Democracy isn’t pretty
The general point is that though equality may suit the imagination of an autocrat or an elite when the many are equal in subjection or slavery, the many themselves strive to become unequal. There is something unlovable about equality; so much so that it often feels like a condition accepted for want of a better one, and a consolation for those who cannot break out of it. If people cannot be better than those around them, they will lend themselves to the efforts of those who run their society to dominate other societies. And those who run society will always dream of plans to achieve a finer, more coherent or more organic pattern of political relations elsewhere. One ingredient of imperialism is the desire of leaders to shake off the restraints imposed by democratic politics at home and treat other societies, especially nondemocratic ones, as fit for the dictatorial imposition of democracy or some other rule. Imperialism provides the aesthetic intoxication of destroying and remaking customs and relations, rules and institutions. The leaders could not get started unless the many craved some of these same aesthetic gratifications and were willing to settle for vicarious triumph over some others. Athens was democratic and imperialistic; America is the same.
George Kateb, ‘Introduction’ to Patriotism and Other Mistakes, Yale UP: 2006, p.xix.
