last updated: 17 September 2018 (approximate reading time: 5 minutes; 1027 words)
I was reading a very interesting article about the rise of polarization in Poland, and what it says about the political climate here. I have friends and associates in Poland, and that nation is further along the path to authoritarianism than the United States is. But while the article positions itself as a cautionary tale, beyond the article, I wonder if democracy contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.
To pull a quote from the article:
“The post-1989 liberal moment—this was the exception,” [political scientist] Stathis Kalyvas told me. Polarization is normal. More to the point, I would add, skepticism about liberal democracy is also normal. And the appeal of authoritarianism is eternal.
Democracy makes sense to those living in it. The ones being governed should have a say in how they are being governed. That statement isn’t just self-evident to us, isn’t just obvious, but we’d insist that it’s morally right.
But here’s the thing. Making democracy work is hard. At a minimum, people who have other things to do–work their jobs, spend time with their families, who have hobbies, and want to have time for friends and leisure—have to take time to research the issues of governance. They have to make decisions based on that research. And then they have to take time to vote on those issues. And that’s the minimum. Actively supporting candidates or positions or policies, giving time or money to candidates, takes up both time and treasure. Some people enjoy doing that, and it’s not a hardship. But others would rather do anything else than spend time learning and voting, let alone being active in politics or government.
To those people, the idea of a single source of information that they trust as “right” is extremely appealing. Why bother reading multiple sources or watching multiple videos when you believe that Fox News is “Fair and Balanced?” And extrapolating from that, what if these people believed that a certain governing party, or a certain authoritarian leader, whom they trusted as right would govern exactly the way they’d want to be governed, without them having to raise a finger? It’s the best of all worlds to them–they get the leadership that they would have wanted if they were involved, without the hassle of getting involved.
Of course, not everyone would believe that the authoritarian leader or party would govern the way that they want to be governed. Hence, polarization. And how the two sides deal with polarization is telling.
Authoritarians do not tolerate those on the other side. They sustain themselves via the “Big Lie” (or as the article suggests, with Trump and the modern authoritarian leader the “Medium-Size Lie”) that they are better, right, more pure, and so on. Any evidence to the contrary is dismissed and discredited as fake news or false, and anyone who stands opposed is the enemy. And if things start to go wrong in an obvious way, find someone to blame, be it a political party, an ethnic group, religion or other minority. And if they push back, call them intolerant, and accuse them of the type of behavior and tactics that are in fact being done to them.
But here’s the thing: in a democracy, those authoritarian voices have the same right to speak as everyone else. So this creates a paradox that in democracy, anti-democratic movements are allowed to flourish, while in anti-democratic environments, democratic movements are stifled.
Austrian and British philosopher Karl Popper wrote about what he called the Paradox of Tolerance:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
In other words, for a democracy to survive, it must be authoritarian enough to be intolerant of intolerance. But how intolerant of intolerance can a democracy be without becoming anti-democratic? I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this question, and definitely not a “one legal test fits all” solution.
This implies that democracy can die in two ways (if not more): either authoritarianism is not checked, becomes popular, and takes over (such as with the election of the authoritarian Law and Justice party in Poland and authoritarian style leaders like Trump) with it’s accompanying intolerance of dissent, or democracies become increasingly intolerant of the rise of authoritarianism and intolerance, thereby chipping away at the core freedom that people have.
Is that inevitable? Is there a way for a liberal democracy to survive without either succumbing to the appeal of easy authoritarianism with its self-styled purity, righteousness, and ease of citizenship, or compromising it’s core freedoms to disallow authoritarian propaganda, intolerant speech, and so on?
I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I’d like to think that an educated, engaged citizenry would be able to self-police itself and marginalize it’s voices of intolerance without giving into authoritarian techniques to silence them. But as author Anne Applebaum writes, “Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will.” Is that pure pessimism or alarmism, or an accurate forecast from a reading of history?
This can’t be blamed on the election of Trump. This has all been in motion long before. What the election of Trump and the rise of intolerance in the United States shows us is that America is not immune. We Americans like to think that somehow we are different, but we’re not. We’d be fools not to look at what is happening with the rise of nationalism, authoritarianism, and intolerance in Europe and not recognize it at home. The ability of the United States to sustain as a democracy is far from a given; we need to be honest about its challenges, and address them openly and pragmatically, before its too late and authoritarians who insist they know what is best for us do it for us.
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