Pernicious Conceit and the Limits of Democracy

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2017/05/23/pernicious-conceit-and-the-limits-of-democracy/

 

“In the long run democracy will be judged, no less than other forms of government, by the quality of its leaders, a quality that will depend in turn on the quality of their vision.”  So wrote Irving Babbitt, the famed Harvard professor who left few acknowledged disciples, yet whose influence has been distilled to the contemporary world through his many students, T.S. Eliot most prominent among them.

Babbitt was no hater of democracy, but like most serious political thinkers, he understood the limits of any political system, and, particularly, our own.  He held no belief that a fixed theory of government could effectuate a permanent solution to the problems of order, justice, and freedom.  He did not believe that government, democracy included, could remake man or alter his fundamental nature.  But this did not preclude Babbitt from believing in the power of government to accomplish great things, so long as it was constructed upon the moral and ethical habits of virtue, discipline, and self-restraint.

Babbitt eschewed the idea that legitimacy in government can be derived from the conceited public flattery delivered by successful politicians in stump speeches, and, ultimately, achieved at the ballot-box.  “The notion in particular that a substitute for leadership may be found in numerical majorities that are supposed to reflect the ‘general will’ is only a pernicious conceit,” he wrote.  In this view, the victory of a simple majority does not render its voice the voice of truth.  The voice of the people is not the voice of God. 

Indeed, some of the greatest moral failures in modern politics have been the result of majoritarian demands and electoral victories.  We need not forget that Germany in the early twentieth-century was among the most sophisticated, well-educated, wealthy, and civilized nations in the world, yet it elected Hitler as its leader.  How could this happen and can it happen again?

The answer is linked to the question of leadership quality, which is itself a function of a nation’s moral habits and the character of its people.  A population can at once be industrious and technologically advanced, while backing policies that trample the dignity of persons and the rights of minorities.  In fact, periods of unbridled technological progress are often accompanied by political policies that subvert individual persons to the agenda of scientific advancement.  The creation and use of the atomic bomb, the liberalization of abortion laws, support for eugenics to create “designer babies,” and encouraging euthanasia for the sick, elderly, or other “unwanted” persons, bespeaks our own failures to treat everyone with respect notwithstanding the lip-service our culture pays to equality and humanitarianism.  In each of these modern horrors, technology determines the scope of human dignity.

But if a majority of the American electorate determined that slavery should be reinstated and that the Thirteenth Amendment (which banned slavery) should be rescinded, justice would demand strenuous opposition.  Yet in the name of tolerance and progress, the contemporary electorates of almost all Western nations accept policies that similarly beget unspeakable violence against persons who are unable to defend themselves: the sick, poor, unborn, elderly, and mentally handicapped.  Are these persons worth nothing?  Are they not persons at all?  Are they not worthy to live, and breathe, and one-day die with dignity?  Are we, by virtue of policies put into effect by democratically elected leaders, endowed with the jurisdiction to determine who is worthy of life and respect?  Hardly.  Right and wrong cannot determined by a simple majority vote, nor should they be.

In the United States, the language of democracy is a powerful, yet often dangerous, tool.  The most artful politicians are often the most skilled flatterers of public ego and use the rhetoric of “the people” as their weapon of choice.  Pandering to popular sentiment and stoking the fires of avarice, these knaves of the governing class will exploit plebiscitary interests for electoral gain, and once in power, must deliver on their sordid promises.  In our fragile system of republican government, the impulsive and ephemeral cries of the mob must be weighed against the very real possibility that radical change, even if approved by a vast majority of the voting population, might be bad policy.  But that requires the majority to question itself.  It requires self-discipline and humility – commodities always in short-supply.     

Moreover, democracy cannot be an effective or desirable governing system unless the people exercising the franchise are concerned with the cultivation of virtue in their own lives.  If the voting public comprises citizens striving to achieve a virtuous life (even if they are not always successful in doing so), a healthy democracy may emerge. 

If not, a plebiscitary democracy premised on flattery, bribery, and sheer power will prevail.  I loathe the prospect and so should you.

 

Glen A. Sproviero is a commercial litigator in New York. Read his previous columns here.