From The Helium Website: Where True Freedom Begins and Ends

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Arts & Humanities >Political PhilosophyWhere true freedom begins and ends

by David Bain

On Dialectical-Democracy and The Balance Between Individual Freedom and Civil Order

I will devote this article to the relationship between 'individual freedom', 'systemic organization', and 'control of the system'.

Once we enter the sphere of 'public space and time' there is - or at least should be - a 'multi-dialectical' relationship between individual freedom, systemic organization, ethical responsibility, and the leaders of the system.

The more flexibility there is in the organization, the more room there is for individual freedom within the organization - but the more room there is for chaos, anarchy, and unprofessional conduct as well. There is always a balancing act going on between individual freedom and civil order.

Too much individual liberty and people will inevitably seek to exploit this situation, whereas too much civil restraint, and the individuals in the system will inevitably scream that their rights and liberties are being blocked, suppressed, etc.

Now, if you have one person (an autocracy or a dictatorship) running the system, or a group of people (like a parliament and/or a representative democracy with various people fulfilling various job functions and governing roles), then these people too need to be policed and/or have their ideas 'deconstructed' by democratic forces in the citizenry.

Otherwise: 1. ideas will stagnate, and/or remain one-sided, creating chronic, serial side-effects and no evolutionary process other than within the tight box of the governing person and/or people, assuming that he, or she, or they, is/are open=minded at all; and/or 2. the governing person and/or people will take advanage of their power positions and narcissistically exploit the citizenry.

In contrast, if you have no leader or leadership group, the potential problems are also at least twofold; 1. no speed and/or efficiency in making a decision; and/or 2. no coherent gameplan and overseeing visionary person or group of people; only a hogpodge of unorganized ideas strewn together.

The answer to this problem: there needs to be a balance between the ideas of the governing body and the ideas of the governed people constantly bouncing off each other in an open dialogue, an open 'multi-dialectical relationship'.

A homeostatic balance needs to be maintained between personal self-expression and a politically governing body that serves as a watch dog over ethical integrity and civil order relative to individual freedom.

However, the same homeostatic balance needs to also be maintained by the citizenry - including non-partisan and/or deconstructive philosophers and journalists - keeping a watchful ethical eye on the self-expression of the governing body and its political directive of maintaining civil order, ethical integrity, and a balanced, organized, efficient system; not one that drops to levels of private power and narcissism, ethical improprieties and scandals, and a non-balanced, inefficient political-social system.

If either part of this 'dialectical-democracy' is not functioning properly, then the system as a whole is going to start to implode on the basis of narcissistic self-destruction and/or suppressed self-rights of personal expressions and opinions from the citizenry, and/or either of the same from the politically ruling body.

- dgb, Aug. 17th, 2008.