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  3. The classic difficulty felt with democracy arises from the fact that democracy can never express the will of the whole people be

The classic difficulty felt with democracy arises from the fact that democracy can never express the will of the whole people be

admin2009-05-21  57
问题     The classic difficulty felt with democracy arises from the fact that democracy can never express the will of the whole people because there never exists any such unchanging will (at least in any society that call itself democratic). The concept of government of the whole people by the whole people must be looked on as being in the poetry rather than in the prose of democracy; the fact of prose is that real democracy means government by some kind of dominant majority.
    And the ever-present danger, repeatedly realized in fact, is that this dominant majority may behave toward those who are not of the majority in such a manner as to undermine the moral basis of the right of people, because they are people, to have some important say in the setting of their own course and in the use of their own faculties. Other forms of government may similarly fail to respect human independence. But there is at least no contradiction in that; the underlying assumption of every kind of government by wisers and betters is that people on the whole are not fit to manage their own affairs, but must have someone else do it for them, and there is no paradox when such a government treats its subjects without respect, or deals With them on the basis of their having no rights that the government must take into account.
    But democracy affirms that people are fit to control themselves, and it cannot live in the same air with the theory that there is no limit to the extent to which public power--even the power of a majority--can interfere with the lives of people.
    Rational limitation on power is therefore not a contradiction to democracy, but is of the very essence of democracy as such. Other sorts of government may impose such limitations on themselves as an act of grace. Democracy is under the moral duty of limiting itself because such limitation is essential to the survival of that respect for humankind which is in the foundations of democracy. Respect for the freedom of all people cannot, of course, be the only guide, for there would then be no government. Delicate ongoing compromise is what must be looked for. But democracy, unless it is to deny its own moral basis, must accept the necessity for making this compromise and for giving real weight to the claims of those without the presently effective political power to make their claims prevail in elections.
选项 A、popular interpretation
B、actual operation
C、ongoing compromise
D、rational limitation
答案B
解析 这是一道词义题。题干中的信号词出自于文章第一段第二句话中。文章第一段指出：“全民的政府应该为全民”的观念应该被看成是只存在于民主的诗歌中，而不是存在于民主的散文中；散文描述的事实是，真正的民主意味着政府被控制在某些占主导地位的多数人手中。根据government by some kind of dominant majority可知，作者可能指的是政府的运作。B“实际运作”，与作者的意思符合。A与文章的意思相反；与C和 D有关的信息都在第四段，与该短语的意思无关，所以不对。
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