Freedom or security

A great university professor of history of mine, who I do not hesitate to call a master, gave an illuminating lesson to explain the structure of political systems.
He taught that political systems can be divided into two great families: those who manage power based on a single opinion and those who govern based on the diversity of opinions and their regulation.

In fact, the assumption is that, given human nature, it is inevitable that there is a persistent and widespread diversity of opinions. In the most extreme cases, this diversity can degenerate into real wars, of which the history books are dramatically full. To stave off the specter of confrontation, the men followed one of two options.

On the one hand, a single will imposes itself on the others, extinguishing the fire of conflict and of the opposition between opinions, certainly generating security, but making freedom less. On the other hand, an attempt was made to find norms and tools to regulate the conflict, resolving it with methods of peaceful confrontation such as elections, discussions and majority voting.
To many it seemed a reasonable compromise to safeguard security, individual rights and maintain freedom.

Apart from a few rare cases of "mixed constitution", all the regimes that have followed one another in history can be categorized in one or the other group. What do the pharaohs of Egypt, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Stalin have in common? Actually little, they are actually united by the fact that they have built governments in which they have tried to concentrate all the power in the hands of a single person.

Certainly these systems are not comparable to each other in terms of extension, purpose, invasiveness and legitimation of power, but the underlying principle is the same: a single opinion that dominates the political and social reality to avoid any internal conflict and thus determine stability and security. .
On the contrary, what do Athenian democracy, the Roman senate, the major council of the Republic of Venice, the parliamentary structure of our Republic have in common?

The fact that political power is not dependent on the will of a single dominus, but decisions are made by a more or less large group of people. In the earliest examples, power involved only a very few wealthy people belonging to the higher social classes; today, with modern representative democracies, through universal male and female suffrage, political participation finally concerns all citizens.
A precious asset, to be taken care of, which can make every vote a real revolution but without bloodshed

Renato Bonomo
NP January 2022