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Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
I don't disagree. I think the issue of "human nature" is kind of a separate problem, and in any case I kind of doubt that polities are a natural outgrowth of "human nature" anyway. If they were, the news isn't good for "human nature" if you look across history.
The fact that more people live under autocratic rule proves only one thing: that the global landscape has not undergone some massive upheaval in 1989, after which we will see the permanent rise of the liberal democracy as the dominant form of government in the world. It certainly doesn't mean that liberal democracy isn't better by whatever standard you choose. It just means that it is not some inevitable outgrowth of the end of the cold war.
Your last paragraph I completely agree with--and that is why we should be thanking our lucky stars for the cosmic accident that gave us freedom and others not. We should also work to spread that gift around, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it will happen by itself.
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Well, Aristotle would disagree with you. Man is by nature a political animal, all polities stem from some root in human nature. Now what that nature is is an entirely different question, but that doesn't mean that it isn't there.