Summer Reading 5

I have just finished reading Fareed Zakaria’s “The Future of Freedom” and I am impressed with the points he makes in the book. Zakaria starts out the book by introducing the concept of democracy and acknowledging the increasing use of democracy over the world. However, he makes it clear that democracies over the world should contain “constitutional liberalism,” thus making them “liberal democracies.” He also is against fake democracies such as those who hold autocratic elections. Zakaria states that since the people are not given a fair chance of electing officials, these are called “illiberal democracies.” In the end of the book, Zakaria comes to a conclusion that many of these “illiberal democracies” results from corrupt authority, such as unfair tyrants, or from third-world countries who try to adapt democratic rule prematurely.

Zakaria next puts forth his ideal process for how third world countries can transform into a democracy. His theory is that countries should try to establish a strong economic base, especially a “strong bourgeoisie,” before they can adapt the political aspects of a democracy. Zakaria also makes an interesting argument that democracy is not always a good thing. Zakaria concludes that the over democratization in the United States has diminished the quality of work in the media. For example, magazines focus less on the story and more on gossip that sells.

Zakaria uses his analysis of the different aspects of democracy to make his final conclusion in the last chapter. A main part of Zakaria’s book is him contemplating whether the Middle East is ready for democracy. His conclusion is that the West should leave the Middle East, especially Iraq, alone and first let it finish liberalizes. Zakaria states that perhaps in five or ten years, Iraq may be ready to adapt to a democracy.

In general, I liked the book. It has to do a lot with our TOK class. The main way of knowing Zakaria uses is reasoning to explain many of his theories. Obviously, the main area of knowledge the book deals with is history. Finally, Zakaria uses reasoning to dismiss certain misconceptions such as the statement that democracy is always good. His identification of this faulty statement is an example of Zakaria identifying a logical fallacy.

Summer Reading 4

For most of the first half of “The Future of Freedom,” Zakaria discusses the democratic trend and the benefits of a third world country turning into a democracy. However, in chapter 6 Zakaria uses reasoning to explain why too much of democracy can be a bad thing. He states that if countries abuse democracy and try to implement it before they are ready, there will be a great increase in illiberal democracies in the world. Zakaria also states that there is too much democracy in the United States and it is hurting the country as a result. However, he makes it clear that he is not against democracy but he just thinks that the overuse of democracy is resulting in “the Death of Authority” and the success of organized groups in the name of the people. Finally he argues that too much democracy has diminished the quality of institutions such as newspapers and television.

Zakaria’s theory is that in this time period, the “democratic wave” is connected to the “commercial wave.” As a result, he states that certain industries such as the newspaper business lack quality like they once did and go after what sells. That is why he believes magazines such as the national enquirer are so popular when most of the stories are made up and lack credibility. Zakaria sums up his views on the link between commercialism and democracy in the lines below:

"We could pretend that “sexiness” and “buzz” have some inherent characteristics, such as novelty or originality, but they are really just proxies for popularity, which translates into profit. This cultural trend illuminates something important: the relationship between democratization and marketization."

I agree with this argument Zakaria makes about how consumers have neglected quality of the product and worry more about profit. However, I do not agree with the argument that too much democracy has lead to the rise of groups such as Protestant Fundamentalists in the Southern U.S.

Summer Reading 3

At the end of Chapter 4 and for most of Chapter 5, Zakaria follows up on his ideas of what it takes a third world country to democratize itself. He is a strong believer that a country needs to have a strong economic foundation before it can start thinking about transforming politically into a democracy. Also he elaborates this statement by saying that a country needs to be economically stable by earning their wealth. For this reason, Zakaria believes it would be dangerous for most of the Middle Eastern countries to attempt democratization currently because most of their wealth money is from “unearned income.” As a result, Zakaria states that the Middle East’s large percentage of “unearned income” makes them the “Islamic Exception” to the rule of obtaining wealth before moving on to political democratization.

For example, Zakaria states that Egypt receives $2 billion a year for giving countries permission to cross the Suez Canal. Another $2.2 billion a year is received from the United States as aid. As a result, this amount of “unearned income” money does increase Egypt’s GDP but it is irrelevant when it comes to economic or political modernization. However, Zakaria believes that other statistics need to be taken into account when determining which countries are ready to democratize. Another key aspect Zakaria looks at is the Gini index. This tells how equal or unequal a country distributes its wealth. After looking at Egypt’s Gini index, Zakaria states that Egypt distributes its wealth better than some existing democracies such as France. After going over the Middle East’s current economic and political status, Zakaria realizes that there is still hope for countries such as Egypt to democratize in the near future.

Summer Reading 2

In the third chapter of book, Zakaria explores why Germany has followed a different path compared to other nations in the 20th century. For example, Zakaria states that England and Germany had similar economic and governmental situations in the early 1900’s. However, Germany for some reason had fallen victim to fascism and Hitler whereas England would develop into a liberal democracy. To answer why Germany had followed a “twisted path,” Zakaria uses reasoning to explain that Germany lacked one key feature of England’s model. Zakaria says that this missing aspect of Germany’s model is an economically and politically free bourgeoisie. Zakaria believes that a free bourgeoisie is vital for developing countries to evolve into a democracy because the bourgeoisie helps fight for property rights and build marketplaces. While England possessed these features, Germany had a weak bourgeoisie because they were hurt by constant government taxes and regulations. Zakaria quotes Germany for having at the time “a bourgeoisie without a world historical purpose.”

This part of the book relates to TOK because Fareed Zakaria uses reasoning to get many of his ideas across to the readers. Zakaria introduces a theory of his own and use reasoning to back it up. For example, one of his theories is that in order for a country to be politically strong enough to sustain a democracy, it needs to be economically fit beforehand. Zakaria believes that an ideal per capita income in these countries should be at least $5000. Using statistics Zakaria says that if countries try to become democratic before establishing a strong economic base, the regime will last on average for 8 years before it dies out again.

Summer Reading 1

In the first fifty pages of “the Future of Freedom,” Zakaria introduces to the reader the idea of democracy. He states that there is a common democratic trend taking plac over the world. While in 1900 no country was a true democracy, there are currently 119 democratic nations. He believes that this modern trend is due to three things: growing middle-class wealth, a technological revolution, and a collapse of alternative ideologies which organized society. Zakaria also compares the technological revolution in 1920 which had a centralizing effect with the one in the 1990’s which helped democratize culture. Zakaria states that the key aspect of the modern technological revolution is that it provides vast amounts of outlets for dissent. Zakaria also says that the Internet was important to aid in the democratic trend because “everyone is connected but and no one is in control.” The vast amount of information in the Internet led to the democratization of technology and information. It is known that the great amount of data in the Internet helped aid terrorist in building bombs. Since the government does not have exclusive access to information as they once did in the early 1920’s, there is less central control in the world and more democracies.

Zakaria states that a true democracy in the West needs to be a “liberal democracy.” In his words, this is a political system marked by free and fair elections, the rule of law, a separation of powers and the protection of basic liberties. While Zakaria is aware of the increasing amount of democracies in the world, he also states that many of these newly formed democracies are “illiberal.” In order for a democracy to be successful in his opinion, it needs to be in accordance to the rule of law. For example, many Arab democracies are illiberal because of the lack of free elections. Zakaria will explore why some countries have followed the “twisted path” of democracy later in the book. I am eager to learn about Zakaria’s reasoning of why certain countries have failed to follow the path of true democracy similar to that of the Ancient Romans.

Art and Philosphy

Perception is one of the ways of reason. In most pieces of artwork, perception is usually used to undertstand the artwork. In this picture, there is a wall with a decent sized portion cut out from it. In this cut out portion one can see a layer of sand, ocean water and the clear sky. However, by looking at the entire picture, one can see that there is an painter's easel set up in front of the wall. This easel shows the same scenery that the cut out portion of the wall does.
Therefore, the picture is trying to explain that there is always more than one way to look at a piece of artwork. However, the two different ways of perceiving this picture are different because the easel's window is much smaller than the other and because one cannot see the little black ball through the easel's window of the outside scenery.

TOK