Majority Rule

Majority Rule has two main meanings:majority principle and majority government. The first is one method with which to make decision when opinions are divergent, and the second indicates the government of the majority of the people. As a concept, Majority Rule is pretty vague by itself; but it is one basic commonsense that it has quantitative characteristics and qualitative ones. Historically speaking, ancient ideologists tended to analyze it in the framework of knowledge and opinion, and thereupon the usual conclusion was that Majority Rule is not practicable. During the Enlightenment, in the revival of the theory of Natural Law and Social Contract, Majority Rule broke away from the framework of knowledge and opinion step by step, and attained one kind of supremacy and self-evidence through Popular Sovereignty, becoming one doctrine. During this process, Rousseau and Locke's devotion was critical. Since Locke's writings, Majority Rule began to present itself in modern sense, which is that it is a quantitative criterion without qualitative characteristics. In Rousseau's opinion, public will-the will of the sovereign as a whole-is just forever, and therefore the sovereign is infallible and inerrant forever. In this kind of analytical framework, under Majority Rule's quantitative characteristics' defeat of its qualitative ones, it became one doctrine when the sovereign's will of Rousseau, that is public will, had become a metaphysical myth and doctrine. In the late 18th century's French Revolutionists'crazy actualization of Rousseau's thought, under Majority Rule public will emerged from under the ancient water. When Majority Rule became the main rule of politics in modern times, its self-evident supremacy and authority was meanwhile kept an eye out for and criticized by many ideologists. The confluence of these critics led to the majority tyranny theory of which Alexis de Tocqueville and Edmund Burke are typical. The so-called majority tyranny is the public tyranny performed by the majority through its force or supremacy. The majority tyranny of American Foundation as Tocqueville has described, was provoked by the majority itself; the one of French Revolution as Burke has described, was caused by the majority under the leadership of some minority heads. The former is spontaneous while the latter conscious to some extent. If Majority Rule is to run for a long time, to protect the rights of the minority should be necessary. Under the framework of knowledge and opinion, the reason to protect the minority's rights is that truth is always in the hands of the minority and human society cannot develop without truth. And in the eye of the spirit of democracy, the reason is that whatever majority or minority, they are changing and fluent, and one person of today's majority may merge into tomorrow's minority and vice versa; and as a result, the protection of the minority's rights is the material vindication of everyone's rights under democracy.