The Evolution of Representative Government

Education of public opinion is the only safe and true method of accelerating civilization; force is only a temporary expedient, and cultural growth will increasingly accelerate as bullets give way to ballots. Public opinion, the mores, is the basic and elemental energy in social evolution and state development, but to be of state value it must be nonviolent in expression.

The Evolution of Representative Government

Unread postby Paul Kemp » Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:39 pm

The Evolution of Representative Government
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THE EVOLUTION OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

71:2.1 Democracy, while an ideal, is a product of civilization, not of evolution. Go slowly! select carefully! for the dangers of democracy are:
1. Glorification of mediocrity.
2. Choice of base and ignorant rulers.
3. Failure to recognize the basic facts of social evolution.
4. Danger of universal suffrage in the hands of uneducated and indolent majorities.
5. Slavery to public opinion; the majority is not always right.

71:2.2 Public opinion, common opinion, has always delayed society;
nevertheless, it is valuable, for, while retarding social evolution,
it does preserve civilization. Education of public opinion is the only
safe and true method of accelerating civilization; force is only a
temporary expedient, and cultural growth will increasingly accelerate
as bullets give way to ballots. Public opinion, the mores, is the
basic and elemental energy in social evolution and state development,
but to be of state value it must be nonviolent in expression.

71:2.3 The measure of the advance of society is directly determined
by the degree to which public opinion can control personal behavior
and state regulation through nonviolent expression. The really
civilized government had arrived when public opinion was clothed with
the powers of personal franchise. Popular elections may not always
decide things rightly, but they represent the right way even to do a
wrong thing. Evolution does not at once produce superlative perfection
but rather comparative and advancing practical adjustment.

71:2.4 There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a
practical and efficient form of representative government, and these are:
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