5. Love is All You Need, Or is it?

While Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ is surely beautiful, the hard truth is that love and solidarity are really not sufficient for world peace. A Democratic government is a necessary condition for peace and justice, and it can and should be achieved globally.

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
When I speak to people about the vision of a global democracy,
they often associate it with John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’
that also describes a world of unity and peace.
But while surely I like that song and its message, some important distinctions need to be made.
In the song, Lennon takes what are arguably the major thingsthat people have been fighting over throughout history,

(00:31):
countries, religions and private property,
and invites us to imagine a future in whichwe will no longer believe in them and will no longer uphold them:
Imagine there’s no countries,and no religion too, and no possessions.
Instead, he says, we could then just be livinglife in peace, and in brotherhood, sharing all the world.

Or in one sentence (00:51):
'All you need is love’.
The problem with this sweet approach, however,
is that even if we could somehow makeall those things disappear one day, which I doubt,
it’s just too likely that we, imperfect human beings,will already find something else to disagree on and to fight over.
And think about it, we are not reallybuilt to just love all the people all the time.

(01:16):
Especially when the strong areexploiting and harming the weak or the environment.
I don’t want to love them!
What I want is a functioning democratic justice system
that will hold them accountable and make them stop.
If we want to be serious about thingslike peace and justice, and sustainability,
then romantic and childish clichesabout love and brotherhood are really not helpful.

(01:40):
What we really need is nothing shortof the framework of the democratic state,
but applied on the level thatincludes all the parts of our global society,
the global weak and the global strong, together.
Let me start by explaining just why the democratic stateis a basic, indispensable requirement for peace and justice.

(02:01):
It is such a necessity, because itenables us to address the two basic tendencies,
or you can call them ‘defects’, of our human society.
First, is the tendency of the strong to harm the weak,
and second is the tendency of people and groups to split into mutually hostile camps.
I’ll discuss them in turn.

The first tendency starts with a simple fact of life: humans, either as individuals or as groups, are not equal in their power. (02:21):
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There is always side A that isphysically or otherwise stronger than side B,
whether it’s the grown up and the child,
the average man and average woman,
majority and minority, and so on.

(02:41):
And whenever one side is stronger, sadly all too oftenhumans tend to use their advantage for their own interests,
either for their real needs or just their desires.
And so we see, again and again, situations wherethe strong exploit or oppress or otherwise harm the weak.
Surely not always, but way too often.

(03:03):
And for those occasions, in order to help the weak and protect them from the strong,
we have to have also a third, neutral party, that is stronger than both sides and belongs to both sides.
And that is the democratic state,which is built on three basic principles:
(a) The weak also have fundamental rightsthat are not dependent on things like their physical strength.

(03:25):
(b) The government of the democratic state is the only one that has the right to use violence,
and only if and when it’s necessary to protect its citizens.
And (c) In order to make sure that the government itselfwill not misuse its power against the people,
the people have the ultimate power over the government;
through elections, and a web of checks and balances,

(03:48):
and constitutional separations and limitations on the power of the government.
In this way, the democratic state can be there for the weak,
and in case of injustice, intervene through the courts, or the police or other authorities.
Furthermore, the democratic state has tools to redistribute from the financially strong to the rest of society,

(04:08):
which is super important to maintain social justice.
And now let’s move our focus to the question of peace,and see the necessary tools that democracy offers us,
in order to deal with the second human tendency that I mentioned.
That is, the repeating tendency of people and groups,to split in to mutually hostile camps.
And here the democratic state has a really excellent solution.

(04:31):
Rather than ignoring that basic tendency,or telling everyone that they should love each other all the time,
democracy suggests diverse ways to channel that tendency
into non-violent and even constructive forms of disagreement and group dynamics.
For example, If some people have different,new ideas about how society should run,

democracy says (04:51):
great, go ahead and start a new organization or movement or a political party.
It’s really OK to disagree with other people, discuss and evenargue with them, on the streets, on the media and in the parliament.
This is how we can get new and better ideas and decisions!
And yes, it’s really OK to even hate other people.The only thing you are not allowed to do is use violence.

(05:16):
That’s the special prerogative of the state.
So if side 1 and side 2 have a dispute that they can’t work out,
they are invited to turn to the third party, the state’s court,
where both of them could try to explain why they are right according to the law,
but it will be up to the impartial judge or the jury to decide.
To sum up, democracy recognizes that themost valuable asset of humans as social creatures

(05:42):
is their ability to interact and cooperate,split and join and change their minds.
And it offers a framework for themto do it in a safe and peaceful and fair manner.
And this is why it is indispensable for human society.
The naïve story of some anarchists, who say ‘who needs a state? We can get along just fine without one,’

(06:02):
this story doesn’t work, at least for large-scale societies.
And we need to realize that today,we are no longer small groups of roaming hunters and gatherers,
that can do as they like without any limits.
With the powerful modern technologies that we have today,
how people live on one side of the planet
can have enormous consequences for people on the other side.

(06:25):
And this is why in order to have peace, and justice and sustainability,
we have to have that mechanism and these tools,of the democratic state, at the very global level,
which is the level of our ecology, and of our economy.
Sharing an all-inclusive global democracy,
that is the kind of love that we really need today in the world,

(06:45):
and that is what we need to imagine.