Reflections

e are approaching a new era.а Politics and democracy have entered their terminal stage.а Party government has become nothing more than a struggle for power, and parliaments are but arenas for self-aggrandizement.а This was inevitable.а It was inevitable because, in its modern conception, democracy separated politics from morality.а As a consequence, individual egoism was bound to supplant family and communal values.а

Democracy has fulfilled its historical function.а Its two cardinal principles, freedom and equality, liberated the acquisitive instincts, facilitated the conquest of nature, alleviated widespread toil and poverty, and opened the door to talents.а But while men and women in democratic countries enjoy unprecedented freedom and equality and material abundance, a frightful number find their lives lonely and meaningless.а The reason is not far to seek:а democracy is the dissolver of ideologies, of traditional beliefs and values which alone can endow people with a sense of solidarity and purpose.

The decency and civility still visible in contemporary democracy have nothing to do with democracy itself.а They derive from the morality of the Bible and the urbanity of Greek philosophy, especially the former.а Neither democratic equality nor democratic freedom provide any moral standards as to how man should live.а What is there about democratic equality that would prompt a person to defer to wisdom or to show respect for teachers or parents?а What is there about democratic freedom that would prompt him to restrain his passions, to be kind, honest, or just?

Today more and more people are beginning to see that democracy is in a state of decline. Advanced democracies have succumbed to the reign of quantity over quality, of opinion polls over truth.а Flim-flam has become the norm of politics.а Top-down leadership and bureaucracy have eviscerated personal responsibility, civic mindedness, even peoplehood.а The masses vote every few years and then relapse into servitude, stupefied by the tube.

Actually, there is no such thing as democracyЧnot in the modern world.а Legislative committees and cabinet ministries have become "thiefdoms."а The language of democracy is nothing but a fig-leaf for self-serving elites wallowing in decay.

The decay will become even more evident as Eastern European nations, liberated from Soviet tyranny, discover that democracy will not solve basic human problems, which are moral.а Indeed, the collapse of the Soviet Union was soon followed by an anti-politics movement among Eastern European intellectuals.а The problem confronting mankind, as Czech president Vaclav Havel has said, transcends politics or the political system:а Mankind must overcome its unauthentic existence.а Men and nations need to break the chain of lies, to live in truth and to exhibit honest concern for others.а

Democratic politics is still politics, is still devoid of honesty.а Corruption and deviousness on the part of public officials is rampant.а Democratic governments cannot overcome horrendous crime rates, drug addiction, pornography, sexual immorality, mental disorders, broken families, the decline of intellectual standards.а Democratic hedonism fuels these maladies.

Meanwhile, multiculturalism in the universities is destroying all notions of objective truth or knowledge.а This presages the end of Western civilization.а How can one teach Plato and Aristotle, Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, at Stanford University, when 40 percent of the undergraduates are asiatics.

With the decline of Communism, no one can take Marx seriously, even though Marxism, in diluted form, continues to influence Western politics.а As for Christianity, it has no architectonic significance in contemporary society.а With all due respect to its adherents, the Christian religion has become a marginal and private affair, splintered and secularized.

*а *а *

Enter Israel.а Despite its ill-designed political system, IsraelТs rebirth in 1948 provides the national foundation for the universal recognition of the Torah as the paradigm of how man should live.а Even now we behold a renascence in Jewish philosophy that promises to surpass by far the works of the great Jewish philosophers of previous ages. And now we are witnessing the interfacing of the Torah with computer science which may soon alter the entire map of knowledge.

It is in this light that we are to understand why the nations are trying to truncate and eventually destroy Israel.а Subliminally they know and fear that their modes of thought, their values, their ways of life, have no intrinsic validity.а And so it is among IsraelТs ultra-secular left-wing parties, which represent the dregs of Western civilization.а Although they control all the levers of power in Israel, they are actually powerless.а Witness their yielding to the villainous Yasir Arafat, the personification of the decadent East, to which add the playboy Bill Clinton, the personification of the decadent West.

True, IsraelТs so-called right-wing parties are also decadent; and nothing architectonic is to be expected from the religious parties, which have not only been politicized, but also genuflect to the idol of Democracy.а But so it must be in this stage of IsraelТs restoration.а Nevertheless, despite arduous times ahead, Israel will survive its traitors and tormentors, as it has for more than two millennia.а We have a Covenant with the God of Israel, and УGod is not a man that He should deceive, nor mortal that he should change His mind.Ф