Democracy and responsibility

“Quiet! Your leader is going to speak now. Everyone turn off your mind.” –Chad Urmston

I would like to devote today’s post to a discussion about how to avoid the kind of society that follows the advice of the quote above. (Urmston actually meant the quote above as a response to Americans blindly following former President Bush, but I am going to take his ironic statement into the general sense today.) What Umston is describing is a society in which the people stare, transfixed, at their leaders, listening to every word without stopping to question it. In a fascist system, this would be a virtue (at least to the government) but in a democracy an educated, cautious citizen contributes to democracy more than an uniformed one. The reason is simple: an uninformed citizen can fall victim to the waves of bunkum propaganda that have come to dominate elections, at least in the US. An educated citizen has a much better idea of sort of leader they want, both policy-wise and character-wise.

There are two different ways to approach this problem: the first involves restricting suffrage to certain groups to ensure that people lacking in intelligence or civic virtue cannot vote. The second involves forcing education and civic virtue upon citizens to ensure they vote in a more educated way.

The first is not as alien or unjust as it sounds—even a so-called “unlimited democracy” does limit suffrage from some people. In the US, for example, one must be 18 to vote, entirely excluding younger citizens from voting. Throughout history, philosophers have suggested systems that would exclude certain groups from voting for the betterment of society. Many of these have had racist undertones, but some of the more reasonable ones included denying franchise to anyone with an IQ lower than a certain number. In one of his books, Robert A. Heinlein satirically suggest only allowing people who work for the government the ability to vote, because they clearly have more “civic virtue.” However, this raises some ethical issues, mainly the fact that too much restriction goes against the whole point of democracy in the first place. Also, the overriding practical issue with these systems is that they are subject to bias. “Intelligence” is often difficult to determine, and “responsibility” and “civic virtue” are even harder to measure.

Because of these flaws, the second option sounds more desirable. But how to go about executing it? A school curriculum that includes modern history is a good start, but this does not prevent citizens from falling prey to campaign propaganda. Another possibility is to have the government organize an objective news broadcasting body. Though this would in theory be neutral, in reality it would probably be just as prone to bias as any other news station.

Thus, I think the most reasonable method is actually a third alternative. Part of what Urmston is saying has to do with the way we portray our leaders. In the 1930’s, Hitler and Mussolini used planned theatrics to appear like Herculean supermen (metaphorically), and their august uniforms made them look the part of powerful leaders. In other words: it is often the image of a leader that determines how people feel about that person. In recent years, this is how politicians in the US have been treated (at least by those of the corresponding political party). In addition to educating people, we need to humanize our leaders.

Regardless of how we go about it, we must ensure that we, the citizens of democratic nations, do not allow our system to decay into totalitarianism simply because we were not responsible. Democracy and responsibility must go hand in hand, or else we will foolishly elect leaders who betray the very principles of democracy. It is my hope that the United States in particular stays true to the principles on which it was founded. Though dictatorship can look just as good as democracy on paper, history clearly shows that democracy is the superior system, if the citizens it rules are responsible enough.