One of the
things I am becoming convinced of that is a downside of democratic rule is the
fact that it creates a situation where the commoners rule (I should note that I am a commoner). This is a bad
situation for a host of reasons, but at the core of why it is no ideal is that
fact that commoners are prone to overriding long held national and cultural
traditions. You have likely heard the saying, don’t move a fence until you know
why it was there. This is speaking to the fact that while inefficiencies and
errors can build up in a system over time, including a national system, there
is also the fact that checks and balances are built into traditions that serve
the interests of the nation. Commoners who rule just tend to ride all over
these things.
What brought
this to mind for me recently is seeing how the commoner, Herod, who became
Herod the Great did this exact thing while he was ruling in Israel. We read in
The Life of Herod,
Pagan Celebrations
As
a result Herod began to depart still further from national custom, and slowly
corrupted our traditional way of life, which till then had been inviolable, by
the introduction of foreign practices. Even in later times we suffered great
harm as a result of these policies, with the neglect of the observances which
formerly inspired piety in the masses.
In
the first place, he instituted a celebration of athletic games every four years
in honour of Caesar, and built a theatre In Jerusalem and also a huge
amphitheatre in the plain, both of them conspicuously lavish works but alien
to Jewish custom, which has no use for such buildings and no tradition of
public displays of this kind.
Even
so, Herod celebrated the festival in the most splendid fashion, advertising it
to the neighbouring countries and inviting contestants from the entire nation.
Athletes and other classes of competitor were summoned from every land,
attracted by the prizes offered and the glory that victory would bring them.
The foremost performers in each event were brought together, since Herod
offered magnificent prizes not only for the gymnastic events but also to
musicians and the players called thymelkoi, and spared no pains to
persuade all the most famous of them to attend. He also offered large prizes to
charioteers for races between fours and pairs, and to mounted riders.
For
costliness and magnificence he fully matched the efforts of other nations in his
ambition to create a glorious spectacle. All round the theatre there were inscriptions
in honour of Caesar, and trophies of the nations that he had conquered in war,
all of them made for Herod of pure gold and silver; and as for the equipment,
there was no fine garment or jewelled vessel too precious to be on show during
the presentation of the events. Wild beasts, too, were provided, as he had
collected a large number of lions and other animals of exceptional strength or
rarity, and these were pitted in combat with each other or set to fight with
condemned criminals.
Foreigners
were amazed at the expense involved, and entranced by the danger of the
spectacle, but to the native Jews it was a flagrant violation of their hallowed
customs. To them it seemed a manifest impiety to throw people to the beasts for
the entertainment of spectators, and an impiety to change their customary ways
for foreign practices. Nothing, however, offended them so much as the trophies.
They imagined that there were lifelike images enclosed within the armour, and
deeply resented it, as it was contrary to their national tradition to venerate
such objects.
Even
Herod could see their agitation, and as he thought it would be inopportune to
force their compliance he tried persuasion in an attempt to win people over and
dispel their religious scruples, but it was to no avail. Disgusted by
innovations which they found offensive they were loud and unanimous in their
protests, insisting that whatever else they might tolerate, they could not
allow human images in the city, as it was against their national tradition; and
this was a reference to the trophies.[1]
Herod was a
commoner and though he was certainly capable, a little bit lucky, and very
close to the Romans in favour, he spent most of his reign seeking to deal with
many of the threats to his reign which resulted from him taking a station he
was not suited for. He usurped the Hasmoneans from their place as the royal
house of Israel, and he was determined to expunge all Hasmonean competitors,
and also to bring himself closer to Rome. This had the twin effect of him dishonouring
many Jewish customs. Building sports stadiums, and temples to Caesar and
putting up statues in the districts he was able to without stoking rebellion, moved
Israel further and further away from its ancient traditions.
This appears
to be the effect of rule by commoner. You see it often in history. Someone who
is not legitimate takes the power of a nation and to hold that power he has to
crush any who have a legitimate claim, and in doing so he has to also do away
with the traditions that were connected with that ancient leading houses, or
houses. Because those traditions call his reign itself into question. This sunders
a nation from its ancient traditions, and decline sets in. In Israel’s case, less
than a century after Herod’s reign the nation was utterly decimated But this
decline set in place with the sacrilegious rule of Herod the great.
Of course,
other examples can be given in history. The dynamic of commoners, or groups
outside the traditional power structure, co-opting state institutions and
causing widespread chaos is a recurring theme in history. The French revolution
is another example that comes to mind, so too is the Bolshevik Revolution. Both
of these cataclysmic events stemmed from a similar well spring of revolutionary
thought, and utterly turned their respective nations on their heads.
What is so
destructive about these events is that the commoners who take the power from
the established powers structures have no real connection to the elite traditions
or heritage, which though they may have become corrupted, still helped to define
the national culture and traditions of a people. Herod, being both part
foreigner and a commoner, did not have the real connection to the Jewish religion
and traditions that the Hasmonean priests did.
The Hasmonean
dynasty was forged in opposition to the Greek oppressors of Israel. They were
descended from men and women who had opposed the desecration of their
traditions and who had successfully expelled the invaders who had done the desecration.
Then this line of rulers were replaced, with Roman aid, by a man like Herod,
whose real skill was in gaining the Roman favour which he used as a shield to
go after the legitimate rulers of Israel. This detached Israel from the
protective principles which had unified it as a people from the citizenry all
the way up. The same thing happened in both the Russian and French Revolutions,
these nations had their structures and indeed whole society turned on its head
by a more extreme version of the same sort of usurpation.
But we can
see this happening in many places in history. It happened very quickly in the
history of Israel. When the 10 tribes separated from David’s royal house, at
the time led by Rehoboam, it was not long until the new dynasty of Jeroboam was
replaced by rebellion, and then the next house was replaced and so on until high
ranking commoners usurping power, usually soldiers or other men of power, became
so common that eventually replacing the leaders with other commoners became the
tradition. Starting with Jeroboam, who set up an altar so that the people of
Israel would not go down to the temple (1 Kings 12:25-33), these leaders led
Israel further and further away from its ancient traditions, until it fell in
722 BC to the Assyrians. Israel fell far quicker than Judah, precisely because
its traditions were deconstructed so much quicker. Such is the issue that rule by commoner seeks
to ensure.
We can see
this in our own western nations today. No country is more anti-tradition than
the US, except maybe France. What these countries have in common is the
explicit rejection of the need for nobility in their leadership. This is true
for most western nations to one degree or another. This anti-nobility strain has
been accompanied by the deconstruction of all our culture and national
traditions, simply because these traditions of who we are and who should lead
were intertwined. That which is left is merely a shell of what once united us internally
as nations in the West. Our traditions in modern democracies has degenerated down
to desecration every tradition and institution we possibly can, to the point
where no one trusts any of them anymore. We others thought differently to this.
I need to do
a bit more work on expanding on this case. But something that is becoming
clearer to me is just how much democracy seems designed to deconstruct
everything we hold dear as a people. This is observable in many contexts and
ways. I think this rule by commoner issue is at the core of this. Rule by
commoner is itself a deconstruction of our historical traditions, hence, when someone
from the common rung of society finds themselves in a position once maintained
by their elite, not only do they have less connections to the elite traditions,
they also have more incentive to move away form those traditions and institute
new ones. They even have less inclination to feel the need to serve the nation,
or people, because they don’t see the people as THEIR people as nobles once did.
This sets in place the kind of decline we see when these kinds or reigns or
administrations take place.
As a
Christian Nationalist I think we need to consider this if we want to revive the
Christian and Western historical traditions we hold dear that we need to
consider what sorts of structures best preserve those traditions. We should
learn from this trend in history.
List of Refences
[1]
Josephus, Life of Herod, Folio Society, pp71-72.
No comments:
Post a Comment