Democracy
On this patriotic occasion, this fine NYT essay helps us to remember that the U.S. has not, historically, been very democratic.
This shouldn’t be controversial. We all know about the inequalities in political power that have been brought about through the Electoral College, voting restrictions against women and slaves, Jim Crow, etc. We all know about the undue influence of plutocrats and technocrats (though many of us would, perversely, embrace plutocratic or technocratic rule).
What is rightly controversial – what is philosophically very puzzling – is the more basic question of why democracy is desirable (if, indeed, it is desirable). Chesterton gives a famous (and, it must be said, highly contestable) answer: that what people have in common is much more important than what makes them different; and that aspiring to rule is something that people have in common. (Therefore – I am filling in the blanks for him – each person’s aspiration to rule is very important. Therefore: democracy.) So, contrary to Jason Brennan: governance should not be restricted to experts, for expertise is not what people have in common. And, contrary to Dan Moller (and Thoreau): “governing least” is not a worthwhile ideal; for what people typically aspire to is not to govern least but to govern substantially. The ideal that springs from our common humanity is that we should influence and be influenced by one another. “No man is an island.”
But the ideal in this country is that, inasmuch as we can, we should become self-sufficient, noninterfering islands.
But when we enforce this ideal upon one another, don’t we come perilously close to giving lie to it?
This shouldn’t be controversial. We all know about the inequalities in political power that have been brought about through the Electoral College, voting restrictions against women and slaves, Jim Crow, etc. We all know about the undue influence of plutocrats and technocrats (though many of us would, perversely, embrace plutocratic or technocratic rule).
What is rightly controversial – what is philosophically very puzzling – is the more basic question of why democracy is desirable (if, indeed, it is desirable). Chesterton gives a famous (and, it must be said, highly contestable) answer: that what people have in common is much more important than what makes them different; and that aspiring to rule is something that people have in common. (Therefore – I am filling in the blanks for him – each person’s aspiration to rule is very important. Therefore: democracy.) So, contrary to Jason Brennan: governance should not be restricted to experts, for expertise is not what people have in common. And, contrary to Dan Moller (and Thoreau): “governing least” is not a worthwhile ideal; for what people typically aspire to is not to govern least but to govern substantially. The ideal that springs from our common humanity is that we should influence and be influenced by one another. “No man is an island.”
But the ideal in this country is that, inasmuch as we can, we should become self-sufficient, noninterfering islands.
But when we enforce this ideal upon one another, don’t we come perilously close to giving lie to it?