Why Egalitarian Democracy Sucks

Pullitzer Prize winner or not, I'm not a big fan of Michiko Kakutani's book reviews. They're predictable, limp, and forgettable. So I wasn't going to read her "nod to Independence Day" review, but I read the blurb and was rendered helpless. It's an interesting article, one that I'm surprised to find in the Times (she even suggests that feminist revisionism might not be the end-all in historical analysis-gasp!).

Of course, Gordon Wood's suggestion (as recorded by Ms. Kakutani-I have not read the book), that egalitarian democracy stifles individual greatness, is nothing new. I suppose if you haven't read Plato's Republic or Nietzche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra you may not be aware of the criticism, but, seriously, how many people can there be in the Information Age who aren't familiar with Plato and Nietzche? Or at least Moses?

Cynicism aside, Wood does make an interesting argument. That the Founders, in creating a democratic Republic dependent on the common man, destroyed the possibility for future leaders of their own stature seems likely. Great men need a hierarchical society in which to grow, and democracy is the government of the midget, by the midget, and for the midget. Or haven't you read Atlas Shrugged recently?

A conclusion that would not likely be published by Mr. Wood or suggested by Ms. Kakutani is that the dwarfing impulses of democracy are such that it should itself be banished. But maybe our loss of great men should cause us to entertain that conclusion as a possibility. The medieval Scholastics are frequently mocked for arguing that feudalism had its basis in the nature of things; maybe they were not so far off the mark after all.

Link:
'Revolutionary Characters,' by Gordon S. Wood - New York Times