Mishpat ehad yieyeh lakem kager kaezrah ki ani YHWH Elohim. Leviticus 24:22
EGALITARIAN representative government of, by and FOR The People is the only legitimate form of government. There I said it, I hold that as an absolute truth and hold it as a more important and consequential truth. If you can find a way in which it contains not only the self-contradicting but entirely self-consuming internal defect that I've identified in scientistic, atheist materialism, go for it.
I would love to replace the common use of "democracy" for that legitimate egalitarian, representative government which is of, by and FOR The People, with the word "Mishpat" because that is what I firmly believe it is based in, both conceptually and historically. Maybe I should start using it here. I would tend to avoid anything with Greek or Latin forms though I supposed those would come up naturally as they are such a feature of the English language now.
You can find the basis for egalitarian representative government in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, as given above:
You shall have the same rule [mishpat] for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God. RSV
as well as one of the most impressive warnings against choosing gangster governance in all of literature.* It also contains numerous warnings of the human susceptibility of going that route even against the warning given by God, it happened over and over again and it lays out the consequences of that. All of the historical books in which the Hebrew Scripture writers confess the sins of the Children of Israel are full of such warnings. You can't find the basis of legitimate government in scientistic atheist materialism. That seems to produce the opposite wherever it is adopted as the basis for governance, close to if not every time.
* Notice that in that passage God doesn't give them a king, Samuel does when the People demand it when the humanly instituted governance by judges fails due to the fallibility of Samuel's sons. God allows them all to make mistakes, gives them the freedom to choose and do the wrong thing. I think that's quite as significant as the warning of what their wrong choice would lead to.
Note: Forgive the transliteration of the Hebrew, the transliterations I found online didn't agree much but I wanted to make the point of how Mishpat is morally superior to the classical conception of "democracy."
"Mishpat?"
ReplyDeleteYeah right. "Too Jewish" -- "Blazing Saddles."
Good grief, you're a tone deaf asshole without a clue.
Why isn't "democracy" "too Greek?" I'd like more of that kind of Hebrew content in modern culture, like treating the alien as natives are to be treated. I guess that's just one of the difference between us, Simps, I admire Jewish culture on balance and with the kind of understanding that someone like Heschel got from it. I wouldn't treat it was an object of cheap comedy and a shtick.
DeleteThe appeal to authority works a but better when the authority is nit a comedy example mocking the idea that something can be “too Jewish.” It’s the same movie that mocks racism against blacks, after all. “Too Jewish” is just mocking another form of racism.
ReplyDeleteBesides, people already speak of midrash. And I suppose “alleluia” and “amen” are “too Jewish,” too.
It's funny considering how many times Americans cite the Jewish Scriptures that someone could think that some of the best things in it would be foreign. I can't remember the title of the book that W. Brueggemann recommended in one of his talks, a book about how Moses is referred to more in American literature than Jesus is. I think Mel underestimated the potential of Jewish thought based on the petty antisemitism he was used to from growing up when he did. I have become convinced that the traditional American, egalitarian liberalism is directly a consequence of Calvinists being influenced by the Mosaic books, and, believe me, I generally am no huge fan of Calvinism.
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