English term
need be limited to ...
What does "need be limited to choosing" mean here?
Aug 30, 2013 13:28: writeaway changed "Field" from "Art/Literary" to "Bus/Financial" , "Field (specific)" from "Linguistics" to "Business/Commerce (general)"
Aug 30, 2013 13:29: writeaway changed "Field" from "Bus/Financial" to "Social Sciences" , "Field (specific)" from "Business/Commerce (general)" to "Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc."
Non-PRO (1): Cilian O'Tuama
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Responses
should only be...
It's complicated because there are two negatives ("less" and "limited"), and also the form used ("need be limited" rather than "needs to be limited") is not obvious, but all it's saying is that the assumption that citizens in a modern democracy are only capable of choosing between candidates is probably not correct.
Hong Kong
Excellence is a basic requirement.
Native in: Chinese (Variants: Traditional, Cantonese) 
, English
Works in: Chinese to English, English to Chinese, Japanese to Chinese, and 1 more.
Should only be allowed
limited to: only
Another way to write this would be
There is less reason to assume that the citizen in a modern democracy should only be allowed to occasionally choose among competing elites on the basis of their party affiliation [rather than being allowed to manage more knowledge].
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B D Finch
: "Need be" is NOT synonymous with "should be"!// It is an inaccurate paraphrase, because you are introducing a value judgement by using "should", when the author is talking about what is possible or necessary.
48 mins
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I'm not talking about the definition, just an idea on how to interpret it. Did you read the entire sentence, and are you aware that I'm just paraphrasing here?
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must, of necessity, be restricted to
The author is saying that the example of Ancient Greece suggests that participatory democracy might lead to higher performance (cultural? economic? philosophical?) if applied to modern society. However, s/he is saying this in a rather cumbersome and pompous way.
The example of Ancient Greece leads him/her to questioning the assumption that there is no other option ("that it need") for modern democracy but for it to be restricted ("limited") to voting for candidates put up by political parties, rather than being opened up to participation by citizens in their own government, which would both require and entail the spread of knowledge among the population.
Note the use of the subjunctive form "need".
Austria
more than thirty years of experience
Native in: German
Works in: Greek to German, English to German, Greek to English, and 5 more.
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