horse of george

"... democracy is a function of culture, not the other way around... it is begotten, not made... it is not a thing you simply impose as if all the good therein will forthwith manifest itself according to some mysterious natural law... it is of a piece with the whole from which it emanates and that whole is the culture otherwise known as Western civilization... we saw with the putative Arab Spring how easy it is for people to forget this... but then that was likely just as much about creating false but convenient narratives than it was about forgetting one's history... I imagine because it's easier in a world narrowed by the intolerance of political correctness to simply focus on a mere procedural matter like voting and thereby avoid having to make value judgements, avoid having to wonder if Islam as a culture is maybe incompatible with democracy, incompatible with free speech... for certainly it is free speech and a respect for open debate, the rudiments of which were evident even in the early history of the poleis of ancient Greece, that mark the well spring of democracy, and not any notion of universal suffrage per se... voting was merely an after thought, a byproduct of a much more fundamental something else..."