>Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. Voltaire long thought only an enlightened monarch could bring about change, given the social structures of the time and the extremely high rates of illiteracy, and that it was in the king's rational interest to improve the education and welfare of his subjects.
>The great vice of democracy is certainly not tyranny and cruelty: there have been mountain-dwelling republicans, savage, ferocious; but it is not the republican spirit that made them so, it is nature. >The real vice of a civilized republic is in the Turkish fable of the dragon with many heads and the dragon with many tails. The many heads hurt each other, and the many tails obey a single head which wants to devour everything.
>Almost nothing great has ever been done in the world except by the genius and firmness of a single man combating the prejudices of the multitude.
It depends on what kind of monarchy you mean. Hereditary monarchy is an idiotic idea unless the monarch is forbidden to have kids and can only choose his heir by adoption.
Julian Foster
>HOLY
Anthony Sullivan
Hereditary monarchy was to ensure the founder family of a civilization would always have power and limit power TO YOUR ETHNIC GROUP.
Levi Stewart
He's not the first guy to say it. In Plato's "The Republic",the best form of governance gotta be a righteous king, followed by a benevolent dictator,followed by a group of patriarch, followed by democracy, lastly some form of tyranny
Nolan Barnes
>Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses.
I mean.....I'm pretty sure history has proven that he's right.
Wyatt White
>ROMAN
Gabriel Ward
>King >Founder family of a civilization >limit power to your ethnic group When did this happen because I can't think of a single western country where this was the case
Evan Campbell
France and most Euro lands were a clusterfuck of kingdoms so they have no founding family.
Jonathan Ross
No. Voltaire was the original fedora tipper.
Grayson Jackson
Yeah, even ancient greeks knew democracy was pretty shitty. Of course they were in such butthurt denial over it that they decided to kill Socrates for pointing it out. Modern democracy kind of tried to fix some of the flaws like demagoguery but i think its pretty obvious the changes havent really worked.
Lincoln James
Yes, democracy has plenty of flaws The problem is that many times, our elites are not amazing either. This is the world's elite
Why do you conflate political and financial elites of the modern day with what Voltaire described as his ideal. The quintessential example of his vision of an enlightened despot is Napoleon and his revolutionary nobolity.
The King of Norway is a direct descendent of the historically verifiable founder of the nation of Norway; Harald the Fair-haired.
Evan Wright
Voltaire is a fucking scumbag anyways
Team HRE go!
Elijah Nelson
>EMPIRE
Carter Rodriguez
This type of ethno-centralism wasn't the thought process at all.
It doesn't even hold up when you consider that monarchs often ruled foreign lands.
Juan Bailey
>limit power TO YOUR ETHNIC GROUP >Thus, they married other powerful families (of other ethnicity) to keep 'noble blood' pure and not mingle with the peasants of your own ethnic group
Easton Cox
Unfortunately, we tend to move from righteous king to tyranny quite easily, and people believe the next stage is the logical good one step to take which eventually dials back to the opposite.
Right now in several countries under tyranny, the protesters are trying to bring democracy, in the democratic countries people are asking for "righteous kings" (all the demagogue parties), which eventually will reveal themselves as shitty leaders and we're back to square one.
Humanity is fucked.
Eli Walker
Democracy allows shadow plutocracies like in America where a jew lobby literally controls our government.
Sebastian Gutierrez
Someone justify to me Candide when Gargantua and Pantagruel, Gulliver's Travels and Don Quixote already exist
