Today we're going to begin speaking about democracy, and I'll just do a brief recap of how we got here. We began the course by talking about the three and major enlightenment political theories, the, utilitarian tradition, the Marxist tradition, and the social contract tradition. And we saw how each of them attended to the questions of basing a theory of politics on scientific principles on the one hand, and vindicating individual freedom usually by a doctrine of individual rights on the other hand. And the idea was to derive principles scientifically, that would perform that function. And we saw that every major Enlightenment tradition, while committed to both of those things, ran into serious difficulties on each of them. And that caused us to look at the anti-enlightenment tradition that stretched from Edmund Burke, to modern thinkers like Alasdair MacIntyre. And we saw that while they were importing insights to be gleamed from the anti-enlightenment tradition and particularly the the insight that human beings are products of their histories and contexts and that their psychologies are intrinsically connected to others in ways that are under estimated by enlightenment thinkers. That nonetheless, the costs of giving up completely on the enlightenment were too great to seriously consider worth paying. And so, I, I, the promise I made, and the promise on which I am now going to start to deliver. Was to say that the democratic tradition delivers better on a, in a chastened enlightenment view. Appropriately chastened and we'll talk about what chastening is needed, as we go along, then the going alternatives. So that's our agenda today. Now needless to say, when we talk about any idea we, we want to start with definitions. So when I say the word democracy, what comes to mind? >> Free elections and pluralist, party system. >> Free elections and what? >> Pluralist party system. >> A pluralist party system. Okay, what would you say comes to mind? Majority rule. >> Majority rule. >> And equal rights. >> Equal rights. Definitely some notion of equality. Anything else come to mind? >> Freedom. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Well, if you, if I, I made a list here, but there, there's considerable overlap with the things you were saying, rule by the people generally, this notion, democracy's not about rule by monarchs or anything like that, it's rule by the people. You mentioned majority rule, that's, a very common identifier of democracy. People often talk about democracy and certainly Jean-Jacques Rousseau in, talked about the notion of a general will, or the will of the people. About which there's been a, a huge amount of debate among democratic theorists. Some notion of equalizing power relationships. You, you talked, one of you mentioned equality. Often times people talk about democracy in terms of competition. You mentioned pluralist political parties. The idea is that they compete for power and maybe alternate in power. One. One famous definition of democracy goes so far as to say we can't call a country democratic, until a government has twice lost an election and freely given up power. So until that actually happens, we don't know we're dealing with a democracy. So that's one view of the matter. People often talk about democracy in terms of non-domination. You mentioned freedom, that it, somehow, democracy is going to guarantee freedom. And another idea that often comes up, is the so-called principle of affected interest, the notion that it's people whose interests are affected that should have this, this say in making the decisions, rather than, as in a patriarchal system. The, and the parents or, or, usually male parents, have, have the rights to make decisions. Or in a monarchy, the king has the right to make a decision. Or in a military dictatorship, the military have the rights. But in the idea of the democracy, the democratic tradition is. People whose interests are affected have a right. And we could have added to this list. After all, democracy is so widely affirmed in the world today, that people tend to identify it with all good things. Though that wasn't always true as we'll see in a minute. But before we get to that point, I want to stress that there probably is no single defining characteristic of democracy that everybody agrees with. Now you might say, well then that makes it an inherently a suspect concept. But I think that the better way to think about it is that it's, it's what Ludwig Wittgenstein referred to it as a family resemblance idea. This is the notion, the example he used was the example of the game. So he said all games have something in common with other games. But not all games have the same thing in common. Right? So, the example I like to use is, the notion of, of, here, I've got the fa, the Kennedy family here. Right? Every, everyone in this picture has some things in common with some of the pe, other people in the picture. And we have a notion of what a Kennedy looks like. But there's no single defining feature that makes a Kennedy a Kennedy. It's not exa, it could be, is it the high cheekbones? You know, is it the, the, the smile? Is it the, the, you, you, you, we, we could, we couldn't really pin down the, the single defining characteristic of Kennedyhood. But we, we sort of know a Kennedy when we see a Kennedy, right? So this is a notion of a family resemblance. And, it's, it's less demanding than the idea of a universal definition. But I think that that's the way to think about democracy. Rather than pulling a hair out of, on the question deciding what its single defining feature really is, because it does have that quality. Now another thing about democracy that's unusual, in the context of what we've studied so far in this course is that. If you think of all the doctrines we've looked at, they've been made famous by their champions. You know Bentham was a proselytizer for utilitarianism, he went around the world after all writing constitutions for countries based on his utilitarian principles. And then he was disappointed when they didn't want to adopt his constitutions. Marx was obviously a champion of so, of socialism and communism. The, the social contract theories. Locke was a, was a defender of the social contract, all the was down through the, the modern ones. Nozick is a champion of liberitarism, and roles of the welfare state. So, these doctrines have been made famous by their champions. Democracy on the other hand, was for many, many centuries was made famous by its critics. And that, that's, that's an important point of differentiation, and where we're going to start. As I said for many, many centuries. And, that tells you something else that's different about Democracy. That it's much older than the other ideologies and political theories that we've looked at the, so far, in this course. It goes back to the ancient Greeks. What they meant by Democracy was really different than what we mean today. And I'll get into some of those differences in a minute. But, democracy had very powerful critics long before it had defenders. So here are two of them. I wonder if, do you know who that stone faced gentleman on the left might be over there? I've never seen him in real life but I know what the statues look like, it's Plato. >> That's Plato, yeah, and who's the, the young fellow over there who looks like he might even be younger than you? >> De Tocqueville. >> That is Alexis de Tocqueville, French aristocrat who came to America in the 1830s. To make study, actually, of the American prison system, but ended up writing a book called Democracy in America, which I'll talk about in a little bit. But let's, let's start with, with Plato. Plato, was a virulent critic of democracy, because he thought that the democracy in Athens had decided to put to death his mentor Socrates, and, moreover they had put Socrates to death because Socrates was committed to the truth, and indeed he, he challenged the notion that they knew anything. So the one thing we can know is that we don't know anything. And this turned out to be as seen as a seditious doctrine. So, it's not surprising that Plato was, very sceptical of democracy. And he comes out and says it with his very famous metaphor in The Republic. Where he talks about democracy's hostility to the idea of the truth. He says, suppose a man was in charge of a large and powerful animal, and made a study of its moods and wants; he would learn when to approach and handle it, and when and why it was especially savage or gentle,. What the different noises it made meant, and what tone of voice to use to soothe it or annoy it. All this he might learn by long experience and familiarity, and then he might call it a science, and reduce it to a system and set up to teach it. But he would not really know which of the creature's tastes and desires was admirable or shameful, good or bad, right or wrong, he would simply use the terms on the basis of its reactions, calling what pleased it good, and what annoyed it bad. Pretty strong stuff. What does it remind you of? >> It reminds me of the, emotivist culture. >> It reminds you of the emotivist culture. Say why. >> Because you respond to whatever people want or feel, or express in terms of your emotions or. >> Yeah, the yay boo ethics, right? And the same people might call it a science, but really it's just a science of responding to people's basest desires and impulses. What does it remind you of? >> Well, the whole process of trying to figure out what it likes and what it doesn't like, reminds me of American political pollsters. American political pollsters, they, they, that's what they want to do, they want to figure out how to manipulate the animal, right? That's why they run focus groups. That's why they, they want to, get you know, figure out what's going to play in Peoria, right? That's, that's what the name of the game is in politics. So, Plato's saying, you know, this might be the way to win popularity in a democracy, but you're kidding yourself if, if you think it's going to tell you anything about the truth. You might call it a science, but this is just the science of manipulating people. That's all it is. And so, you can see just had this visceral dislike of democracy. And so, so we'll come back to that in a minute. Let's talk a little bit about Tocqueville. Tocqueville is famous for the phrase, the tyranny of the majority. And, so let me just give you two or three minutes on Tocqueville, since we're not actually reading democracy in America in this course, so therefore if we had more time, we certainly would. And I commend it to you. He came to America in 1830 to make a study of American prisons. But became captivated with American democracy for the following reason. He thought that democracy and equality, were ideas that were historically unstoppable, their time had arrived. And they were going to take over the world. He, they didn't particularly like them. He, he thought that the way to deal with the rise of egalitarian ideologies and impulses was to learn how to manage them, to learn how to domesticate them. And he thought that if you, if you just try to stop them. They'll kill you. So, it's, it's sort of, learn how to ride the elephant rather than, all these metaphors of animals. But, learn how to ride the elephant rather than be stampeded by it. And he, he, he's book, Democracy in America, although it's all about, he, he made this big tour of the country. Published it in two volumes. One in 1835 and one in 1840. It's really aimed, it's all about America, but it's really aimed at his French peers, at the Aristocrats in France. And what he's saying to them is, you people are foolish, because you're trying to stop equality dead in its tracks, and it can't be done. And what's going to happen is it's going to obliterate you. The American's he thought, had figured out how to tame the egalitarian impulse. How to domesticate it. How to make it tranquil. How to make it manageable. And so that's why he liked American institutions. He didn't have an I'm qualified admiration for America by any means. He rather disliked it and he rather didn't like Americans very much either and actually as he, later in his life, his dislike of America became more extreme and, and his. He had less and less, admiration for American democracy partly because he saw it wasn't going to deal with the slavery question. He died shortly before the Civil war but, he wouldn't have been surprised by it. But now, we're looking at the young Tocqueville, a very, very youthful figure, writing in 1835. And he's talking about the biggest problem democracies face, and he says in my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I'm not so much a, alarmed by the excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as the inadequate securities which one finds there taken against tyranny. If an individual or party is wrong headed in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If the public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority. If to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it. If to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority, and serves as a passive tool in it's hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms. The jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases. And in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain. You must submit to it as well as you can. So, America, like everywhere else has got this problem of majorities, and you can see he, he's nervous even about how it's managed in America, but he thinks the way the Europeans are doing it is even worse. And if you go and read, the preface to the twelfth edition of Democracy in America which he published in 1848. He wri, this is right after the revolutions of 1848 had swept Europe and swept away the French monarchy. He says, you see, I told you so. You should have looked at America. Because this problem of majorities, which was bad even there, they managed much better than we have done in Europe. So, what he's referring to here is the American constitutional arrangement, which is really, and we'll say more about this term in a minute. It's a republican idea, not a straight forward democratic idea. The the American founders referred to the system they were creating, not as a pure democracy but as a non tyrannical republic. And I'll talk a little bit about that, in a minute as well. So, Tocqueville was very impressed by what they did, and indeed, he quotes from their writings in Democracy in America. But before we get to that, you might say, well, here I am, we're talking about, democracy. As a, as a way of relighting, realizing the Enlightenment's values and here what I've, what I've said so far?, that it's two principle critics say, it doesn't, it doesn't base itself on any sciences that's worthy, worthy of the name, it's just the sign of manipulating people. And there's this huge problem of respect for rights in democracy, bu, this problem of the tyranny of the majority. So it doesn't exactly look like, it's very promising, as a way of delivering, even on a chastened enlightenment agenda. And I think that, that, that would be the conventional view, that Democracy's not going to, if democracy's our lifeline after the end of everything we've done in the preceding 21 lectures, it doesn't look like a very, reliable one. But what I'm going to spend the next, rest of today and the next three lectures doing, is trying to convince you that actually it's the best lifeline we're likely to get
