Le Bon on Constitutions

Today, during my diligent reading for my Political Violence and Terrorism class, I came across a passage that made me think about the writing of the new Iraqi Constitution. In 1895, Gustave Le Bon wrote in The Crowd:

To lose time in the manufacture of cut-and-dried constitutions is, in consequence, a puerile task, the useless labour of an ignorant rhetorician. Necessity and time undertake the change of elaborating constitutions when we are wise enough to allow these two factors to act.

Now it's for sure that I don't agree with everything that Le Bon has to say, particularly the part about women being "inferior forms of evolution", but I think he may have a point here. He indicates that people and cultures change slowly over time and that drastic changes, particularly those imposed from outside, will ultimately revert back to their previous form until the society has time to deal with the new ideas and make them their own.

Let's just say I'm less than convinced that the new Iraqi government will produce a shining light of democracy in the Middle East. Hopefully they will prove Le Bon and me wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.