Forster View In Democracy example essay topic

E. M Forster is a man who knows exactly what he wants. When I read his article titled, "What I Believe" he seems like the kind of person who doesn't say something unless he has a definitive point. He responds to matters with accuracy in his thoughts and assurance in his own words. You can tell that he is an educated man by some of the references he makes to various philosophers, humanists, and sociologists, such as Erasmus a Dutch humanist and Michel Eyguen de Montaigne who where great renaissance thinkers both had similar views on church and government. Forster's views on religion are right on the money, but his views on politics aren't as well thought out.

I agree with Forster on a lot of his views, he is a creditable and an intelligent person with a good sense of the human condition. He thinks organized religion is for the weak and ignorant, "to ignore evidence is one of the characteristics of faith" (Forster p 75). This is true in my opinion. People are, for the most part are like sheep. Everyone in a church does what they are told to do without question. For instance, I have a friend who never thought about organized religion in his entire life.

One day he met a girl and they fell in love. He eventually joined her faith, which was fine with me, until he started giving large portions of his weekly paycheck (which wasn't very big to begin with) to this religion. I was flabbergasted! The church said that he had to make certain sacrifices to the "Lord", and that his money was a burden on his life. Well, to make a long story short; he starved for a year and got dumped anyways. The church disconnected him because the engagement had been broken off.

That tipped the scale for me. If he had questioned or denied the church the donations he wouldn't have wasted a year of his life. He was following a crowd and believing in a religion that takes your money so that they can interpret the bible for you (all religions do to an extent). I believe in a higher power but I believe in that power on my own conditions and interpretations of various readings.

Never will I give money to a church whose roots stem from mass corruption and miss interpretations. According to Forster "Man has always failed to organize his own goodness and it is presumptuous for him to try". (Forster. P 83).

In my opinion we see eye to eye on religion. Forster view in democracy isn't well thought out. The church is corrupt and so are politicians and big businesses. Forster believes that democracy, though far from perfect, is better than any other form of government.

Forster says, "It is less hateful than any other contemporary forms of government" (p 77). He believes that Democracy has two good points; no "bossers and the bossed" (p 77) and public criticism. Forster doesn't take into consideration what comes along with those two good points. What I consider to be the fuel that lights the fire for corruption in business, church, and politics, is capitalism.

We most certainly do have bosses and we are definitely bossed because of capitalism. Those bosses have bosses; everyone has to answer to somebody else. Every boss that is higher in the chain of command has more reason to be corrupt and less reason to be moral due to money. Forster would agree with me here saying, "The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink" (p 82). Forster seems to overlook the implications of capitalism on democracy; instead Forster goes on to say that democracy has another benefit, which is criticism.

He says that since we have freedom of the press, scandals tend to be less of an occurrence. I fail to see how that's accurate at all. The press loves scandals and lies. A big company or a government official that is corrupt (again because of capitalism) is more likely to quickly cover up any scandal so that it doesn't go public hence ruining reputations.

I fail to see how he can compare these two things and not see how the implications of democracy mixed with capitalism affect how government and business run. The separation of the classes is a big problem in society and Forster recognizes that in a democratic state these classes can be crossed over. For example, a regular blue collar worker can go to a college of his choice and become a white collar boss, essentially raising him up a class. Forster says, "It doesn't divide its citizens into bossers and bossed, as an efficiency regime tends to do". This is a good point, but again he overlooks the implications of being in a higher class. There will always be the separation of classes, boss and bossed.

If we are to have equal classes capitalism wouldn't exist. That's the effect of a democratic state. In short, Forster is right about religion being corrupt. The church has a history of questionable causes for money raising needs.

I feel that one should take organized religion with a grain of salt and derive his or her own beliefs, from various texts. Forster needs to elaborate on his thoughts about democracy and its good points which seem skewed. The only two good points he makes for democracy fall victim to capitalism. I believe that there are other virtues about democracy that do not entail capitalism which has caused church and state to be corrupt in one way or another.

Foresters "what I Believe" is a good article. He seems somewhat eccentrics at times and not quite on the mark about certain topics but I appreciate his whole heartiness and his wisdom into society and himself..