The Death of Democracy

Democracy Newsletter: December 2024

This is our final Democracy newsletter.
 
Our group has been meeting since 2006 to study and promote democratic principles; to convince others of the importance of clarifying those principles and bringing them into our everyday lives and actions. My 2016 book, The Future of Democracy, summarized what we had discussed for ten years, and my talk at the Commonwealth Club two years later included a discussion about whether democracy would survive.
 
It is time to acknowledge that democracy currently is not the choice of the American people. We The People is being replaced by Us vs. Them. Voters in our country are not convinced that democracy is to promote the common good, not just their individual needs.
 
Our recent election justifies that view. It is easy to be clear that we don’t want oppression — no one does — but clarifying what we want instead and how to attain that always has been difficult. Even in our group it was a challenge to focus on how the democratic model can be brought into our lives and the real world.
 
The human mind has great difficulty contemplating democracy. It seeks clear models from others for how to act and usually would rather do what it is told than think for itself. It is only when people feel unrecognized and oppressed that they consider rebellion. But rarely has a viable alternative to oppression succeeded for long.
 
Democracy’s origins are in ancient Athens, where it lasted about 200 years, and then Rome had its Republic for a while longer, but both were difficult to maintain. Democracy was resurrected after 2000 years at the founding of the United States. Now it is impossible to know its future. Its success in many other parts of the world — countries that once looked to us as a model — also is being challenged. Voting does not equal democracy; autocrats have come to power by legitimate means in Germany, Russia, Venezuela, Egypt, and Hungary, to name just a few countries where this has happened.
 
This view is not rooted in pessimism, but in the reality of human nature. Both Socrates and Aristotle were skeptical of democracy. In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates suggests that the ideal government would be run by a philosopher king who had the best interests of the people in mind. In his Politics, Aristotle argues that people can be fooled by demagogues posing as populists, and that government should educate people to know the difference.
 
Many countries begin with the intention of being democratic, but that impulse often dies as our autocratic nature reasserts itself. My 2018 book The Death of Democracy predicts a possible direction our country now may take:

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Recent events seem to show that those who believe democracy is a failed experiment are correct. (Page 17)

Humanity always has cycled between actions based on limited self-interest and those based on a larger self-interest that acknowledges that what is best for one is best for all, which is the essential definition of democracy. It is the role of the educational system in democracies to teach citizens to look at the larger view, which clearly has faltered at this point in time:

In our schools we failed to teach children how to think but taught them what to think. We trained them to do all they can to get ahead of others, rather than to collaborate toward common goals. Children in democracies became excellent at doing what they are told rather than determining their own paths or thinking about right and wrong, and how these values affect their real lives. (Page 44)

Voters seem unable to look beyond the façade of autocratic leaders:

Voters who thought they were supporting leaders who would look after their interests ended up with democratically elected autocrats who gradually consolidated their power in Western countries, ignoring the interests of individuals who supported them. (Page 51)

According to Nietzsche, in his epic Thus Spoke Zarathustra (which inspired the Strauss tone poem of the same name, made famous as the theme of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey), the world is governed by cycles that endlessly repeat. Perhaps also the minds of humans cycle between limited self-interest and an ability to identify one’s interests with those of society. Now it seems we are back at the part where individual self-interest dominates. Perhaps we have no choice but to let that impulse play itself out.
 
Should we just give up and say all is lost?
 
I know many who have lived for four years in fear of this moment. But, as best I can tell, they also lived in fear during the entire previous four years, and perhaps in perpetuity before that.
 
If we live in chronic fear, we barely are living at all. It accomplishes nothing. We have to fight to preserve democracy, but we don’t want to become consumed by the battle lest we deprive ourselves of our own freedom.
 
We don’t know how our lives and times will appear to future generations. But we do know that when we look back, we most admire those who stood firm for human rights and dignity.
 
Those who know me are aware I don’t get depressed for long — I get active. That means focusing on my interactions with the world rather than trying to change anyone. More on this in my upcoming book, How to Die (read the Introduction), which actually is about how to live as meaningful a life as possible without being dominated by fear in the limited time we have on Earth. There always has been — and will be — pain and disappointment. But our lives become greatly diminished when we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by them.
 
If we continually wait for others and the world to be as we want them to be, we forever will be engaged in resentment. If we constantly focus on how awful the world is, we always will feel awful. The alternative is appreciating the moment: perhaps a sunset or a sunrise, or just the sun, or even the rain and clouds, or perhaps the person with whom we currently are interacting. That is how we bring ourselves an experience of appreciation rather than dread. That doesn’t stop us from focusing on clarifying our democratic vision and working to bring it into the world, or even working to overcome those who promote autocracy.
 
On December 9 at 7PM Pacific Time I will be giving an online talk: Living in a Post-Democracy World. This will be a presentation followed by questions and answers that will be recorded. Please email me if interested in joining us. It will be limited to 100 participants.
 
I also must apologize for the summary of the Electoral College count that I put out in early October. It was based on the polls at that time. They clearly were not accurate.

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Steve Zolno graduated from Shimer College with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and holds a master’s in educational psychology from Sonoma State University. Steve has founded and directed private schools and a health care agency in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of seven books.

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Visit our Books page for information about purchasing The Future of Democracy, The Death of Democracy, Truth and Democracy, Guide to Living In a Democracy, Everyday Spirituality for Everyone, The Pursuit of Happiness, and What Love Does.
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