Democracy

Summary

Dominique Pagani traces democracy back to the "Greek miracle", which he describes as an embryo of democracy: power goes to whoever has spoken best, not to the arbitrary will of a sovereign. He links this origin to scientific rationality. Measurement is democratic, since people can agree on the length of a table. Euclid's axioms are "requests": in them, mutual agreement and non-contradiction form a social contract immanent to mathematics1. He contrasts this requirement with Arendt, who rejects egalitarian democracy and calls for a political and spiritual aristocracy2. He also distinguishes formal democracy from real democracy. When a government rules only through Article 49-3, legitimacy passes to the street, in the spirit of the Social Contract3. Voters paid one or two euros show what a formal right is worth. Finally, the "societal" democracy that is claimed to be brought to Africa repeats, in other words, gunboat politics4.

1. 1#2.6 Between crisis and war: philosophising?1 Aug 2017 · 7:28
2. 2Arendt and Heidegger: the destruction of thought24 Sept 2020 · 13:55
3. 3War, neo-fascism: libertarian liberalism3 Mar 2023 · 21:22
4. 4Niger special: should we “blacken the corpses”?7 Aug 2023 · 51:55

Summary produced automatically from 13 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.