We can evolve in a democracy

Raymond Cattell remarked that equality of opportunity, which we affirm, goes along with democracy, but we need to accept that different genetic and cultural makeups do alter opportunities later on after birth. Equality as an ideal is not true biologically. But for group survival we need to maintain equal opportunity because we do not know in a final sense what traits will help us survive more successfully and where they might come from.

The basic good idea behind democracy is to substitute the voting booth for the battlefield, on the grounds that a larger following would win the battle. The problem with democracy, which Plato wrote about, is that it can become legalized robbery of the haves by the have nots, and it substitutes judgment by uninformed multitudes for that of a selected intelligent elite.

Cattell suggests that this weakness can be modified by separating the judgment on what is wanted by the majority from judgment by democracy's elites on how to get it. All groups seem to want health, energy, intelligence, and the capacity to reach emotional maturity, and we can be reasonably sure that most groups, at least out of the glare of political correctness, would want to enhance these things. How we best get these things can be the task of an intelligent elite in a democracy. The Republican form of democracy can also help in this way, with representatives for the people chosen among the best of the community.

It is also true that different cultures have different merits, musical, scientific etc, which in some sense are heritable, and they will want to add emphasis here both culturally and genetically. The natural separation of small states in a light federalism allows for these differences. So, we can evolve in a democracy, if we think about it or apply it in this way.