Hello everyone The year is coming to an end and so our project for this term. I would just like to share with you an experience I had with one of my Advanced groups last Saturday. I divided the group into two and they had a debate with one side arguing for the benefits of totalitariam regimes and the other defending democratic states.
Some interesting and also rather disquieting thoughts and ideas were put across, but we also had a lot of fun in the heat of the debate. I’d like to thank my students for that – really rewarding experience.
The contradiction is that I, in a very ‘democratic fashion’, assigned as homework posting their conclusions and impressions here. 
However, all of you who have also read the book are invited to post your comments here as well. The question is:
In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages in living in both totalitariam and democratic regimes from the citizens’ point of view ?
well, I think there are more disadvantages than advantages. In totalitariam regime you cannot express your ideas with freedom and you feel like you can`t trust people, because they can be espies, it must be horrible to live like that. In the other hand, with a regime like that there would be more control in the country, for example problems like violence would be solve in a way, but for me a democratic sistem is always better.
Lima-Perú
An exercise like this would be impossible in a totalitariam regime. For me is enough to show how democracy ia a better way to live. It doesn´t mean that´s easy or fair, but it´s a choice not an imposition. It´s something that we construct not for us, but for our children. It´s the men´s autonomy to write their own history.
Well, if we all think about today, do we really live in a democratic society? Could we be completely free to decide about our way of thinking? Or we have to submit ourselves to everything it’s “democratically” imposed to us? Moreover, our ideology of life is really our option or is something that we follow because of someone or anything else? Yes, we are free to decide, but free to decide upon the things someone told us as correct. Even if there wasn’t anyone taking care of us, there is something called conscious that is responsible for all that we think, and the conscious is in everywhere we are. If we think like this, there is a slight difference between Totalitariam and Democratic’s regimes.
well..living in a totalitariam regime has many disadvantages because you can´t express your ideas or feelings freely because someone that is powerful doesn´t permit it. But in the other hand, living in a democratic regime has more advantages, one of them is that your opinion is valid and you have the right to say what you think…and the right to be hear.Also democratic regime is a good way to solve politic problems in a different a pacific way.
Well, in my opinion I think one advantage in living in both regimes is that the people may respect their autorities and it will be order in their society. But in the other hand, the disadvantages will be more. For example, the citiziens wouldn’t express their point of view and they only could do whatever their government said and if they didn’t he will punishment with violence. However, if I have to choose between the two regimes I definitely choose the democratic because it is the rigth way to govern a country or a city.
In my opinion totalitariam regimes brings only disadvantages. Says that in totalitariam regimes have less violence, less corruption, more order and respect is a illusion because you can’t show that this things happen. The problem is that ours last democratic goverments were so incompetent that some people remember past times when they think that problems don’t ocurred. We have to look for Scandinavian countries for example of good administration and freedom.
I think that such comparison is not so easy as it may seem at first. We live in a society who considers itself to be a democracy and, even to the youngest among us, we can at least imagine what should be a totalitarian country. But I argue: what is really a democracy?
In modern times, we are used to learn first that it is a good thing and after (if so) what it means. To most of people, it became an ideal, acclaimed by politicians (both left and right) and some americans who try to impose it to the rest of the world. All must remember by History that old tale that democracy was created in Ancient Greece, as a system where all citizens could decide together the ways of government, etc. and at that time, it worked fine. Very beautiful, but the important detail is: most of people were not citizens.
Greece was, like all the world in its age, a slavocrat nation, thus slaves didn’t vote. And women and children didn’t vote. And the mob, the criminals and others “pariahs”. Well, after all, it was only a very small and homogeneous group who could take decisions…
Far from defending such discriminations, the main point here is that, like Rousseau affirmed, democracy is just one of several possible government systems for each society and, like the others, it is more fitted for some types of societies. According to Rousseau, democracy is ideal when certain conditions are satisfied, mainly two: 1) small groups or inside a group of representants of larger groups (like our parliament); 2) a homogeneous group, at least in some extent, where all have equivalent rights and duties and, most important of all, it is possible to reach a common sense.
Some nations like USA, besides being enormous countries, could deal well with democracy because they were, by its origin, a more homogeneous people with common values. (Now that “newer” communities are growing, things are becoming a little more complicated…) However, Brazil was always a very big and diversified country, with several climates, cultures and social levels. There are too many competing interests around and usually the results of a voting ARE NEITHER what one side desired NOR a mid-term between them.
At last, things here tend to be more caotic because, as we are a federalized nation, most decisions must be equal to all the 160 millions of brazilians. This without putting aside some distortions like, for example, a 16 years old boy is allowed to vote, but at the same time it can’t be criminally judged or drive a car.
Well, democracy appears to have some flaws by here. Would be totalitarism a better option? May be by the point of view of governability, but the sacrifices and the cost to many hardly would compensate. Who knows, perhaps we should invent something new!
Well, if we all think about today, we can say that in a totalitariam regime you cannot express your ideas or feelings with freedom because someone that is powerful doesn´t permit it. Also democratic regime is a good way to solve politic problems in a pacific way.
It doesn´t mean that´s easy or fair, but it´s a choice not an imposition. We must remember that it´s something that we construct not for us, but for our children.