Democracy means drift;
it means permission given to each part of an organism to do just what it pleases;
it means the lapse of coherence and interdependence, the enthronement of liberty and chaos.
It means the worship of mediocrity and the hatred of excellence.
It means the impossibility of great men – how could great men submit to the indignities and indecencies of an election?
What chance would they have?
What is hated by the people, as a wolf by the dogs, is the free spirit, the enemy of all fetters, the not-adorer, the man who is not a regular party-member.
How can the Superman arise in such a soil? And how can a nation become great when its greatest men lie unused, discouraged, perhaps unknown? Such a society loses character; imitation is horizontal instead of vertical – not the superior man but the majority man becomes the ideal and the model; everybody comes to resemble everybody else; even the sexes approximate – the men become women and the women become men.
~ Will Durant, from The Story of Philosophy
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