Beyond Democracy to Post-Democracy: Conceiving a Better Model of Governance to Supercede Democracy

Description

Contrary to the belief of many contemporaries, democracy is as evil and good as non-democracy. This sounds shocking, since democracy (of whatever version) enjoys its triumphant moment in our age, to the effect that there is a widespread belief of democracy, unlike non-democracy, as most congenial to the celebration (not condemnation) of difference. This democratic/non-democratic dichotomy therefore privileges democracy as the highest political achievement of human civilization, such that everywhere there have been endless discussions of how and why different societies and cultures are to adopt it, all in the celebration of difference in our time. Dr.Baofu, in this wide-ranging work, shows how and why the democratic idea of difference becomes the democratic mystique of difference. His inquiry reveals, in the end, how and why democracy privileges itself by an untenable dichotomy and is essentially contingent on the historical needs of society and the dominant themes of culture in our time. Democracy will not last (to be superseded by what Dr.Baofu originally called post-democracy), just as aristocracy before it could not. The difference is that we believe in our version of historical destiny now, just as those before us believed in theirs then, and those after us will believe in theirs in the future. As an anti-hero of our time, Baofus critique against the sacrosanct idea of democracy earns few friends and wins few hearts, in an age where the democratic idea reigns supreme as its god.