Tuesday, April 05, 2005

The limits of democracy as a Moshol for the religious world

I believe in democracy. It's the best out of a bad bunch of systems for running countries. However, democracy cannot allow itself to be undercut from within. I.e., we cannot allow a party that would actively remove democracy from the political process. Philosophically there can be no room for a Nazi party to rise to power and take over.

Although I can accept my opponents right to express his views, form a party based on them, and run for election, if within his views there are elements which would negate my right to express my view, then that element is unacceptable and cannot be allowed.

I'm not referring to any current political issue, rather how I view the Jewish religious world. I can accept religious alternatives that conform to my basic standard, though the elements within them that downplay my legitimacy or deny my view point as being Torah-true, I cannot accept.

I hope there's someone out there that chaps what I am trying to get at.

TRK

2 Comments:

At 4/05/2005 11:20 PM, Blogger Chai18 said...

so basically you can accept a certain deviancy from your own opinion as long as it falls under a general rubric?

 
At 4/06/2005 1:11 AM, Blogger TRK said...

Not quite. I can accept opinions in the charedi world as being acceptable, except for those areas where they say "those people aren't really gedolim" or "those hashkafos are treife". That is where my pluralism gets overly stretched. But can i sustain this dual pluralism?

TRK

 

Post a Comment

<< Home