What are “democratic values”, in an age where nobody directly votes for their leaders?

Liberal values.

  • Individualist: moral primacy of each individual against th eclaims of any social collectivity
  • Egalitarian: confers on all men the same moral status and denies the relevance to legal order of differences in moral worth among human beings
  • Universalist: moral unity of the human species
  • Meliorist: all social institutions can be improved

Where did they come from?

  • Ancient Greek (Hellenistic) culture
  • Ancient Roman (Latin) culture
  • Ancient Germanic culture
    • Surprisingly equitable
  • Enlightenment in Europe: modern Germanic cultures get inspired by Ancient Greco/Latin culture, leading to a melting pot of great scientific ideas
  • Protestants in Wittenberg (Martin Luther) started the education craze
  • Prussians established first compulsory education system