Democracy

The other day I encountered a woman who didn't believe we live in a democracy. I said to myself, obviously she is being very subjective. Then I wondered, what made her that way and I, on the other hand, to think that we do live in a democracy. Maybe we have different definitions for democracy. Some people thing it is just about voting and being heard. Others like me see it as far more complex, as a total environment, contingent on many things. And it has to be different and alternative things because it serves many masters.

Some people think we don't live in a democracy because voting doesn't accomplish or change anything. They feel they have no influence. They feel unappreciated and left out, alienated. I said to the woman that the ownership of property is a sign of democracy because when you own something one gets a measure of recognition and appreciation from the community. And you can speak out and demand things because of it. But, she said, apartment dwellers don't own property, so how do they get recognition. I said, well, they own property with respect to their labour. Nobody can take that away from you without something in return. That's democracy. Also, apartment dwellers have debts and owe money. And when people owe money they get recognition and respect from their lenders because lenders like to get their money back. It's tacit but that is also part of democracy.

Someone asked me to give some examples of the contingencies democracy depends on. I said I mention one, private property.

As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr wrote: "Democracy is not possible without private ownership because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom". As we know, private property is not always tangible. There is one's labour, which I mentioned, and intellectual property. With the ownership of property comes a whole host of protective devices that feed into democracy. I think that the establishing and recognition of private property in places like Haiti would go a long way in helping establish democracy there.

So many of democracy's contingencies are negative things for most people, like capitalism, mass media, secularism, pluralism, utilitarianism and globalization. Nevertheless, those things reinforce it while sometimes appearing to erode it. Democracy is a perverse system.

Another thing that democracy is contingent on is a middle class. The middle class brings about the mass property ownership that the system of democracy depends on. Democracy is also contingent on security and stability. (That's one reason we need a central government, one that is effective and efficient.) That is one reason why it is going to be so difficult to establish democracy in Iraq, because of the lack of them.

It is also contingent on people like us, us being generations of people who have practiced and taken it for granted. It is in our blood. We don't have to think about it. Democracy is an esoteric enterprise. It has taken us a long time to develop and accept it.

P.S.

I just read something that I think backs up my contention the conservative governance occurs within liberalism, written by a conservative: "The public supports conservative presidents so long as they leave alone the liberal programs that benefit them."

"Pervasive Pessimism"

I just read an article “Pervasive Pessimism” by Jan Larson on the conservative blog site “The American Daily” (www.americandaily.com/article/9747). I took exception to it because I found it distorted, rabid and flagrantly wrong. I wrote Larson about it and this is what I said. I edited my original letter to be clearer:

Dear Mr. Larson,

As soon as I read you saying that liberals are naturally pessimistic I could hardly contain myself. I think you made that up just to be polemic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am a liberal and I am not a pessimist. However, neither am I the pollyanna, ***-eyed optimist you seem to be.

Conservative are optimists. [Ha!] If so, why are so many railing against [Larson equates criticism with pessimism] Bush's deficit spending, his choice of Miers for the Supreme Court, his making government bigger and his getting involved in a war that wasn't really necessary. Conservatives are pretty pessimistic about what has happened to the U.S. military. Conservative are pessimistic because Bush is not behaving like the conservative he said he was. And why are so many conservative hankering for "the good old days"? That seems like a pessimistic outlook to me.

[Anyway,] I think a dose of pessimism is good. [For instance,] sound economic policy is base more on pessimism than optimism, like the possibility of shortages, slowdowns, terrorist attacks and things just going plain wrong. That is why economics is called the "dismal science". It was a conservative that gave it that title - Thomas Carlyle.

You say that liberals are always being negative about this administration, but not offering any new ideas or solutions. Well, the liberal have come up with the best answers and here are conservative constantly knocking them down. When the liberals regain power they will continue with those great ideas they have put into place. There are only so many great and wise ideas that can be had in human governance and liberals have discovered most of them. But let's be optimistic, there is always room for improvement, even in the mind of a liberal.

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Larson’s big evidence that liberals are visceral pessimists is that they dominate the media. He says that the media of late has been full of news stories about disasters. (Like, they never happen.) Sadly, what I hear from him is that if conservatives dominated the media they would talk about only happy stories, not necessarily news, but warm fuzzy stories. Perhaps they would just mention that ‘silver lining’ that accompanies disasters. His other evidence that liberals are always pessimistic is their constant criticism of the President, for his starting an unnecessary war, for being slow in his response to natural disasters, for giving tax cuts to the rich, for gutting essential government programs and for chipping away at our democratic institutions. Larson doesn’t see any of the liberal criticism as necessary or constructive but just plain partisan bitching. I say, if liberals seem pessimistic it is because they see their nation being spoiled and tarnished by an extremely ideological, self-serving conservative movement.

Criticism, which Larson equates with pessimism, is an integral part of a vibrant and legitimate Democracy. Without criticism states have become dictatorships. In a Democracy if one feels that one party has virtually all the power, ramming its ideologically through without any means of legislative opposition, one naturally resorts to the only means one has to be noticed, being vocal and critical. Conservatives have acted that way in the past and rightly so. Perhaps liberals have been hyperbolic and shrilled in their criticism. But that’s because it has been the only means of getting the public’s and the media’s attention, a public and media that has been until now generally reluctant to criticize this administration. And liberals have been intimidated and gagged by this administration at every opportunity. There have been too many failures of late to remain uncritical. Another thing, when criticism is denied and stonewalled bad news and deeds tends to be swept under the proverbial rug. Criticism keeps democratic governments transparent and accountable. There is little transparency in this administration and that is a good reason for pessimism, all around.

Larson says that liberals just criticize and don't offer any new ideas. The new ideas liberals have had were implemented years ago. The liberal idea today is to continue to build on them. However, the conservatives are now rolling back many of them. Conservative new ideas are ‘hatchet-job’ ideas. They include ridiculous tax cuts for the rich, eliminating environmental protections, the gutting of government and international treaties, the dismantling of the UN, preemptive wars and the discrediting and marginalizing of the opposition. They literally would like to do away with the secular state. They want to turn back the clock to a supposedly better time. In this sense liberals are more realistic than conservatives.

I know of at least on pessimistic conservative, Pat Buchanan. He said something that I think is pretty pessimistic for him to say, that "The conservative movement has passed into history," That statement is pretty profound because it comes from one of America's chief conservative leaders. That statement confirms something I have always believed, that liberalism is the main force of Democracy, not conservatism. If we live in a democracy, to paraphrase Richard Nixon, we are all liberals - some with conservative tendencies, but all liberals. Liberalism holds the sway and that is noticeable in how BushCo is beginning to unravel, under its pressure for more openness and flexibility.

It begs the question, is there room for ultra, unabashed conservatism in a Democracy? I think only on the periphery, as a sort of counterweight or stopgap. If conservatives held total power their so-called optimism would kill us.

Change and Conservatives

Roger Scruton, British writer and philosopher, wrote in his latest book about how he discovered his conservatism. He discovered it during the sociopolitical upheavals of the 60s. Many newly minted conservatives (neoconservatives) find or found their routes in that time. They see those years as a loss of innocence and civility, lost in the 'sexual revolution', the civil rights movement, feminism, students demanding social and academic change, affirmative action and so on. It was a heady time for change. Conservatives are traditionalists and don't like change. That is why Scruton became a conservative, because he didn't like the supposedly progressive changes that occurred in the 60s. He saw most of what transpired then as undermining Western values and way of life. He sees our civilization poorer for it today.

Scruton said Edmund Burke (1729-97), a political philosopher, helped him discover his conservatism. Conservatives point to Burke as the founder of modern conservative thought. However, I am still a little hazy about what Scruton learnt from Burke and what connects them as conservatives. Some aspects of their conservatism differ and are vague. Perhaps one connection is that Burke romanticized about aesthetics as does Scruton (for instance, the dislike for modernism) - an endeavor that seems to be a mark of conservatism. Another aspect of conservatism is a deep suspicion for abstract ideas, a suspicion both men share. Both men tend to see things in black and white - no nuancing - another sign of conservatism. Conservatives seem to me to be rigid and inflexible.

Burke said something interesting, "A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation." That is profound. But I would think it is also contradictory and confusing for conservative thinkers. Conservatives don't like change. Yet, they follow someone who said that you have to change in order to continue to be. It is probably from this contradictory statement that the expression comes, "you have to change to remain the same". It does sound like something a conservative might say as a way of squaring it with Burke’s contradiction.

Burke’s remark is certainly contradictory. But, then, it speaks to the contradictory nature of the world. It talks about change and conservation, two ideas that seem to oppose each other. The contradiction is that change is generally associated with undoing things rather than conserving them. However, I think most of us understand what is meant and how this contradiction works. For instance, if one doesn’t change the oil in one’s car engine, periodically, one isn’t conserving or protecting the workings of the engine. What Burke means is that if you don’t periodically change or reform the sociopolitical nature of the State, it will in time, under pressure from the forces of change, fall apart. Change is also needed to combat the atrophy that naturally undermines things. And this is what happened to the communist State; it died from atrophy and the lack of change that would have combated it. Communism didn’t have the means to change and thus lacked the means of conserving itself. In contrast, Democracy is with us and expanding because it has the structural means for change and reform. Democracy maintains itself through change and remaining flexible.

Burke doesn’t account for the origins of change. Why is it necessary for a state to change in order to conserve itself? Burke didn’t offer any empirical evidence for it. Perhaps, though, he got the idea from experiencing the French Revolution, knowing that the same thing had happened in England during its “Glorious Revolution”. In both cases these States, as they were, were toppled because they resisted change. They broke under pressure. Neither wanted to change their ways of governance, so they suffered the consequences. Each State would not relinquish any of its powers so the people could participate in their own governance. In both cases the stubbornness of the State in not wanting to change was the reason for its collapse. Perhaps it was from Burke's utterance that Hegel got the idea that history is determined by change. Burke's idea also may have led Darwin to his theory of evolution.

Conservatives must have a difficult time of it, living in this world that is always changing. Change is inevitable. New elements and circumstance are always entering into it, requiring change and accommodation. And there is something unsettling about their resistance to change because one would think that they believe it once was a perfect world, that is until so-called progress and liberals started mucking things up. Maybe they don’t think it was once a perfect world, but instead it was somehow complete, at equilibrium and couldn’t be improved on. They keep resisting but the world marches on, demanding change. They would like to go back to the “good old days”, if they ever existed, when women were women and men were men. Ironically, conservatives are responsible for a lot of the social changes they bluster about. That change has come in the form of a backlash, provoked by the years of their colonization and trying to reinvent the world. It is as a result of "chickens coming home to roost".

Historically, why do things change? There are two forms of change that have bearing on us. One is induced by the natural flux of the universe, such as changes in the day (day, night), the seasons, the weather and those caused by the natural forces. Our existence is essentially determined by those changes. But that is not the change conservatives like Scruton are talking about. He is talking about social and political change. And in many respects that change is as natural as the first. The problem is that Scruton doesn’t think so. It comes as natural as thinking. When humans began thinking, things began to change. Thinking begets thinking and thus change begets change. People always have wondered how things could be different. That wondering is followed by action, which in turn causes change. People get restless and that also causes change. People think they can improve their lot in life. And with all this thinking and changing there is bound to be a change of unintended consequences. This unintended change/consequence is perhaps what Scruton is really railing about.

However, resistance to change can be a good thing. It keeps and consummates the worthy social and political changes made. Liberals and progressives go forth and instigate necessary change, but conservatives are the ones who contain the change and keeping it, as they can, to a minimum. A sort of compromise is reached between liberals and conservatives and on it goes. Sometimes they find themselves changing positions on themselves. This is how our governing system developed and works. It takes both of them to create a workable and legitimate governing system, through the give and take of both. The toughest thing is reaching and maintaining a balance. Overall, I think we have achieved it

I think there is at least one thing Scruton and I can agree on, that there is little truth to the idea that “The more things change the more they remain the same. That is imaginary. Things never remain the same.

Ideology and "The End Of History"

One of my favorite books is "The End Of History" by Francis Fukuyama. I like it because its premise echoes something I sensed, that humankind ostensively has reached an end point in its "ideological evolution". This end point represents a general consensus on how, in the main, we should and ought to be governed. Fukuyama opined that this end point represents humankind's "final form of human government".

I think of "The End Of History" as a metaphor for acquired wisdom, about how we ultimately should and ought to govern ourselves. Experimentation in human governance is over. The basic principles are set, in economics and social policy, for governance in the modern world. I am thinking this is what Fukuyama meant by it. The title doesn't mean the end of History per se but the end of a particular history, of hard core political ideology. We know that History will not end as long as there are humans around to make it.

What drove Fukuyama to conclude that humankind had reached the final form of human government was the collapse of communism. That meant liberal democracy was the only alternative form of governance left in the world. Furthermore, as he pointed out, not only had liberal democracy triumphed over communism but also over all other forms of government known to humankind. Liberal democracy is a mix of capitalism - free market economics - and democracy. Fukuyama didn't used the term capitalism because of its negative connotation. The evidence that it is the last form of government is that all developed and developing nation around the world are employing its principles.

I am thinking of this book for another reason, because of what is happening in American today. As I see it, America and its citizens essential had reached a consensus and an equilibrium in its governance. A general agreement had been reached as to what people wanted and expected from their government. Extreme ideology in governance had been contained. However, things changed five years ago when a group of ideologues came to power. They were different from the breed that preceded them. They were determined to undo the policies and agencies that were well established and accepted by the general population. These ideologues told the people that government was bad and then proceed to gut it. They wanted to role back elements of government like affirmative action, progressive court rulings, treaties and environment policies. In diplomacy they didn't use the well-established method of the " carrot and the stick" to cajole others to their way of thinking. They just use the stick. Their ideology has been "our way or the highway". For some ideological reason they have want to dismantle a perfectly good social security system, one that generally has served the nation well. Their education and science agenda has made things worse, not better. Their neoconservative ideology has become a curse for the country and the world, and in the end I predict will be their undoing.

My point is this, that ideology has been reintroduced in American politics, making America more divisive and weaker than ever. Prior to this America was fairly united and balanced. The world looked upon America favorably. Prior to this, political ideology had not been mainstream. Cooperation was the way. But this administration has re-injected ideology into the political process. This administration thought they had sensed the pulse of the nation, America’s mood and what it really wanted. They thought wrong when they brought back old time ideology and started undermining the progressive governing gains made over them years.

Essential what Fukuyama said is that we have moved beyond fundamental ideological differences in politics. There is one goal, good and accountable governance for all. And America basically discovered how to do it. Obviously, though, this idea has been lost in America. But I am confident it will come back. Recent events signal that. Americans want a government that is transparent, that will help in a crisis, set mutually beneficial policies, look after the less fortunate and set a good example for the rest of the world.

I can see a silver lining in having this administration and its extreme ideology in power. Its severity and consequences is re-awaking and reminding the America people what they really cherish and want in their governance. Prior to this the American people had fallen asleep and were taking things for granted. They though they had arrived. Transparent and accountable government requires constant vigilance and electoral responsibility. This negative episode in American politics may again put America on the progressive track.