Importance Of Democracy

In the modern world democracy is often pictured as the ultimate egalitarian and moral political system. Institutions such as the United Nations believe that “democratic governance is the process of creating and sustaining an environment for inclusive and responsive political processes and settlements” . Even though, it is described as the most moral political system, is it really appropriate to claim that it is a universally valid form of rule. It depends on how the term is defined. Democracy can be easily defined in the simplest of terms as the “rule by the people for the people”, as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently said in his Gettysburg Address. It could also be defined according to modern philosopher Amartya Sen, as a system of “complex demands,

In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato argued that the human condition was to live in a lie, and to protect the lie, while the philosopher enlightened by the sun, could see the truth and was in its pursuit. This made Plato argue that perhaps it is necessary for humans not to choose their own leaders, but for philosopher-kings to rule. Furthermore, this idea of the human being blind to the truth shows why democracy might not be the best system of government, as ignorance of our human condition may lead to irrational decisions. Continuing, he also argues that democracy leads to tyranny, and one of the ways it did this was because the democratic man lacks balance. He lacks balance according to Plato because of the fact that the human is composed of three parts, reason, spirit and desire and according to his point of view the democratic man only has desire. This idea may seem ridiculous at first, but is not so far fetched in the world today. This sole desire and hunger for power, has lead for many, initially democratically elected leaders to become tyrants, such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who has turned from a democratically elected leader, to a tyrant leader. This is important because it shows a fatal moral and practical flaw in democracy that not only threatens the legitimacy of the universality of the system, but of the system