The Promise of Democracy

Political Agency and Transformation

Fred Dallmayr

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781438430386
  9781438430393
• eBook ISBN:
  9781438430409
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Presentation of a new, ethical vision of democracy built around self-rule, civic education, and ethical cultivation.

A new ethical concept of democracy as the cultivation and practice of civic virtues in a pluralistic setting is presented in this thoughtful and wide-ranging study. Drawing upon such figures as Aristotle, Montesquieu, Hegel, Dewey, Heidegger, Arendt, and Lefort, Fred Dallmayr emphasizes the need for civic education and practical-ethical engagement in all societies aspiring to be democratic. With reference to Middle Eastern societies and especially Iran, Dallmayr explores the possible compatibility between democracy and Islamic faith. In a similar vein, he discusses the strengths of Gandhian and Confucian democracy as possible correctives to current versions of "minimalist" democracy and the cult of laissez-faire liberalism and neoliberalism. Addressing how to instill a democratic ethos in societies where corporations and elites exercise a great deal of power, The Promise of Democracy presents an inspired vision of democracy as popular "self-rule" in which ethical cultivation and self-transformation make possible a nondomineering kind of political agency. Against this background, Dallmayr casts democracy as a "promise," making room for the unlimited horizons opened up by a new understanding of liberty and equality.

1

Introduction

The Promise of Democracy

To present democracy as a “promise” means that it is not presently an actuality or concrete reality. But at the same time, to call it a “promise” does not stamp it a mere whim or empty pipe dream. For, a genuine promise is somehow anchored or latently present in reality: as a possibility or potentiality whose realization may require a long process of maturation and cultivation. Thus, a child may have the promise of becoming a great artist or scientist—but this is not going to happen by itself or without further ado; in fact, it usually requires sustained practice and training. For too long, democracy has been treated either as a readily achieved fact, or else as a hopeless illusion (hopeless because of human viciousness). Little investigation is required to see that presently existing democracies are in large measure travesties, given the enormous abuses and glaring inequalities flourishing in them. As it appears, many so-called liberal democracies hover just an inch over a war-like “state of nature,” with slim procedural formalities serving as fig leaves to cover prevailing modes of domination. But it also seems to be a fact of life that millions of people around the world eagerly cling to democracy as a hope or promise to rescue them from their miseries.

To say that millions of people in the world hope for democracy may seem a bold and not fully persuasive claim. As cynics are prone to retort: what people are eagerly striving for are food, shelter, and a decent living—not democracy. However, the retort easily can be rebutted. People striving for food, shelter, and decent living also necessarily strive for a society in which the production and distribution of goods is equitably managed from the people's angle—and this happens (or is meant to happen) precisely in a democracy. Another objection is more difficult to answer because it relies on theological and metaphysical arguments. When we speak of promise in an elevated sense, the objection goes, we usually mean something like the “promised land,” the “coming kingdom,” the “reign of the Mahdi,” or the like—and none of these phrases is a synonym for democracy. In fact, according to some “fundamentalist” theologians, the rule of God and the rule of the people are radically incompatible, such that the latter undermines the former. I cannot fully delve into this issue here (some of it has to be left to the rest of the study)—except to point out: If it is true, as many religions hold, that the “image” of God is implanted in the human heart, then it would seem to follow that, rather than being a pointless appendix, that image is meant to become steadily more manifest in history and approximate society to a promised democracy (which is not at all the opposite of God's kingdom).

Allowing myself to be inspired at least in part by this trajectory, I turn now to several more immediate concerns having to do with democracy as a political regime. First, I discuss the possibility of seeing democracy as an ethical or properly humane form of political life. Next, I turn to detractors of this view, especially to procedural minimalists and rational choice theorists. Finally, I reflect on the promise of democracy in the context of current debates regarding modernity versus postmodernity and against the backdrop of the relentless process of globalization.

Democracy as an Ethical Community

Throughout long stretches of human history, democracy has had a bad press. Philosophers as well as theologians assigned the common people—presumably in charge of democracy—to the low end of a totem pole whose upper reaches were reserved for kings, priests, and sages. Predicated on a fixed or “essentialist” metaphysics, the people were assumed to be base, fickle, and incapable of self-rule—and hence needed to be governed by a qualified elite in the same manner as passion needs to be governed by reason and desire by duty and moral principles. To be sure, different societies exhibited variations of this scheme and different historical contexts allowed for modifications. The most illustrious modification—a kind of fluke of Western history—was the Greek and especially the Athenian polis. However, as we know, this “cradle” of Western democracy did not produce a sturdy and long-lasting offspring. Quite apart from being severely limited in its membership, the polis was in a way sandwiched between very undemocratic alternatives: the earlier period of tyrants or despots, and the later periods of imperial domination (omitting here the interlude of the Roman Republic). One reason for the short-lived or episodic character of the polis may have been the prevalence of a static metaphysics that seemed to foreclose the possibility of genuine transformation (as exemplified by the institution of slavery).

It was not until the period of the early Renaissance that some thing akin to the Greek polis (or the Roman Republic) emerged again in Europe. Particularly in the context of the Italian city-states, the classical spirit of civic autonomy and participatory citizenship resurfaced again in several places; at the same time, learned humanists sought to infuse city life again with some elements of classical (Aristotelian or Stoic) virtues. However, the times were not propitious to this kind of political classicism: soon city-states were overwhelmed by the rise of modern kingdoms or nation-states, while classical learning succumbed to the powerful onslaught of modern rationalism or “enlightened” rationality. The rise of rationalism brought to the fore a radically new worldview or metaphysics. In lieu of the older hierarchical (and qualitatively differentiated) order, modern science favors quantitative measurement, a conception where general laws neutrally govern all parts of the world. In the words of Theodor Adorno, “number” became the modern passkey unlocking the secrets of the universe.¹ Despite the noted radical shift, however, there were at least two important markers of continuity. The first marker was the acceptance of a fixed, static essentialism prevailing outside of human conventions: according to the founders of modern “liberalism,” human beings were said to be endowed by “nature” (or nature's God) with certain a priori proper ties, especially liberty and equality. The second, and equally crucial marker was the privilege accorded to reason or rationality (what Descartes called the cogito or thinking substance). With this privileging of rationality—presumably shared by all humans—the modern age became saddled with a string of bifurcations or divisions that persist to our time: the divisions between mind and matter, subject and object, thought and practice, duty and sensibility. It is these divisions that Hegel later called “diremptions” (Entzweiungen) and that he valiantly strove to overcome through a more “holistic” philosophy.

As one should note, the quantitative and egalitarian character of modern metaphysics did not directly entail an endorsement of democracy. After all, a philosophical conception where all particular elements are equally subject to uniform rules is readily compatible with the kind of enlightened absolutism prevalent during the Age of Enlightenment or else constitutional monarchies constrained by a general rule of law. For enlightened absolutism to give way to democracy a new shift was required, a radically new metaphysics that looks at the world not from the “top down” but from the “bottom up.” Basically, what the shift called for was an outlook that may be called a metaphysics of potentiality or possibility: that is, a perspective that treats ordinary people as potentially capable of self-government—potentially, which means not by nature or without further ado, but as corollary of a process by which “natural” endowments are translated into practical competences. This process is nothing else but a process of learning and ethical transformation. During the heyday of the Enlightenment only a few voices articulated such a metaphysics of potentiality, but some did it with great verve and insight. Some of the names that can be mentioned in this context are Giambattista Vico, Erasmus, and Johann Gottfried Herder—the latter especially through his idea of a “cultivation toward humanity” (Emporbildung zur Humanität). But by far the most famous philosophical pioneer of the time was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In his metaphysics, Leibniz departed from both the ancient and the modern worldviews: he did not subscribe to a qualitative hierarchy where some elements would for ever be inferior to others; but neither did he subscribe to the modern bifurcations of mind and matter, reason and passion. As seen from his angle, the universe was rather a network—and a steadily expanding network—of interactions and relationships, with each element mirroring and being mirrored in all others, in a complex process of learning and transformation.²

Leibniz was not himself a political philosopher; but some of his thoughts could be marshaled in support of democracy—especially if his “relationism” is seen as the antipode to super- and subordination and if transformation is grasped as an ethical or “spiritual” process. Without directly relying on Leibniz, the needed political shift was accomplished with erudition and élan by Montesquieu. As it happens, by the time of Montesquieu, almost all political thinkers had fallen in line with Thomas Hobbes by considering the “polity” or political “state” as nothing but a machine or mechanical artifact constructed with the help of a “contract” reflecting human rationality. Hobbes had consigned whatever ethical inspiration might have been involved in this construction to a private sphere (forum internum) with little or no effect on public life. With greater or lesser enthusiasm, most of the “liberal” successors of Hobbes shared the addiction to machines and mechanical procedures. Some relief was provided for a time by a group of Scottish moralists who sought to reconnect social and ethical life—but failed to overturn the Hobbesian paradigm. Viewed against this background, Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws was a revolutionary intellectual event. Instead of being the outgrowth of contractual engineering, political regimes for Montesquieu are animated by a qualitative disposition he called their esprit général or caractère commun. Whereas the animating spirit or disposition in monarchies, in his view, is “honor” and whereas despotic regimes are pervaded by “fear,” the animating well-spring or soul of democratic regimes is a relational kind of virtue: namely, “love of the democracy,” which in turn means “love of equality.” This spirit or disposition, The Spirit of Laws states explicitly, is not a merely cognitive or theoretical virtue or “a consequence of acquired knowledge”; rather, it is “a sensation that may be felt by the meanest as well as the highest person in the state.”³

“Love of equality” in Montesquieu's work is sometimes taken to be a synonym for egalitarianism—which is far from the mark. In his account, equality does not designate a quantitative or mathematical formula but rather a qualitative, ethical relationship. Moreover, equality is not a static a priori essence, but rather a possibility or potentiality requiring nurturing care. Like every other form of love, love of equality demands steady cultivation so that possible dispositions grow into the animating spirit of a regime. This is the reason why Montesquieu puts such emphasis on general education—an aspect ignored by most other Enlightenment philosophers (apart from Rousseau). As he writes in one of the early chapters of his book: It is in a democratic (or republican) regime “that the whole power of education is required”; for love of equality, like every ethical virtue, involves “a self-renunciation which is always arduous and painful.” Hence, in a democracy, “everything depends on establishing this love [of equality] in a republic, and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education; but the surest way of instilling it into children, is for parents to set an example.” Wherever this effort is neglected, by contrast, the alternate possibility of corruption and injustice quickly comes to the fore: For, “whenever virtue is banished, ambition invades the heart of those who are capable of receiving it, and avarice possesses the whole community.”⁴

As one should note, Montesquieu broke with the Hobbesian model not only by his reliance on esprit but also through his conception of “law”—which he construed not as a command from a superior to an inferior but rather as an ethical linkage (in line with Leibnizian relationism). In both his invocation of spirit and his conception of law, Montesquieu earned the strong praise of the German philosopher Hegel. As the latter observed in his introduction to the Philosophy of Right, Montesquieu upheld indeed “the true historical view and the genuinely philosophical position, namely, that legislation [or law] both in general and in its particular provisions is to be treated not as something isolated and abstract but rather as an integral moment in a whole, interconnected with all the other features which make up the character of a nation and an epoch.” Only when seen in terms of this “holism” or interconnectedness do laws acquire “their true meaning and hence their justification.” At a later part of his treatise, Hegel applauds “the depth of Montesquieu's insight in his now famous treatment of the animating principles of forms of government.” This insight, he adds, is particularly evident in the discussion of democracy where virtue is extolled as the governing principle, “and rightly so because that regime rests in point of fact on moral sentiment (Gesinnung) seen as the purely substantial form in which the rationality of absolute will appears in democracy.”⁵ As is well known, of course, Hegel's Philosophy of Right was not a primer of democracy, but placed its focus on the ethical and legal requisites of constitutional monarchy. Yet, several crucial elements of his perspective, above all the notions of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) and moral sentiment (Gesinnung), can be recuperated as part of a democratic ethos—as I show in chapter 2, “Hegel for Our Time.”

By the time of Hegel's treatise, a new democratic (or republican) regime had emerged in America following a prolonged struggle for independence from the British monarchy. The founders of the new regime relied largely on classical examples, but also incorporated important features of Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws into their constitutional design. Innovative both in terms of geographical size and the combination of guiding ideas, the American republic was studied with great attentiveness by observers around the world. By far the most astute and perceptive observer was a traveler from France: Alexis de Tocqueville. Profiled against monarchical France and the largely hierarchical order of the ancien régime, de Tocqueville immediately perceived the close connection between democracy and equality. Among all the “novel objects” confronting the visitor, the opening sentence of Democracy in America reads, “nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people.” Impressed by the American example and the successive democratic revolutions in Europe at that time, de Tocqueville was tempted to succumb to the lure of historical teleology, stating: “The gradual development of the principle of equality is, therefore, a providential fact. It has all the chief characteristics of such a fact: it is universal, it is lasting, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.” Happily, a few paragraphs later, he caught himself, turning from teleology to potentiality, speaking of a movement “already so strong that it cannot be stopped” but “not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided.” In fact, guidance or pedagogy was central to de Tocqueville's approach. He shunned the idea of people's “natural” (a priori) competence for self-rule. In many or most instances, he complained, democracy has actually been “abandoned to its wild instincts, and it has grown up like those children who have no parental guidance, who receive their education in the public streets, and who are acquainted only with the vices and wretchedness of society.”⁶

During the nineteenth century, democracy in America grew by leaps and bounds, both in terms of geographical expansion and (more importantly) by deepening its “democratic” quality and removing some earlier autocratic or paternalistic restrictions. This growth of democracy reached important fruits in the domain of scientific and industrial “progress”; but it also led to a steady seasoning of American cultural self-understanding. Some of the important markers of this cultural maturation were Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879), Edward Bellamy's Locking Backward (1888), and the so-called American “utopian” movement. However, the high point of cultural and political self-awareness came in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the emergence of a broad intellectual movement called American “pragmatism.” Among this group of gifted scholars and writers John Dewey stands out because of his sustained attention to democracy and democratic theory. In my view, Dewey is a crucial figure in this context because he raised democracy to the level of philosophical transparency (or else lifted philosophical reflection to the demands of modern democracy). Basically, Dewey not only broke with the traditional hierarchical worldview; he also boldly overturned the modern Cartesian or rationalistic metaphysics with its bifurcations of mind and matter, subject and object, thought and practice. Inspired in part by Leibniz's relationism and Hegel's striving for the reconciliation of opposites, Dewey formulated a powerful “holistic” pragmatism that can serve as a passkey to modern democratic politics no longer held hostage by Hobbesian social engineering.

In chapter 3, “Democratic Agency and Experience,” I outline Dewey's main contributions in this field. As I show, Dewey in a way “democratized” philosophy by linking it closely with ordinary experience. In a nutshell, philosophizing for him did not mean the rehearsal of perennial ideas stored up in cerebral archives; nor does it permit retreat into the abstract (socially vacuous) realms of pure logic and epistemology—a retreat extremely prominent in modern Western thought. In order to remain humanly salient and fruitful, philosophizing has to remain open and alert to uncharted experiential encounters—without succumbing to the lure of partisan ideologies. In addition to the stress on uncharted “inquiry,” Dewey also democratized philosophy by placing it in the reach of ordinary people—although not as a readymade endowment. His pragmatism was radically opposed to the modern infatuation with a priori essences or proper ties (properties given to people by “nature” or nature's God). Turning against this tenet of early liberalism, Dewey relied on educational nurturing—which turns liberty into a process of potential liberation and equality into a deepening “love of equality.” His philosophy is frequently associated with a “progressive” style of education—but the linkage is often misconstrued. The point for him was not to put the student or pupil in the “driver's seat,” undercutting the labor of learning—something that would have led back to an essentialist or a priori metaphysics. Rather, just like philosophical inquiry itself, pedagogical efforts have to register with the student's background and experiential capacity.

Probably the most important aspect in which Dewey overturned the Hobbesian model was his emphasis on democracy as an ethical fabric requiring cultivation. In contrast to the modern fascination with artifacts and procedures, Dewey sought to uncover the underlying dispositions and motivations, which alone render procedures viable. In this respect, he clearly followed in the footsteps of Montesquieu, and also of Hegel's teachings regarding “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit). His repeated statements on this issue are eloquent and justly famous. As he writes in his well-known study Democracy and Education (1916): “The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact”—but a fact not always fully understood and which needs to be traced to the character of the regime itself: “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, a conjoint communicated experience.” To this may be added a passage penned in 1939, at the beginning of World War II.

Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature. Belief in the “common man” is a familiar article of the democratic creed. That belief is without basis and significance save as it means faith in the potentialities of human nature as that nature is exhibited in every human being irrespective of race, color, sex, birth and family, of material or cultural wealth. This faith may be enacted in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to one another in all the incidents and relations of daily life.⁷ There is another issue where Dewey turned the tables on modern rationalism: the t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• 1. Introduction: The Promise of Democracy
• 2. Hegel For Our Time: Negativity and Democratic Ethos
• 3. Democratic Action and Experience: Dewey's “Holistic” Pragmatism
• 4. Agency and Letting-Be: Heidegger on Primordial Praxis
• 5. Action in the Public Realm: Arendt Between Past and Future
• 6. Postmodernism and Radical Democracy: Laclau and Mouffe on “Hegemony”
• 7. Jacques Derrida's Legacy: “Democracy to Come”
• 8. Who Are We Now?: For an “Other” Humanism
• 9. Religion, Politics, and Islam: Toward Multiple Modes of Democracy
• 10. Beyond Minimal Democracy: Voices from East and West
• Appendices
• Notes