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Full Idea
A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim is the overthrow of that democracy.
Gist of Idea
Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party
Source
Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Opinion')
Book Ref
Weil,Simone: 'The Need for Roots' [Routledge 2002], p.28
A Reaction
We have seen this around 2020 in the USA and the UK. Freedom is compulsory? Weil hates political parties (as did Rousseau).
Related Idea
Idea 19803 If the state contains associations there are fewer opinions, undermining the general will [Rousseau]
22575 | Ultimate democracy is tyranny [Aristotle] |
5895 | If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero] |
13557 | Unfortunately the majority do not tend to favour what is best [Seneca] |
19828 | Democracy leads to internal strife, as people struggle to maintain or change ways of ruling [Rousseau] |
19835 | When ministers change the state changes, because they always reverse policies [Rousseau] |
22394 | Democracy diminishes mankind, making them mediocre and lowering their value [Nietzsche] |
18331 | Democracy is organisational power in decline [Nietzsche] |
23166 | In democracy we are more aware of being governed than of our tiny share in government [Russell] |
23169 | Democratic institutions become impossible in a fanatical democracy [Russell] |
21526 | Unfortunately ordinary voters can't detect insincerity [Russell] |
21527 | On every new question the majority is always wrong at first [Russell] |
23842 | Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil] |
7594 | Democrats are committed to a belief and to its opposite, if the majority prefer the latter [Scruton] |