Two Views of Democracy
Democracy, or “The Our Democracy” as it is called by some, is a word that excites the human imagination. A problem immediately emerges, however, if we are to define democracy democratically. This question serves to illustrate two views of democracy, neither of which is wholly satisfactory. First, let’s define the term etymologically, from its Ancient Greek roots:
Derived from δῆμος (dêmos, “common people", "assembly of the people”) + -κρατία (-kratía, “power”, “rule”). (Wiktionary.)
Reading the alternative meanings for both constituent parts is instructive, but, more or less, we have an idea of rule by the people. For the last century or so, this has included women, though, it is useful to note that women were not included in the historical definition. The Athenian playwright Aristophanes satirizes giving women political power in The Assemblywomen, which is also noteworthy for its toilet humour:
What does this mean? My wife has vanished! it is nearly daybreak and she does not return! I had to take a crap! I woke up and hunted in the darkness for my shoes and my cloak; but grope where I would, I couldn't find them. Meanwhile Mr. O'Shit was already knocking on the door and I had only just time to seize my wife's little mantle and her Persian slippers. But where shall I find a place where I can take a crap? Bah! One place is as good as another at night-time; no one will see me. Ah! what a damned fool I was to take a wife at my age, and how I could thrash myself for having acted so stupidly! It's certainty she's not gone out for any honest purpose. But the thing to do now is to take a crap.
…
I am going to have a look too, when I have finished crapping; but I really think there must be a wild pear obstructing my rectum.
Is there some greater meaning to the congruity of toilet humour, and mockery of the woman’s enfranchisement? Perhaps, but that is not our topic. We note, therefore, that the “demos” has never meant the entire people: to this day, it does not include children or non-citizens, though there are some popular movements to change that. Even if we go to the extreme of enfranchising women, children, non-citizens (perhaps a contradiction in terms, for the franchise is what constitutes citizenship) then we are still left with the subset of franchisees who are capable of exercising that franchise, that is, casting a ballot.
We have seen this rendered much more easy, with mail in voting. The Government will mail you a ballot, and you can simply fill it in and drop it in the mailbox. Is it counted? Who knows. And if ballots may simply be dropped into the mailbox, how many ballots will be put into that box that are filled out, or in the name of, people without a legitimate franchise? This idea of democracy always being a subset of the demos is seen in the problem of defining democracy—-is this term subject to some natural law, some natural ruler who has prescribed its meaning, or does its meaning itself depend, subjectively, on the meaning ascribed to it by the demos?
A phrase often used by progressives is “Our Democracy.” Their usage is curious, for they say things like “the wrong people might be elected, therefore Our Democracy is under attack.” This view, is what I called “The Our Democracy.” This view of democracy is unsatisfactory because it is undemocratic. This view holds that democracy is not simply the rule of the people, their will be done in earth, but that democracy is only legitimate insofar as it implements specific values, for example, anti-racism, feminism, genocide conventions, etc. Even if duly elected, a party that would remove the vote from blacks and women, and subject some minority to genocide, would not be democratic, because they are not enacting these eternal democratic values—-this is a French Republic view of democracy rooted in some universalist sense of “fraternity,” and that a democracy is not a democracy if it does not subscribe to this sense of fraternity.
But we have already established that no democracy enfranchises everyone, and, if enfranchised, not everyone can exercise that franchise; therefore, the will of the people is purely hypothetical, as is their rule: it is always the rule of the subset of the people capable of voting. And even then, they do not vote on laws in industrial “democracies,” they vote for representatives that have large enough advertising budgets to make the rounds in the media, whatever form that may now take in 2024’s era of algorithmic advertising. So, realistically, The Our Democracy uses the language of democracy, but its overt agenda is to deny the people actual democracy where, if they wish to elect a government that will enact racist, misogynist and genocidal policies, that is not a democracy. The Our Democracy is, therefore, a species of oligarchy that prostitutes the rhetoric of democracy for the purpose of social control.
There is not, I think, much wrong with this, except it is inaccurate to call it a democracy. And we see that what they say is anti-democratic is actually much closer to democracy: if the people elect to disenfranchise women, that is clearly democratic. If they elect to deport people of African descent to their natural habitat, that is clearly democratic. If they elect to repudiate the genocide conventions, and the notion of peremptory norms of international law, that, too, is democratic. In this sense, democracy is more a form than a content.
This, too, is not satisfactory, for who would really want to live in a world where the majority could do whatever it wanted, simply because it is elected? Would anyone subject to a genocide really think he should legitimately go to the camp, or the ovens, because “the other team won an election”? Still, I think this is more a blow to either conception of democracy—-and I think the reality of democracy is somewhere in the middle. It is, perhaps, as Aristotle said, a sort of degenerate republic, where the poor have seized control, because they are the most numerous.
I do not really like the Rolling Stones, but maybe they were on to something . . .