Is democracy too democratic?

The other day, somebody posted an article on Twitter (X). I read it with interest, though it was a while before I realized that it was five years old. The title breathlessly announces "The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy," and it appeared in Politico in September 2019. (I've provided a link so you can read it yourself.) In the end it's not a terribly profound article, but it got me thinking.

Just to be clear, this post is not really a response to the article. It just uses the article as a jumping-off point for some meditations about the nature of democracy.

The first thing that this article makes clear is how dishonest all modern American political discussion is. Time and again the author (Rick Shenkman) tells us that democracy is important, that it is under threat, and that it is doomed to disappear. And yet, the thing that threatens democracy seems to be the participation of all those damned people! If only the people would let themselves be led by their betters, the way they used to do once upon a time, things would be fine. But today they are riled up and want a piece of the action—the word he uses over and over is populism—and so things are going to hell.

Populism and elitism

Prof. Shawn Rosenberg

When I talk about "their betters," Shenkman uses the word "elites." He defines them (following UCI Prof. Shawn Rosenberg, whose recent paper was actually the focus of Shenkman's article) as "experts and public figures who help those around them navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with self-rule." Later on he expands this definition. 

"The elites, as Rosenberg defines them, are the people holding power at the top of the economic, political and intellectual pyramid who have 'the motivation to support democratic culture and institutions and the power to do so effectively.' In their roles as senators, journalists, professors, judges and government administrators, to name a few, the elites have traditionally held sway over public discourse and U.S. institutions …. But today that is changing."   

It's changing, the argument continues, because the Internet gives a voice to anyone with a laptop or a phone. As a result, populism has become a far more powerful challenge than it once was, and has begun to threaten democracy. 

Now at this point I have to step aside for a minute. Rosenberg argues (and Shenkman appears to agree) that populism threatens democracy. Is that even possible? Let's look at those two words. Democracy means rule by the δῆμος (demos), which is Greek for "the people." Populism, by contrast, means rule by the populus, which is Latin for … (checks notes) … "the people." When you trace back to fundamentals, democracy and populism are the exact same thing.

If Rosenberg thinks that populism (i.e. democracy) is a bad thing, he should feel free to say so. But then I wish he could be honest enough to say openly that he's criticizing democracy. That position would put him in good company, by the way. Most political philosophers over the years have taken a dim view of democracy, largely for the exact same reasons that Rosenberg does: they've all thought that the common people are too stupid to govern. Rosenberg says so too. 

Of course I realize that I'm asking too much here: he can't let himself criticize democracy openly and in so many words. That's the dishonest part, but it's not really his fault: the word "democracy" is a shibboleth today. When Rosenberg (or Shenkman) uses the word "democracy," what he really means is the modern American polity. As a result, no one who expects to be taken seriously dares speak a word against "democracy." 

On the other hand he tips his hand by saying that democracy works best when it is governed by elites, which is a little like saying that cold weather is great so long as it's warm out. The correct word for rule by elites is "elitism," and that's clearly what Rosenberg has in mind. As I say, this puts him in the mainstream of political philosophers in the Western tradition, even if we can't say so out loud these days.

Rosenberg's argument

As summarized by Shenkman, Rosenberg's argument is that "democracy" (by which, as I say, he means the modern American polity) is doomed. "Democracy is devouring itself—his phrase—and it won’t last." This outcome is inevitable because human psychology is not built in a way that supports self-government by the common people. In particular, Rosenberg makes three points that I want to discuss. (Shenkman arranges his material a little differently, but I am putting these points in an order that is convenient for me.)

1. "The irony is that more democracy—ushered in by social media and the Internet, where information flows more freely than ever before—is what has unmoored our politics, and is leading us towards authoritarianism." [The words are Shenkman's.]
2. "The majority of Americans are generally unable to understand or value democratic culture, institutions, practices or citizenship." [The words are Rosenberg's.]
3. "Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them." [The words are Shenkman's.]   

What can we say about these claims?

The first one is easy. It is a traditional commonplace that democracy leads to authoritarianism. Plato discusses this linkage lucidly in Book Eight of the Republic. The only reason that the connection sounds paradoxical to us here and now is that we have deliberately forgotten all the traditional teachings about democracy because we think we are better than all that.

The second point is a little harder, and I think it is an artifact of our current historical moment. When Rosenberg says that most Americans can't understand democratic practices, that has to mean (among other things) that he doesn't see Americans practicing democracy on a daily basis. But we used to do so, as I argued in a recent post. (And please see that post for details.) In our clubs, our civic associations, our recreations clear across the board—to say nothing of the more complex question of our workplaces—Americans used to have a connection to democratic activity in their daily lives that we simply lack today. So Rosenberg's observation on this point is fair so far as it goes, but I think it indicts our modern condition far more than it indicts human psychology as such.

The third point requires some more discussion. 

Respect for others

The claim that democracy requires respecting those with different views and "different looks" (however understood) is a complex one, and I think it would not be recognized or even understood by anyone who lived longer ago than about a hundred years. Let's study it for a minute.

Different views

In a trivial sense, of course democracy requires respecting those with different views about matters of public deliberation, precisely because democracy involves public deliberation over public issues. If nobody has different views on whether to build a road here or a harbor there, we don't need to deliberate; and if people do have different views, democracy gives us a way to resolve the disagreement without coming to blows. So far, so good.

What about views on other topics? What about religion? Religion is not a matter for public deliberation: we might debate whether the state should pay to build a church here or there, but no democratic debate can settle that This Religion is true, while That One is false. And so there is nothing inherent in the nature of democracy to require religious toleration. Socrates was put to death for disbelieving in the gods of democratic Athens, and no-one objected that the charge was unconstitutional.

In the United States, because of our special history, we are guaranteed religious toleration by the First Amendment. Even so, there are limits. If someone insisted that he wanted to worship the old Aztec religion by sacrificing his neighbors to the Sun God, law enforcement authorities would put an end to it pretty quickly.

What about patriotism, or loyalty to the regime generally? Here the history of thought shows even less wiggle room than in the case of religion. It is a commonplace of classical liberalism that no government should tolerate political parties who are not willing to tolerate classical liberalism itself. (The usual examples are Nazis and Communists.) So here again, there are good theoretical reasons for refusing to respect someone with different views, in case the difference is that you are loyal to the regime and he is not. 

It is true that historically the United States government has been willing (at least recently) to accept the existence of American Nazi and Communist Parties. But I would argue that this acceptance is less a theoretical requirement of democracy-as-such than it is a gesture of lordly disdain. The American regime has been so strong and so secure that it allowed parties to survive even when those parties said overtly that they wanted to bury the regime itself. The implicit message is that the regime regards these parties as totally impotent, no worse than screaming toddlers. 

"Different looks"

This last proposition—viz., that "Democracy … requires people to respect … [other] people who don’t look like them."—is even more narrowly, parochially bound to our local place and time than any of Rosenberg's other claims. Surely it is obvious that neither Rosenberg nor Shenkman would ever have written such a sentence were it not for the peculiar history of America's most peculiar institution: race-based slavery, followed in history by institutionalized racial discrimination and (even more recently) by a race-based civil rights movement. In no other country could someone have written those words and expected them to be understood the same way.   

So is it true? Let's break this into two questions. First, is it true that the American polity here and now requires people to respect those of other races? Yes, that's pretty clearly true. One way or another, that's the corner we have painted ourselves into right now, because of our past history.

Second, is it true that Democracy in principle—Democracy as such—requires people to respect (or even enfranchise) those of other races, or who look different in other ways? No, this has never been a requirement. Often the assumption has been the exact opposite.

Traditionally, before the founding of the United States, democracies were found only in small communities. That's why James Madison had to write Federalist Number 10, to prove that it was possible to implement democracy over a large country. And those small communities in which democratic government was traditionally found were also largely uniform in racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition: if they weren't, they dissolved into conflict right quick. (See this post for more discussion of small, homogeneous communities.)

For that matter, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his classic Democracy in America that one of America's greatest challenges for the future would be that three different races shared the continent. (At that time he meant Whites, Blacks, and Indians.) He took it for granted that it would not be easy for these three peoples to settle into a single community.

But these are just examples, and anyone can multiply examples. Is there a logical argument that addresses the role of sameness-or-difference in democracies?

I think there is. But I am feeling my way, so bear with me.

Social trust

For a society to cohere, there has to be some measure of trust among its members. What I mean by "trust" in this context is that people have to be able to predict how other people will act. Only then can they work together. There's a large literature around social trust in the social sciences, and I don't propose to crack it open at the moment. But let me make a couple of simple and obvious points.

There are (at least) two ways you can feel like you can predict what someone else is going to do. One way is if you know that he is compelled to do it by external forces. Another way is if you feel enough sympathy with him that you can see the world through his eyes, at least to a limited extent.

Politically, the first of these ways corresponds to the condition of empires, where everyone is equally subject to one Sovereign. It is relevant to note that the first recorded multi-ethnic societies were all empires. This is because everyone's common subjection to the Emperor makes other people's behavior predictable. As long as a stranger greets you with "Hail Caesar" (or the equivalent) you know that you can trust him to obey the Emperor's laws and customs. It might not be everything you could wish, but it's something. It makes for predictability, and that allows the growth of trust.

The second way, the way of sympathy, is the way of small communities and is more natural in a democracy. Strictly speaking, to be able to sympathize with someone well enough that you can predict how he will react, you need to know him and know him well. Nonetheless, when strangers meet, there are often other kinds of commonalities that stand as proxies for genuinely knowing each other. 

It might be a commonality of religion. In the pagan Roman Empire, Christians were a persecuted minority and trusted each other on sight. In modern America, I have seen neopagans give food, lodging, and transportation to total strangers just because the strangers were also neopagan.

It might be a commonality of hobbies or interests: two surfers, two backpackers, or two Dungeons-and-Dragons gamers are more likely to trust each other than either would be to trust someone that did not share the same passions. 

It might be a commonality of language, or even of accent. The last time I was in the United Kingdom, I spoke the same language (English) as everyone else around me; but if I got separated from my friends and found myself chatting with strangers, I chatted most easily with other Americans.

You know where this is going. 

Like it or not, it is easier for people to feel sympathy with others who look like them. This means—when we are talking about democracies and not empires—that the levels of social trust, and therefore social cohesion, are likely to be greater in a mono-ethnic democracy than in a multi-ethnic democracy. They are likely to be greater in a monoracial democracy than in a multiracial democracy. Note that I say "likely." There are always factors that can throw the probabilities—for example, if there are religious or political differences that produce antagonism and hostility even when there is only one ethnicity or race. But other things being equal, you can expect greater levels of social trust when fellow citizens share more features in common. Race isn't the only one of those features, and sometimes (depending on circumstances) it isn't even the most important. But to deny that it is at least one feature among others is simply foolish. 

Summary

I've made a number of points in this post, some more important than others. Among the smaller points are these:

Populism cannot threaten democracy, because populism is democracy.

Yes, democracy can lead to authoritarianism. This is not news.

If Americans don't understand democratic practices, it is because the modern world has eliminated most of our social organizations, and because we have no opportunity to exercise authority or responsibility in our workplaces. This is a modern dysfunction, and not a sign of fundamental human limitations.

I think the larger points are these: 

First, democracy does not require freedom of opinion. (It is a blessing that our Constitution guarantees it anyway.)

Second, the most successful multi-ethnic societies are empires, not democracies. If your goal is to create a fully-functioning multi-ethnic state characterized by diversity, equity, and inclusion, then quit mouthing democratic platitudes and forthrightly build a non-democratic empire.

Conversely, the most successful democracies (for example, the Scandinavian countries at least until very recently) have been mono-ethnic. This is not a historical accident, but in fact there are logical reasons for it.

Now, the main point of Rosenberg's article (as described by Shenkman) is that American democracy is doomed. And he might be right. Never mind that I have quibbled with his detailed points, but consider the consequences of the principles I have just outlined above. 

If indeed democracies require some nonnegotiable level of commonality among the citizens as a basis for sympathy and social trust; … 

… and if furthermore a (nominally) democratic society consciously undercuts or disregards any grounds for commonality among the citizens in the name of (for example) diversity or equity or inclusion; … 

… then naturally we should expect democracy in that country to STOP WORKING. 

And this is exactly what Rosenberg says: that democracy in the United States is no longer working, and will ultimately disappear. So in the end his observations and predictions may be completely accurate. It might just be his assessment of the causes that's a little off.