Conquest of Democracy
Robert Conquest doesn't have the sort of surname that inspires one to a discussion of democracy, but here he is, and it's a home-run essay.
He writes a largely cautionary tale, and it's a tonic to the euphoria over the smashing success of the election in Iraq. Oh, definitely, let the people celebrate their discovery of their power, and take a momnt to pat yourself on the back if you supported them all along. But there's still many sheaves to bind before we can really declare this job finished.
Conquest's piece is a fair look, and a must-read, no matter where you fall in the political spectrum. He could have titled it "Two Cheers for Democracy," but that was already taken.
He touches all the historical bases: the Athenian assembly voting the genocide of Mytilene (then in a fit of remorse changing its mind) and the mass support for Hitler in 1933. He invokes the warning of Hamilton, that "A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter."
He looks at democracy as a reality, not as an ideal. Stripped away of its clouds of glory, it appears as a nitty-gritty affair of compromises and political bargains. Democracy presumes society as a work in progress, never finished, with goals and ideals, but not ones that ought to be expected to come literally true in anyone's lifetime.
Thus visionaries and ideologues can be a particular problem.
Among the friends of democracy, then, are certain unlikely characters. Apathy, for instance. And un-democratic institutions.
As an example of how an excess of idealism can vitiate a democratic institution, he offers some familiar cases:
My point, not necessarily Conquest's, but Churchill said it best: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
He writes a largely cautionary tale, and it's a tonic to the euphoria over the smashing success of the election in Iraq. Oh, definitely, let the people celebrate their discovery of their power, and take a momnt to pat yourself on the back if you supported them all along. But there's still many sheaves to bind before we can really declare this job finished.
Conquest's piece is a fair look, and a must-read, no matter where you fall in the political spectrum. He could have titled it "Two Cheers for Democracy," but that was already taken.
The countries without at least a particle of that background or evolution cannot be expected to become instant democracies; and if they do not live up to it, they will unavoidably be, with their Western sponsors, denounced as failures. Democracy in any Western sense is not easily constructed or imposed. The experience of Haiti should be enough comment.
He touches all the historical bases: the Athenian assembly voting the genocide of Mytilene (then in a fit of remorse changing its mind) and the mass support for Hitler in 1933. He invokes the warning of Hamilton, that "A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter."
He looks at democracy as a reality, not as an ideal. Stripped away of its clouds of glory, it appears as a nitty-gritty affair of compromises and political bargains. Democracy presumes society as a work in progress, never finished, with goals and ideals, but not ones that ought to be expected to come literally true in anyone's lifetime.
Thus visionaries and ideologues can be a particular problem.
All the major troubles we have had in the last half century have been caused by people who have let politics become a mania. The politician should be a servant and should play a limited role.
Among the friends of democracy, then, are certain unlikely characters. Apathy, for instance. And un-democratic institutions.
Democracy cannot work without a fair level of political and social stability. This implies a certain amount of political apathy. Anything resembling fanaticism, a domination of the normal internal debate by "activists" is plainly to be deplored. And democracy must accept anomalies. As John Paul Jones, the American naval hero, sensibly put it in 1775, "True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending, ... the ships themselves must be ruled under a system of absolute despotism." The navy, indeed, is an extreme case; no democratization in any real degree makes sense, any more than it does in, say, a university, at the other end of the spectrum.
As an example of how an excess of idealism can vitiate a democratic institution, he offers some familiar cases:
In particular, the UN, like the EU, approaches "human rights" on the basis of the general high-mindedness of the Continental Enlightenment. Declarations are made, agreements are reached. It is taken for granted that many states--about half the membership of the UN--will not in fact conform. And in the regions where liberty largely prevails, the signatories find their own countries denounced, often by their own citizens. The result is that under abstract human rights definitions, every state in the West that submits to treaties of the human rights sort lays itself open to aggressive litigation. As the late Raymond Aron, who spent so much of his life trying to educate the French intelligentsia, put it, "every known regime is blameworthy if one holds it to an abstract idea of equality over liberty."
My point, not necessarily Conquest's, but Churchill said it best: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
