“It’s hard to believe that you were ever mistaken.”
Unlike you that are never mistaken 🙂
Mistakes are normal part of human existence. Those that pretend they make no mistakes are greatly mistaken/ The best scientist acknowledge the vast majority of what they do is mistakes. Foolishness is running with mistakes out of ego.
“Is democracy universal and inevitable?”
Nothing is inevitable. Perhaps Fermi’s paradox is because most intelligent life destroys itself because absolute necessary morals don’t catch up to our destructive technology. I strongly believe there are objective moral choices necessary for a civilization to thrive and survive . Assume there are only subjective ones and it will enviably end poorly for humans. It’s like the heroin drug addict that thinks everything is ok. It’s fun for awhile until one day they are found in dead in a ditch from an overdose. Individuals can get away with lack of proper morals. I have no doubt over the long haul though the absence of correct morals on a civilization level has ending-all-life-on-this-earth consequences.
” A civilization of sorts can exist and even thrive if if it believes it is entitled to steal from others”
Back to complexity with definitions. What defines, theft itself can become complex. Nicking someone’s wallet is an easy one. When it comes to politics it’s tough. The problem with communism is not “theft”. Taxation is not “theft’ as some on the right like to claim by redefining the term taxation.. The problem with communism is its oppressive and leads to great poverty rather than greater wealth. Another problem is it’s not democratic. Any system that tries to completely erase all alternative political POV is a net negative because we can’t improve. The strength of democracy is not that the majority is always right. Plato hated democracy because he recognized most people are idiots. What he missed though is we are incompetent relative to what there is to know. What democracy offers is a door to different views. It allows for experimentation in policy rather than say narcissistic totalitarians sorts that fantasize they are all wise.
“I suspect that your optimism is based on utilitarianism, that freedom provides that maximum good for the most people”
My philosophy has no name and never will other than it is has the identifiable property of being iterative. I take bits and pieces of various philosophies and constantly revise my views as new evidence becomes available. I wish I could say I am enlightened like many others claim but I know enough to know the best one can hope for is self-improvement not some magic plateau.
“Is murder always wrong? A Brutus , Cromwell or a Rousseau would disagree.”
It is murder in your mind. It was not murder in their own. It was political justified defense! This is due to their weighting of the evidence relative to the knowledge of their era. Again back to complexity being the problem not that there isn’t objective morals.
“Islam”
I would also add religious Judaism and Christianity are also myth based. Sooner or later all these religions will evaporate like prior ancient religions did. The truth of the past will never change to match their narratives. As a said before. a lie is temporarily. The truth is forever.