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Imran:
You are making what is essentially a contructivist arguemnt, sicne it releis ont eh ntoion of a self-internalization of the notion of dmeocratic ideals to an extent that makes them such a powerfull belief that some sort of bond is created, a solidarity (just as Communist believed the common solidarity of workers would make them refuse to fight each other) that will lead to a desire to work peaceable the conflict between to democracies. And I don;t buy it!
You say people won;t fight each other cause they repect the right of others to self-rule. Well, fine and dandy, if the notion, the problem was one side wanting to conqure and annex the other side. But what if the issue is smaller? what if the issue is land? What if two states think they are the rightfull owner of some piece of land, some Island that may hold lots of oil? Fine, the other poeple have the right to make for themselves whatever laws they want, but obviosuly not the right to make laws OVER YOU, nor YOUR LAND (and assume the other side believes the same). Under such a ciscumstance, that the other side is democratic, well, what difference does it make? What if they don;t want to give the island up, it full of oil, they might as well use the money, no? So they elected the guy rulling them...what difference does that make to a land dispute (as Fashoda was)? Once we kcik their asses out of OUR land, well, they will still be dmeocratic, electing thier own rulers, so, no damage to the democratic ideals has been done, all that was done was that a land dspute was solved, if only by force.
That to me is the basic theoretical porblem with this argument: you (or any proponets) ahve shown me that democracy and democratic values somehow become so internalized, above and beyond other values, like, lets say, Nationalism, that people will feel the kind of solidarity Communist believed the working classes would build towards one another.
You are making what is essentially a contructivist arguemnt, sicne it releis ont eh ntoion of a self-internalization of the notion of dmeocratic ideals to an extent that makes them such a powerfull belief that some sort of bond is created, a solidarity (just as Communist believed the common solidarity of workers would make them refuse to fight each other) that will lead to a desire to work peaceable the conflict between to democracies. And I don;t buy it!
You say people won;t fight each other cause they repect the right of others to self-rule. Well, fine and dandy, if the notion, the problem was one side wanting to conqure and annex the other side. But what if the issue is smaller? what if the issue is land? What if two states think they are the rightfull owner of some piece of land, some Island that may hold lots of oil? Fine, the other poeple have the right to make for themselves whatever laws they want, but obviosuly not the right to make laws OVER YOU, nor YOUR LAND (and assume the other side believes the same). Under such a ciscumstance, that the other side is democratic, well, what difference does it make? What if they don;t want to give the island up, it full of oil, they might as well use the money, no? So they elected the guy rulling them...what difference does that make to a land dispute (as Fashoda was)? Once we kcik their asses out of OUR land, well, they will still be dmeocratic, electing thier own rulers, so, no damage to the democratic ideals has been done, all that was done was that a land dspute was solved, if only by force.
That to me is the basic theoretical porblem with this argument: you (or any proponets) ahve shown me that democracy and democratic values somehow become so internalized, above and beyond other values, like, lets say, Nationalism, that people will feel the kind of solidarity Communist believed the working classes would build towards one another.
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