21. THE ULTIMATE BREAKTHROUGH We hear so much these days about how wonderful democracy is that it probably came as quite a shock to learn in the previous lecture that a philosopher as great as Aristotle regarded it as a bad system! Why do people believe democracy is so good? Most of you are probably thinking: Because it gives us maximum freedom. Yet this is actually incorrect. What democracy gives its citizens is power and authority in deciding what laws will be enacted. Yet if Aristotle is right, the net result is likely to be bad, because the good men will probably be in the minority. And in that case, these good men will be unable to exercise enough control to implement truly wise policies for the city. The stories of Socrates and Jesus provide two good examples of how the majority tends to make the wrong decision, for they were both sentenced to death as a direct result of something like a democratic vote. Despite the many differences between these two events (e.g., Socrates defended himself at length, whereas Jesus remained silent before his accusers), there is a basic similarity. In both cases the majority of the people allowed to voice their opinions felt it would be better for the city to have these men executed. With this in mind, let's examine more closely how Aristotle's three pairs of political systems differ in the level of freedom they offer to their citizens. It is often said that there is no such thing as unlimited freedom: indeed, freedom is normally defined by reference to some limitations, such as the self-imposed limitations of loyalty to an authority, or obedience to laws. So the question here is, how does each type of political system set up a boundary line around the citizen's freedom? A king requires a high level of loyalty from his subjects, to the extent that they cannot properly be called "citizens" at all; but in return a good king gives his subjects a high level of freedom. Their daily lives need not be encumbered by excessive laws as long as they remain loyal to the king. The ruling class in an aristocracy requires a more moderate level of respect and loyalty, but offers in return only a moderate level of freedom. More laws are needed to keep the lower classes under control, and these laws restrict the freedom of all citizens. Finally, in a polity (or timocracy), and even more so in a democracy, the level of freedom for the citizens is actually at a comparatively low level--despite the common belief to the contrary. Why? Because in these systems there is little or no need for the citizen to be loyal or respectful to fellow citizens; so instead, a complex network of laws must be instituted in hopes of preventing the stronger citizens from mistreating the weaker ones. In a polity or a democracy the laws take away freedoms and replace them with rights. Aristotle's framework of political systems clearly reveals that such a sacrifice of freedom is the price that must be paid by those who wish to minimize the risk of tyranny. For a system offering a higher level of freedom can quickly change into its opposite, which will offer little or no freedom to the citizens, but will promote injustice and oppression of a type which is unlikely to occur in a democracy. This inverse relationship between freedom and risk is made clear in the table given in Figure 21.3, summarizing the eight basic types of political system (including two new ones we will examine today). A modern version of Aristotle's framework might look quite different: the main distinction could be between "democratic" and "totalitarian" systems (instead of "republican" and "monarchical"); socialists and libertarians could then represent the "extreme" forms of democratic systems, with the liberals (or democrats) and conservatives (or republicans) representing the "mean" forms. Nevertheless, by providing an adequate framework for understanding how political systems operate (whatever we call them!), Aristotle has demonstrated how loyalty to those in power forms the boundary line through which political systems make freedom possible for their citizens. This paradox, that higher degrees of freedom are possible only by sacrificing more and more of our rights to a higher power, is closely related to another problem, which is actually a fairly common theme among political philosophers. Indeed, many introductory philosophy courses would devote most or all of the lecture(s) on political philosophy to a discussion of this other problem, the one raised by the conflict between freedom and equality. Both freedom and equality are typically regarded as ideals which ought to characterize a good (and today that usually means a "democratic") political system. Yet if everyone were totally free to do as they pleased, then there would be a great deal of inequality: the strong would tend to overpower the weak; the rich would tend to deprive the poor; the powerful would tend to disregard the powerless; etc. Such an extreme state of having no ruler (and no rules) is called "anarchy". On the other hand, a state of total equality between everyone could come about only by taking away the freedom of the people involved. B.F. Skinner's famous novel, Walden Two, gives a good example of the latter. The ideal society he imagined in that story is one in which psychological conditioning is used to determine the relationships between everyone, so that the people live in a state of harmonious equality, even though they have no freedom. There are two fundamentally different ways of responding to this problem of the conflict between freedom and equality. The first is to attempt a compromise. This is the option taken by democratic political systems (i.e., by "republics", to use Aristotle's term [see Figure 20.1]) . There are, of course, many different ways of conceiving how that compromise can best be made. For example, socialists do so by tightening governmental control of the economy, thus reducing the level of inequality by reducing the level of freedom. Libertarians, by contrast, do so by loosening such governmental controls and trusting in a natural economic force, which will regulate the changing levels of both freedom and equality. The second response to this problem is to refuse to compromise, on the grounds that what is needed is a breakthrough. This is the option taken by utopian political systems. For example, in its original, Marxist form, communism is a political philosophy that claims it is possible to have a society in which individuals enjoy the highest degree of both freedom and equality. Karl Marx (1818-1883) believed work is the most important factor giving meaning to a person's life, for we are what we do. Yet in the capitalist societies of his day, Marx saw that most workers were alienated from the product of their labor by the greedy entrepreneur, who used the workers as objects, as a means of making money. If only the people would stand up and revolt against this and other evils perpetrated by capitalism, he proclaimed, a new society would be ushered in. Marx's vision of this society of perfect communion between people was one in which everyone would give work "according to their ability" and take the products of labor "according to their need". Unfortunately, the twentieth century has given us ample proof that the character and motivations of the people who revolt against injustice simply are not as pure as Marx dreamed they would be. Communism as a political system has failed for precisely the same reason that Marx believed capitalist-style democracy had failed: in both cases the more people try to take freedom and justice into their own hands, the more they become slaves of the injustice they themselves have created! There are numerous other models for utopian societies; but I would like to focus special attention on one alternative to communism which is rarely acknowledged as a viable political system, even by those who are supposed to believe in it. This is the vision of a utopia quite different from Marx's communist state or Nietzsche's Superman; for it is a vision of the purpose of the earth as determined and controlled not by people breaking through the limits of alienation or of a self-denying outlook, but by God breaking through into the hearts of mankind. Most religious people believe not only that God exists, and that we can somehow communicate with God, but also that God has a plan for this world--a plan whose ultimate fulfillment cannot be thwarted by any counter-efforts on the part of mankind. Some religious people believe this "plan" is somehow magically limited to a "spiritual" realm, and that in the "material" realm of (for example) economics and politics, human systems can function quite apart from this divine plan. However, the deepest (and most philosophically-minded) religious thinkers have always affirmed that such an artificial distinction is illegitimate. If there is a God with a plan, then this plan relates just as closely to the political activities of entire societies as it does to the moral actions of any individual within a given society. The best name for the idea that God's rule applies not only to the operation of divine power in human hearts, but also to its operation in the courtroom and the market-place, is "theocracy" (since theos means "God" and kratos means "power"). Unfortunately, this term has often been used in the past to refer to a deceptively similar idea, which is actually quite opposed to theocracy in its pure form. Traditionally a political system has been called a "theocracy" if a religious group (such as a church) regards itself as God's mouthpiece on earth, so that whatever policies the leaders formulate must be accepted by the people as direct commands from God. In order to distinguish this traditional usage from what I believe to be the proper meaning of "theocracy", I have coined the term "ecclesiocracy" to refer to any political system in which the power is wielded by the leader(s) of an "assembly" (ekklesia) of religious people. Typical examples of ecclesiocracy would be the nation of Israel during the period following Ezra and Nehemiah (i.e., after returning from the Babylonian exile), most of southern Europe during the time of the Holy Roman Empire, and the city of Geneva during the latter part of John Calvin's life. The reason it is so important to distinguish between ecclesiocracy and true theocracy is that, although the latter is really a vision of the "kingdom of God on earth", which for any religious believer would obviously be the best of all possible political systems, the former is a perversion of this ultimate ideal. And as we learned from Aristotle, the perversion of the ultimately good system would be the ultimately bad system. Ecclesiocracy perverts theocracy by replacing God's autonomous rule in the heart of each individual with a religious version of one of the humanly-rooted political systems. This means one or more human beings end up wielding power over the ordinary members of the religious assembly, using the name of God as an authenticating guarantee. Yet this is the tragedy of human religion: that in trying to lead other people to God many religious believers end up blocking other people from receiving the very spiritual power they believe they are promoting. Indeed, this happens whenever one person imposes a set of standards upon another person, claiming that God only works in this particular way, so that everyone who does not conform to this particular conception of God's Way will be rejected by God. Among the many problems with this all-too-common attitude to religious beliefs is that it assumes we human beings can actually grasp God; true theocracy, by contrast, assumes only that to follow God's plan a person must be willing to be grasped by God. And this usually means being ignorant of God's Way until the moment it is actually revealed in your own heart. I believe this "pure" form of theocracy is presented throughout the Bible (and in the Scriptures of many other world religions, though not always in such a pure form) as an actual political system. The difference between theocracy and all other political systems (including ecclesiocracy) is precisely in the fact that theocracy alone renounces all rights of human beings to govern themselves, acknowledging God as the only true governor. In this sense theocracy could be called a "non-political political system", provided we understand that his phrase must be interpreted in terms of synthetic logic. The political philosophy called anarchy (i.e., "no ruler") actually shares with theocracy the notion that people only perpetuate injustice when they try to use laws to govern themselves; however, since it rejects all rule, it cannot properly be called a political system as such. Viewed from the perspective of someone who does not believe in God, theocracy would be hard to distinguish from anarchy. The difference, of course, is that theocrats all believe in a common guiding principle which unites everyone together inwardly, whereas anarchists are left with nothing but infinite diversity and an unresolvable struggle between opposing wills. In the Bible, as in other religious literature, the kingdom of God is presented as something that comes suddenly, invading the realm of human justice with a divine justice which can neither be predicted nor comprehended in human categories. This divine invasion is primarily an invasion of the human heart; yet, as the New Testament makes clear in many ways, a person's response to this change should not be merely interior, but should revolutionize every aspect of the person's life. Jesus' suffering in particular must be seen as a thoroughly political kind of suffering, directly related to his radical rejection of any human means of achieving justice on earth. The message of the cross and resurrection is a theocratic message: only when we die to human ways of governing ourselves will we allow God to invade us with a new life characterized by true justice. The contrast between this notion and that of Nietzsche's Superman suggests that we can call this way of resolving the problems of human injustice "God's transvaluation of values". The way God's justice breaks through all forms of human justice (including those upheld by supporters of ecclesiocracy), thus imparting a new meaning to words like "equality" and "rights", is pictured in Figure 21.1: [Figure 21.1: God's Transvaluation of Values] Many of the implications of theocracy as a political system are too complex to be discussed here. However, I will mention one of the most significant implications: that it rejects the idea, so often taken for granted in modern western culture, that we have rights, such as the rights to "life, liberty, and happiness". In place of this assumption it claims that human rights should never be regarded as anything other than gifts from God. Only if we recognize that we have no rights of our own, and that we therefore owe absolute loyalty to God, will we be given absolute freedom. In the Bible this freedom is not just spiritual, but also thoroughly political. Theocracy is therefore the direct opposite of democracy, which emphasizes human rights in return for strict limitations on our freedom. Yet theocracy does not require the destruction of other systems. On the contrary, it can coexist with any of Aristotle's six systems (even democracy). For the freedom it offers starts in the human heart, and loosens our attachment to any and all of the limited, man- made political system under which we live. The fact that theocracy is described most often in the Bible in terms of a kingdom suggests it is most properly viewed as a kind of monarchical political system, rather than a republican one. Indeed, if we consider theocracy and its perversion, ecclesiocracy, together with Aristotle's two forms of monarchical political system, kingship and tyranny, we can depict their relationship as a perfect 2LAR, arising out of the two questions: (1) Is the system a religious one? and (2) Is the system good (i.e., "correct")? Just as theocracy is a religious form of kingship (since it regards God as the king), ecclesiocracy is a religious form of tyranny. The same two maps used in Figure 20.1 to describe the relationship between the four republican political systems can therefore be used to map the relationship between the four monarchical political systems: (a) As a Flow Chart (b) Mapped onto the Cross [Figure 21.2: The Four Forms of Monarchical Political Systems] Figure 21.2a shows how ecclesiocracy is the extreme form of theocracy, just as oligarchy is the extreme form of aristocracy. Moreover, just as kingship degenerates into tyranny, theocracy degenerates into ecclesiocracy when the role appropriate only for a divine being is usurped by human beings. In this sense, ecclesiocracy is the root form of all tyranny, because its oppression is spiritual as well as physical. [Figure 21.3: Eight Basic Types of Political Systems] By putting the 2LAR cross here in Figure 21.2b together with its republican correlate in Figure 20.1b, we can now construct a perfect 3LAR. The three questions out of which the complete set of eight possible political systems arises are as follows: (1) Is the system monarchical? (2) Is the system either religious or ruled by a few people? (3) Is the system good (i.e., "correct")? These eight systems could be mapped onto a double cross (i.e., a pair of concentric crosses, with one rotated at a 45x angle from the other). But instead of drawing this complex figure here, I have provided a more detailed summary of the relationships between the eight systems in the table given in Figure 21.3. This table lists the eight types of political system from the best to the worst, together with the 3LAR component corresponding to each. The second column provides a simple description of how the name for each system is derived from some key Greek word referring to its source of political power. The third and fourth columns compare the levels of risk, freedom, and rights provided by each system. And the fifth column summarizes and expands Aristotle's analogy between the citizen-state relationship and the relationship between various members of a family. The truth or falsity of theocracy is not something that could ever be demonstrated by any philosophical or scientific proof. Rather, it must be accepted as a "myth", in the special sense introduced in Lecture 2, as a truth which is so true that it cannot even be questioned by those who live their lives by its guiding light. This does not mean, however, that there is no reason for believing in theocracy. On the contrary, upon stepping into the myth, a person will discover that God Himself breaks into their life in real, concrete experiences, whose validity can hardly be doubted. But for this reason--in other words, because theocracy can be validated not by science and the love of wisdom, but only by experience and the wonder of silence--I will refrain from discussing this religious point of view any further at this point; instead we shall return to the topic of religious experience in Part Four. If we now take a step back and look at the variety of solutions we have considered to the problem of finding the best political system, it would be easy to become discouraged. Indeed, the same could be said for most of the other topics we have discussed, especially here in Part Three. Without a doubt, the theme I have come across most frequently in reading students' insight papers has been the idea that philosophical questions have "no definite answers"; and this is sometimes used as evidence for the view that the realities to which such questions refer are either nonexistent or irrelevant to real life. However, I hope I have demonstrated by now that both of these views are incorrect. Far from finding no definite answers to the questions we have been considering, we have usually found many definite answers! For good philosophers seek objective answers, just as much as natural scientists do; the problem, of course, is that philosophers are unable to attain the level of agreement reached by natural scientists, because philosophical questions are concerned with ideas, rather than empirical objects. In other words, the problem raised by the experience of coming face to face with a reality of which we are necessarily ignorant is usually not the problem of having nothing to say about it; on the contrary, the problem is that we have many, apparently conflicting things to say about it. The task of the philosopher, therefore, is to seek to fit each part of the puzzle together in such a way that the true aspects of each answer can be recognized for what they are. Any philosophers who accept the love of wisdom as an essential part of their task will never be satisfied with a single, supposedly all-encompassing answer; yet this is not because they doubt such an answer exists, but because they have seen a glimpse of its awesome reality! In discussing various branches of applied philosophy here in Part Three, we first considered the question of causality, which arises in the philosophy of science. Hume's view of "habit" is a definite answer: it defines his idea of what causes our feeling that objects and events are governed by a power of necessary connection. Kant's argument that the "law of causality" is necessary for the very possibility of experience is a definite answer to the same question. These contrasting ideas were not put forward as mere opinions, as if Hume were claiming he preferred to live in England rather than Scotland, and Kant were arguing that he would prefer Scotland; these men were expressing views which they believed everyone who wishes to think philosophically ought to affirm as true. In this case these two definite answers to the same question appear to contradict each other, though there may be some way of viewing both as correct. For example, we could regard Hume's answer as correctly describing what we can discover by limiting ourselves to an empirical perspective, while Kant's describes what we discover by adopting a transcendental perspective. Next we considered the question of right action, which arises in moral philosophy. Once again, we saw how Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche each proposed a definite answer to this question; yet their answers came out looking very different. Likewise, when considering the nature of right government, which arises in political philosophy, we saw that Aristotle had six definite answers; yet subsequent philosophers have proposed still other alternatives that Aristotle never imagined. When such inevitable conflicts of ideas arise between different philosophers, we should not infer that such questions must, in fact, have no answer at all. On the contrary, we should take it as a challenge, either to determine which one of the definite answers is the most adequate, or else to show how two or more of these answer can be true simultaneously, each in its own limited way. In so doing we will not only be establishing a set of justifiable perspectives within which knowledge (i.e., science) can arise; we will also be learning what it really means to love wisdom. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT 1. Would philosophers make good kings? 2. Is anything in the world really fair? 3. Do human beings have any inborn rights? 4. How can God have a "kingdom" on earth? RECOMMENDED READINGS 1. Stephen Palmquist, Biblical Theocracy: A vision of the biblical foundations for a Christian political philosophy (Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 1993). 2. Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party, tr. Samuel Moore (Moscow: Progress Press, 1952[1888]). 3. B.F. Skinner, Walden Two (New York: Macmillan, 1948). 4. John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1972).