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    Lessons of History

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    Lessons of History

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    hh

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    Lessons of History

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    Lillia
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    from THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

    Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires


    the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent
    when we made ourselves sovereign. Education has spread, but intelligence is
    perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple. A cynic remarked that “you
    5 mustn’t enthrone ignorance just because there is so much of it.” However,
    ignorance is not long enthroned, for it lends itself to manipulation by the forces
    that mold public opinion. It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that “you can’t
    fool all the people all the time,” but you can fool enough of them to rule a large
    country.
    10 Is democracy responsible for the current debasement of art? The debasement,
    of course, is not unquestioned; it is a matter of subjective judgment; and those of
    us who shudder at its excesses—its meaningless blotches of color, its collages of
    debris, its Babels1 of cacophony2—are doubtless imprisoned in our past and dull to
    the courage of experiment. The producers of such nonsense are appealing not to
    15 the general public—which scorns them as lunatics, degenerates, or charlatans—
    but to gullible middle-class purchasers who are hypnotized by auctioneers and are
    thrilled by the new, however deformed. Democracy is responsible for this
    collapse only in the sense that it has not been able to develop standards and tastes
    to replace those with which aristocracies once kept the imagination and
    20 individualism of artists within the bounds of intelligible communication, the
    illumination of life, and the harmony of parts in a logical sequence and a coherent
    whole. If art now seems to lose itself in bizarreries, this is not only because it is
    vulgarized by mass suggestion or domination, but also because it has exhausted
    the possibilities of old schools and forms, and flounders for a time in the search
    25 for new patterns and styles, new rules and disciplines.
    All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more
    good, than any other form of government. It gave to human existence a zest and
    camaraderie that outweighed its pitfalls and defects. It gave to thought and
    science and enterprise the freedom essential to their operation and growth. It
    30 broke down the walls of privilege and class, and in each generation it raised up
    ability from every rank and place. Under its stimulus Athens and Rome became

    Continued
    1
    Babels—In the Bible, Babel is the city in which Noah’s descendants attempted to build a tower to reach to
    heaven. They were punished by God and prevented from finishing the tower when all the builders were
    suddenly caused to speak in different languages, so that they could not understand one another.
    Therefore, any impossibly high tower or impracticable scheme.
    2
    cacophony—harsh, jarring, discordant sounds
    the most creative cities in history, and America in two centuries has provided
    abundance for an unprecedentedly large proportion of its population. Democracy
    has now dedicated itself resolutely to the spread and lengthening of education, and
    35 to the maintenance of public health. If equality of educational opportunity can be
    established, democracy will be real and justified. For this is the vital truth beneath
    its catchwords: that though men cannot be equal, their access to education and
    opportunity can be made more nearly equal. The rights of man are not rights to
    office and power, but the rights of entry into every avenue that may nourish and
    40 test a man’s fitness for office and power. A right is not a gift of God or nature but
    a privilege which it is good for the group that the individual should have.

    Will and Ariel Durant


    20th century American historians

    Will and Ariel Durant. From The Lessons of History. Copyright © 1968 by Will and Ariel
    Durant. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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