BBO Discussion Forums: Depressing Read of the Day - BBO Discussion Forums

Jump to content

Page 1 of 1
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Depressing Read of the Day Is Too Much Democracy Killing Democracy?

#1 User is offline   Winstonm 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,190
  • Joined: 2005-January-08
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • Interests:Art, music

Posted 2019-September-08, 18:27

https://www.politico...emocracy-228045

Quote

The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy

Quote

Then, the mood changed. As one of the lions of the profession, 68-year-old Shawn Rosenberg, began delivering his paper, people in the crowd of about a hundred started shifting in their seats. They loudly whispered objections to their friends. Three women seated next to me near the back row grew so loud and heated I had difficulty hearing for a moment what Rosenberg was saying.

What caused the stir? Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine, was challenging a core assumption about America and the West. His theory? Democracy is devouring itself—his phrase — and it won’t last.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
1

#2 User is offline   FelicityR 

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Full Members
  • Posts: 980
  • Joined: 2012-October-26
  • Gender:Female

Posted 2019-September-08, 19:14

That's an interesting read. There's probably many more reasons why democracy is declining beyond Professor Rosenberg's analysis. Here in the UK we have a 'democratic vote' to leave the European Union, though now people who want remain in the EU now cite 'democratic rights' to stop us leaving.

So when people cannot respect and abide by a democratic decision they now have the power to try to overturn that decision. What's the point of democracy when that happens? Obviously this Leave/Remain impasse has polarised opinion further, so it's no wonder both hard line left and right wing factions have emerged from the chaos.

It's strange how Professor Rosenberg concentrates on the rise of right wing authoritarianism, when there is an equally obnoxious brand of left wing authoritarianism out there too practising their own brand of bias. And never the twain shall meet...
0

#3 User is offline   y66 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 6,496
  • Joined: 2006-February-24

Posted 2019-September-09, 18:59

From The anti-liberal moment by Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

Quote

Shortly after its post-World War I creation, the foundations of Germany’s Weimar Republic began to quake. In 1923, Hitler staged an abortive coup attempt in Bavaria, the so-called Beer Hall Putsch — a failure that nonetheless turned Hitler into a reactionary celebrity, a sign of German discontent with the post-war political order.

One contemporary observer, a legal theorist in his mid-30s named Carl Schmitt, found the seeds of the crisis within the idea of liberalism itself. Liberal institutions like representative democracy, and the liberal ideal that all a nation’s citizens can be treated as political equals, were in his view a sham. Politics at its core is not about compromise between equal individuals but instead conflict between groups.

“Even if Bolshevism is suppressed and Fascism held at bay, the crisis of contemporary parliamentarism would not be overcome in the least,” he wrote in 1926. ”It is, in its depths, the inescapable contradiction of liberal individualism and democratic homogeneity.”

Schmitt’s critique of liberalism proved terrifyingly accurate. The struggle between the Nazis and their opponents could not be resolved through parliamentary compromise; the Weimar Republic fell to fascism and took the rest of the continent down with it.

I’ve been thinking about Schmitt a lot lately. Not about his dark fate — he became an enthusiastic Nazi — but instead about his prescience. Schmitt saw something in German politics, deep flaws in its liberal order, before they became obvious to other political observers and ordinary citizens. His philosophical critique predicted political reality.

Schmitt haunts our political moment because we are seeing a flowering of criticism of American liberalism. In recent years, serious thinkers on both the left and right have launched a sustained assault on the United States’ founding intellectual credo.

These criticisms do not arise in a vacuum. They stem from real-world crises, most notably the 2008 Great Recession and the rise of far-right populists like Donald Trump to power. These shocks to the system show, in the eyes of liberalism’s contemporary critics, that something is profoundly wrong with the fundamental ideas that define our politics. It is a belief that “the liberal idea has become obsolete,” as Russian President Vladimir Putin recently declared.

Unlike Schmitt and Putin, the intellectual critics of liberalism opponents do not typically challenge democracy itself. But they are united in believing that American liberalism as currently constituted is past its expiration date, that it is buckling under the weight of its contradictions. Their arguments tap into a deep sense of discontent among the voting public, a collapse of trust in the political establishment, and a growing sense that institutions like Congress aren’t delivering what the public needs.

On the right, the anti-liberals locate the root of the problem in liberalism’s social doctrines, its emphasis on secularism and individual rights. In their view, these ideas are solvents breaking down America’s communities and, ultimately, dissolving the very social fabric the country needs to prosper.

Liberalism “constantly disrupts deeply cherished traditions among its subject populations, stirring unrest, animosity, and eventually political reaction and backlash,” Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule, one of the most prominent of the reactionary anti-liberals, said in a May speech.

Left anti-liberals, by contrast, pinpoint liberal economic doctrine as the source of our current woes. Liberalism’s vision of the economy as a zone of individual freedom, in their view, has given rise to a deep system of exploitation that makes a mockery of liberal claims to be democratic — an oppressive system referred to as “neoliberalism.”

“Neoliberalism in any guise is not the solution but the problem,” Nancy Fraser, a professor at the New School, writes. “The sort of change we require can only come from elsewhere, from a project that is at the very least anti-neoliberal, if not anti-capitalist.”

The defenses from America’s liberal intellectual elite have been weak at best. The most prominent defenses of liberalism today are either laundry lists of its past glories or misplaced attacks on “identity politics” and “political correctness,” neither of which are adequate to the challenge presented by liberalism’s newly vital critics on the reactionary right or socialist left.

If liberalism is to endure, liberals have to join the fight. And that starts with understanding why liberalism is in trouble — and just what, exactly, it’s up against.

Quote

One of liberalism’s historical sources of strength is seeing the world for what it is, adapting its doctrines to fit changing realities rather than trying to make the world fit an older version of liberalism. Modern liberals need to do the same with the problems raised by its current critics. They — we — need to recognize that there are serious flaws in liberalism as it exists. Leftists are correct that neoliberal faith in the market was far too devout; conservatives are right that liberals have been too inattentive to the importance of community.

Quote

But liberal adaptation to change is not merely a process of self-flagellation. It also involves identifying what new ideas are bubbling up that can be adapted to strengthen liberalism, pinpointing the raw materials for generating enthusiastic new liberal movements and visions. The obsessive focus on a handful of overeager college organizers and professors is a mistake; it obscures the undeniable fact that organization around group identity has helped create a number of vital political movements that are defending liberalism’s central component parts.

Think about the Movement for Black Lives, dedicated to liberal ideals of equal citizenship and non-coercion. Think about the fact that roughly 4 million Americans around the country turned out for the 2017 Women’s Marches, using a call for women’s equality as means of organizing against Trump’s threat to American democracy more broadly.

Think about the #MeToo movement’s role in fighting back against a pervasive source of unfreedom and inequality. Think about the backlash to Trump’s travel ban and family separations, how young people around the world are using their generational identity to mobilize around climate change, and how laws aimed at repressing minority voters have become a rallying cry for the defense of free and fair elections.

The people doing the work to defend equality, freedom, and democracy today base their activism on the experiences of specific identity groups. They tend to use specific oppressions as a jumping-off point, weaving together different groups’ experiences into a tapestry of solidarity. Particularism is not isolating, but rather a means of generating a broad-based critique of social inequalities that can improve democracy for all.

Liberals will not succeed by tut-tutting activists who care about the oppression of their own communities. They succeed by developing a vision of liberalism that harnesses activists’ energy and sense of injustice.

The defense of liberalism begins by recognizing that there is a crisis, that anti-liberals are once again asserting themselves intellectually in ways that should worry liberalism’s defenders. It will triumph by seeing the world for what it is, and changing liberalism to meet it — not by insisting on arguments well past their expiration date.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
1

#4 User is offline   Winstonm 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,190
  • Joined: 2005-January-08
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • Interests:Art, music

Posted 2019-September-09, 20:06

View PostFelicityR, on 2019-September-08, 19:14, said:

That's an interesting read. There's probably many more reasons why democracy is declining beyond Professor Rosenberg's analysis. Here in the UK we have a 'democratic vote' to leave the European Union, though now people who want remain in the EU now cite 'democratic rights' to stop us leaving.

So when people cannot respect and abide by a democratic decision they now have the power to try to overturn that decision. What's the point of democracy when that happens? Obviously this Leave/Remain impasse has polarised opinion further, so it's no wonder both hard line left and right wing factions have emerged from the chaos.

It's strange how Professor Rosenberg concentrates on the rise of right wing authoritarianism, when there is an equally obnoxious brand of left wing authoritarianism out there too practising their own brand of bias. And never the twain shall meet...


I'm curious who or what you consider to be left wing authoritarian as the phrase by most would be considered an oxymoron.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
0

#5 User is offline   FelicityR 

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Full Members
  • Posts: 980
  • Joined: 2012-October-26
  • Gender:Female

Posted 2019-September-09, 22:07

View PostWinstonm, on 2019-September-09, 20:06, said:

I'm curious who or what you consider to be left wing authoritarian as the phrase by most would be considered an oxymoron.


http://vote-watch.co...nti-boris-boos/

http://labour-uncut....-anti-semitism/

https://www.dissentm...ry-of-socialism

Over on this side of the Atlantic we have extreme left-wing activists attempting to oust moderate centre-left and socialist candidates from their constituency seats. Momentum have been found guilty of electoral fraud, too. There are issues regarding illegal use of postal votes, and issues regarding anti-semitism as well. In essence, they are anti-democratic, thus authoritarian in nature.

And yes, I agree, authoritarian regimes are mainly right wing in nature, but there are plenty of socialist governments in the world who practise their own form of authoritarianism.
1

#6 User is offline   kenberg 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 11,052
  • Joined: 2004-September-22
  • Location:Northern Maryland

Posted 2019-September-10, 13:18

I didn't think the audience came out all that well.

"What stirred the crowd was that Rosenberg has gone beyond pessimism into outright defeatism. What riled the crowd was that he's seemingly embraced a kind of reverence for elitism no longer fashionable in the academy."


Ah yes. And by elites he meant? The article says:


"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.' "
So what really riled the audience was that Rosenberg said that "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" are being sidelined and he thinks that's a problem. That really got them upset, did it?


And they explain what a proper view is:


"There were less discomforting moments in Lisbon. The convention gave an award to George Marcus, one of the founders of the discipline, who has dedicated his career to the optimistic theory that human beings by nature readjust their ideas to match the world as it is and not as they'd like it to be—just as democracy requires."


So a speaker at this conference is expected to disdain those elites with training and, instead, praise the ability of everyday people to adjust.

I expect that I disagree with Greenberg, but the audience, as described in the article at least, seem to be a bunch of bubbleheads.

Ken
0

#7 User is offline   hrothgar 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 15,372
  • Joined: 2003-February-13
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Natick, MA
  • Interests:Travel
    Cooking
    Brewing
    Hiking

Posted 2019-September-10, 14:57

View PostWinstonm, on 2019-September-09, 20:06, said:

I'm curious who or what you consider to be left wing authoritarian as the phrase by most would be considered an oxymoron.


Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot...

More controversially, FDR

More recently, Hugo Chavez
Alderaan delenda est
0

#8 User is offline   Winstonm 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,190
  • Joined: 2005-January-08
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • Interests:Art, music

Posted 2019-September-10, 16:22

View Posthrothgar, on 2019-September-10, 14:57, said:

Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot...

More controversially, FDR

More recently, Hugo Chavez


Thanks, Richard.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
0

#9 User is offline   andrei 

  • PipPipPipPip
  • Group: Full Members
  • Posts: 324
  • Joined: 2008-March-31

Posted 2019-September-10, 19:52

View PostWinstonm, on 2019-September-09, 20:06, said:

I'm curious who or what you consider to be left wing authoritarian as the phrase by most would be considered an oxymoron.


LOL, priceless, was this really a serious question?

Fidel
Ceausescu
Maduro
North Korea
Eritrea

Need more?
Don't argue with a fool. He has a rested brain
Before internet age you had a suspicion there are lots of "not-so-smart" people on the planet. Now you even know their names.
0

#10 User is offline   kenberg 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 11,052
  • Joined: 2004-September-22
  • Location:Northern Maryland

Posted 2019-September-11, 07:44

View Postandrei, on 2019-September-10, 19:52, said:

LOL, priceless, was this really a serious question?

Fidel
Ceausescu
Maduro
North Korea
Eritrea

Need more?


I usually find myself voting toward the left but I am far less enthusiastic about Rocketman than our current pres is. Of course his views are subject to change.


That being said, I did think that Rosenberg weakened his argument by speaking of right-wing politics. A dictator is a dictator. Is Putin, you didn't mention Putin, left wing or right wing? Does it matter?

Rosenberg was speaking of a real problem, he looks back at the past, so let's do so. Most people are not up for following political details. My father and his friends discussed fishing, lots of discussions of fishing. Some discussions of hunting and maybe a little about baseball. I cannot recall a discussion he had with anyone about politics. He was a blue collar worker (although in fact he usually wore a white shirt and tie) so he usually, I think, voted for the pro-labor Dems but I think he voted for Ike in 52 based on "I will go to Korea". He took civic responsibility seriously but the general view of people who got heavily into such things was that they should pay more attention to family. My mother's view of military service was that I should join the Navy rather than the Army because ships don't go down all that often and anyway you get fed better. I think what I describe was about standard for households across the country in the old says Rosenberg is looking back at.

Ok, back to the article:

Quote


And therein lies the core of his argument: 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. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic.


Well, lot's of luck with that one. That's Rosenberg's point. It's an obvious point, I think on this he is completely correct.

From the article, but not from Rosenberg directly:

Quote


Whereas democracy requires us to accept the fact that we have to share our country with people who think and look differently than we do, right-wing populism offers a quick sugar high. Forget political correctness. You can feel exactly the way you really want about people who belong to other tribes.


"share our country with people who think and look differently than we do"? The humorist Tom Lehrer addressed this 50 some years ago: "It's fun to eulogize / the people you despise / as long you don't let them in your schools".


Yes, at an earlier time people tended to rely on "elites", Walter Cronkite for example. Think what you will of him. He often polled as the most trusted man in America. Rightly or not, it helped in forming a consensus. We lack that now. In theory this might be better, people have to think more for themselves. That's both the good news and the bad news.


Rosenberg has a point. A point that is so obvious that it is frightening that it's news, and even upsetting news, to a professional audience. He could have made his point more effectively by not coupling it with a left/right political pitch. Right wing, left wing, it's still a problem.


Ken
0

#11 User is offline   Winstonm 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 17,190
  • Joined: 2005-January-08
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • Interests:Art, music

Posted 2019-September-11, 08:36

View Posthrothgar, on 2019-September-10, 14:57, said:

Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot...

More controversially, FDR

More recently, Hugo Chavez


My thinking on this subject is that authoritarians are consistent with those who require support for a single leader
(the autocrat) rather than encourage and rely on group choice (democracy). The left/right organization is then based on support or lack-of-support for democracy, not the type of underlying government used as a vehicle of control.

In regard to the latter, a communist government would be easier for an autocrat to control. Likewise, autocrats have and still do thrive in countries that on their surface appear non-socialistic and non-communistic, hold elections, and have court systems, although all such activities are facades and controlled by the leader.

In all those situations, the bottom line is: single strongman leader, lack of democratic choice.

That, to me, is the basis of left/right.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
0

#12 User is offline   kenberg 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 11,052
  • Joined: 2004-September-22
  • Location:Northern Maryland

Posted 2019-September-11, 10:48

A perhaps over-simplified history: In the 1930s many people were having difficulties. Some Americans thought Hitler's approach in Germany was correct, some thought Stalin's approach in the USSR was correct, probably some even admired Mussolini. We steered clear of that.

So: Rosenberg is pessimistic. I wonder if, in his talk, he discussed whether we were just lucky in the 30s?

The Milan conference was for experts in this sort of question, right? Do they, individually or collectively, have an explanation for why we avoided the catastrophic choices that some other societies made? We were taught, in school, that 1776 led to something worthwhile. How much of a role did that play?

I think the danger to democracy is real. I would like to avoid Rosenberg's pessimism.

Candide, learning that this is far from the best of all possible worlds, decided that we must cultivate the garden. This is often seen as pessimism, I am not so sure that's right. Anyway, I like to think that it is possible, but far from certain, to make it through difficult times.
Ken
0

Page 1 of 1
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users