GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

79O
ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
according to the cloth of human nature, which means
that we must have the right to cut it for ourselves.
For centuries our ancestors fought for this right against
power, against privilege and against the passive obstruction
of vested interests. Eventually they triumphed,
winning for all men the right to share in determining the
sort of community in which they should live, and the sort
of laws by which their lives should be governed. If
we value this right, it follows that it is our duty to see
that we do not through shortsightedness for the benefits
of democracy are long term benefits or impatience for
the workings of democracy are slow or indifference
for democracy makes no spectacular appeal to the imagination
throw away the heritage which our ancestors
bequeathed
to us.
THAT INEXPBRTNBSS is NO BAR TO SELF-
GOVERNMENT. Moreover, granted that uninstructed
men entrusted with political initiative make blunders,
there is yet virtue in the method of trial and error. Indeed,
it is difficult to see how a people which is unfit for self-
government can become fit save by the inexpert performance
of duties for which it is admittedly at first unfitted.
It is better, in other words, that a man should do a good
job badly than that he should not be given a chance
to do it at all, for it is only by doing it badly that he will
learn to do it wdl. The issue raised by this principle is,
broadly, the issue between the Platonic theory of the
State and the democratic theory. Plato points out that
the ordinary man has neither the knowledge nor the
self-discipline to enable him efficiently to exercise the powers
of government, and argues that he should not be given
the opportunity of meddling with that of which he is
ignorant, and for which he is unfit The democrat replies
that he should be given the chance, even though he it
ignorant and unfit; partly because.no recipe for the production
of Plato's Guardian-governors has yet been discovered,
partly because he may himself become fitter