinds of novelties, has been completely different in history, and the fresh adjective itself has frequently been pejorative not only in relation to the nouvres.
Today, the phrase "new technology" is the same or possibly even more established fetish than democracy. This involves another holiness called economical growth, which requires the disposal of old things, and preferably the production of fresh and perishable things. It is not by chance that the most unchangeable and consistently "anti-systemic" community is formed by Amish people who are not curious in modern technologies. Interesting and most likely correct, however, is the view presented by Masny of the intellectual function of modern democracy as a ritual that gives the people a sense of merit and influence on reality. His deficiency of it in a planet where 1 does not gotta exert himself to meet the basic needs of Theodore Kaczyński in his manifesto saw as 1 of the pre-causes of the self-destructive "complex of lefty" and the hatred of leftks for everything successful, beautiful or fulfilled. Outstanding German Anthropologist Arnold Gehlen He saw in it 1 of the sources of the phenomenon which he described as a hypertrophy of morality, and manifesting itself, among others, in the fact that modern-day people unload unfulfilled instincts in the full aggression of throwing pseudomoral accusations, in the search of groups allegedly injured, in the tracking of “the speech of hatred” etc. equivalents of hunting with prey or fighting on cepes.
A return to natural civilizational patterns prompting "troubles, sacrifices, even ascetics" and the revival of what is simply a "Soviet" thinker Lion Gumilov Masny calls the "selfless passion" to act together in his opinion he will most likely force people to end "artificially created comfort and universal dullness". But will it be possible for the rulers of technology to meet all basic needs without difficulty today, or to convince them that they are satisfied and discourage any fruitful effort?
The large advantage of Marcin Masny's book is to ask crucial or even essential questions about contemporary politics in a wide historical and, above all, civilizational context. The book will glean as always in this author an authentic erudition and brilliance of hypotheses prompting self-verification. I, under her influence, returned years later to Aristotle’s “Politics” and one more time found that although the form of the planet had changed, many observations from more than 2 1000 years ago stay valid. Huxley, Orwell and our Witkaci are considered visionaries or prophets, although in their time of coming “new” it was not so hard to discover. So what to think of the following passage from 2400 years ago:
“Many of the rules of government applied here were to lead Periander of CorinthBut many of these rules can besides be taken over from the Persian way of governing. They consist in not allowing prominent people to take control, but in destroying ambitious ones, that they are not allowed into associations that organize common celebrations, nor into political groups, nor into deeper education, nor anything like that, but that they search to safeguard, first and foremost, what creates common trust: neither does it let them to form associations, nor do they let them to organize social gatherings together, and they do so that everyone knows each another as small as possible (because cognition increases common trust). On the another hand, it is ensured that citizens who play in the city constantly show up in public and at the door of a tyrant appear due to the fact that in this way they are least able to hide their actions, and in constant service they become accustomed to lowering their flight of thought. besides another means of this kind, in the Persians and barbarians encountered, are applied to tyrants, due to the fact that they all go to the same goal. He besides strives to make all that he says or does to any of his subjects known to him. Spies, specified as Syracuse, the so - called informers, or “listeners,” sent by Hieron wherever there was a social gathering and convention, service this purpose. For fear of specified people, citizens show little courage to talk openly, and if they do so, it is not easy to keep it a secret. It is besides a way of ruling tyrants that people are encouraged to slander 1 another and to clash friends against friends, people against powerful people, and rich ones against others, that they are impoverished to get the means to keep the guard, and that people who are consumed day by day with activities have no time to defraud...
Here, too, there is simply a taxation burden, as in Syracuse, where there was an accident that citizens paid the full property as a taxation for Dionisius in 5 years. The tyrant is besides eager to wage war so that citizens are employed and constantly request a leader... The phenomena associated with utmost democracy besides happen in tyranny, and so women's governments in their homes, to spread their husbands' activities and, for the same reason, to loosen the discipline of slaves. due to the fact that slaves and women don't game against tyrants, and due to the fact that they're doing well, they should be kind to tyranny and democracy. For the people want to be the only ruler. It is besides a trait of tyrants that they do not like men of dignity and independence. due to the fact that a tyrant would only like to see these qualities in himself. To the ellipse of fellow guests and companions of regular activities is allowed a tyrant alternatively than a citizen, for the second are enemies in his eyes. These measures can be taken from 3 points of view, for tyranny besides has 3 aims: first, that the subjects may be little-hearted, due to the fact that the little-hearted man will not game against anyone, second, to spread common distrust, for no tyranny falls first, before certain men become confident. Hence, tyrants fight against decent people as harmful to their regulation not only due to the fact that they do not let themselves to be ruled in a despotic way, but due to the fact that they keep religion and among themselves and toward others and do not accuse each another or others. Thirdly, it has tyranny to keep its inability to act. For no 1 will take to the impossible, and so to overthrow tyranny, if he lacks the strength to do so.”
I wrote about promoting promiscuity as another way to prevent rebellions, which in ancient times was to be applied by Aristotle the tyrant of the city of Kume in Polish thought in an article devoted to education reforms. As you can see, despite the millenniums, human nature and ideas of manipulating it have not changed. However, the fact that modern tyrants have technologies of which ancients did not dream should at least give emergence to reflection, unless it is simply a reason to beat the alarm, although the book of Masny is dominated by the cold sarcasm characteristic of him. Its additional advantage is simply a fast communicative and pocket format, which makes it possible to dedicate yourself to engaging reading even in means of mass communication, forgetting the lurking around the real threat.
Olaf Swolkień
PS..This and another books by Marcin Masny can be purchased by contacting the author via: https://marcinmasny.pl/shop/
Think Poland, No. 17-18 (27.04-4.05.2025)
