Reason and Democracy - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages To understand how democracy and reason are tightly coupled, it is good to understand the history of human government, and how the various struggles for democracy have been lodged. Looking at the history of democracy, it is good to understand what used to be the alternative forms of government before democracy became the main form of government around the world. History shows as that soon as civilisation of man come around, forms of government that were formed were anything else other than a government. Societies were so entrenched in these systems that those who were on the oppressed side of these other forms of government could almost not be able to comprehend that they could have a free democratic space. Pioneers of democracy such as Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson 5) and his team in America had to use reason in order to determine why a new form of government was not only important but also eminent. In his declaration of independence, for instance, Thomas Jefferson used a language that appealed to reason. In the case of Jefferson, it can be very clear that it is only by being able to appeal to reason that one is able to explain the need and show that democracy is not only imminent but it is also eminent. Reason can be seen as the mother and father of democracy in at least two ways. First, without reason, those who first came up with the idea of democracy, and that there should be a new form of government could not have been able to come up with these ideas in the first place. Looking at history and analysing the various heroes of democracy indicates these people have to reason and realise that the current forms of government at their times were not the best ones. The other reason why reason can be seen as the mother of democracy is the fact that after giving birth to the idea of democracy, reason acts as the nurse that makes sure that this idea is grown and delivered into maturity. After conceiving the idea of democracy, one must use reason to convince at least two groups of people about the idea of democracy. The first group is the group that is in the disadvantaged side of the non-democratic system because this group must be convinced that a new form of government can and must be achieved. The fight for democratic governance is not an easy one, and it is necessary to appeal to the reasoning of these people in order to motivate them to fight the hard fight for the new form of democracy. Jefferson and his team seemed to have understood this very well, and they wrote a well crafted declaration of independence that would convince people that they deserved a good governance system and that they should fight it to the bitter end. This technique has since been used by a number of American leaders. The most recent use of this can be seen in president Obama’s (2009) speech in Cairo where he tried to use persuasive language to create rapport between the united stated of American and Egypt and the Islamic world at large. The second group that needs a very clearly stated appeal to reason is those on the softer side of a non-democratic government system. These individuals must be convinced that democracy, in the long run is inevitable and that the sooner they give up and allow democracy to reign, the better. In this case, reason is used to persuade these people that they can do it the hard way or the easy way, but either way, they will have to be let go and let democracy rule. More than anything ...Download file to see next pagesRead More