The magnificence of ancient Athens was in the outpouring of culture from it. Had the Persians conquered it is doubtful that it would have happened.

Athens is popularly known as the birth place of democracy. However, that is questionable. Democracy, as expressed by assemblies of people deciding on action, predates the democracy of Athens. John Keane’s “The Life and Death of Democracy”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Death_of_Democracy

“Not only does Keane propose that democratic assemblies have Eastern origins, Keane also strongly questions the old assumption that democracy is a universal norm that reflects Western values; hence, he argues that the future of democracy is tied neither to the West, nor to representative democracy, its current most widely adopted form.”

In the Bible is an account of an assembly of ancient Israelites rejecting the theocracy of Samuel’s sons and requesting a monarchy.
Samuel 1 8:7 "And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them."

The above quote carries the idea that a democratic decision can reject democracy.

There are many definitions of democracy. The Athenian democracy, due to its rejection of votes by women, foreigners even though their families had lived in Athens for many generations and slaves would not be considered a democracy in today’s world. In my view of democracy Australia and most other countries called democracies fall short of actually being a democracy.

For a Democratic State to function all citizens must agree on the same values and rules. Democratic States are failing today because of social conflicts bordering on Civil wars. It is the citizens who must be united on what democracy means. Does it mean the right of citizens to hold conflicting views? Are there God given principles that make a society great? It seems all societies based on control or violence of its citizens fail in the long run

Dear Josephus,

If there were such a thing as God given principles we would have no way of knowing what they were. Different theistic religions have different ideas of those principles. If there is a God maybe he, she, or it would have different principles from those that are expressed in any religion. The best we can do is to let citizens of any and no religion democratically decide what principles they want to live under.

mhaze,

Wow! what an interesting topic you've raised here.
Thank you. I certainly am no expert on this subject.
I am enjoying doing the research. Such a change from
the usual politics.

Jordan Peterson apparently believes that religion is a collection of cultural knowledge on the ideal (leader) in the case of Christianity developed over two thousand years. So based on this one would assume that the appropriate religion to defer to in the Australian context would be British Anglicanism though prior to 1500's England was Catholic and Scotland had their own Christian religious traditions. Liberalism tries to bury other cultures under their ideology in the name of objectivity- but all cultures (including Liberalism) could be said to be subjective.

The crunch that occurs between cultures is a result of the overpopulation and expansion of cultures mentioned as far back as Plato's Republic.

Mass cultures such as globalism and 1640's Locke Liberal Democracy are inevitably dehumanizing and individually unidentifiable. The human mind find it difficult to conceptualize very large societies and find them alienating.

Population is the problem. Every culture deserves their own nation.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision
for the limits of the world.

(Arthur Schopenhauer).