Nietzsche's vision of modern democracy includes an aspect which many tend to neglect given the historical experience with totalitarian systems of the twentieth century. Precisely on account of its triumphant progress, 'irresistible' democracy, according to Nietzsche, tends to instrumentalize the activities of its enemies. This is a claim made by a philosopher whose work Alfred Baeumler and Georg Lukács considered an extreme political archaism. For a long time no serious objection was raised against this absurd (...) verdict. The present article attempts to show how Nietzsche's universalistic approach assigns a definite place to democratic systems and specifies why these systems are of special relevance for the universal-emancipatory development of humankind It argues that by stating the prophylactic character of the democratic system Nietzsche reaches the very core of his philosophy whereby he differs markedly and positively from other political philosophers. The difference lies precisely in the fact that for Nietzsche a given political system is not an ultimate value or objective, but simply an occasion to realize universal human ambitions. Nietzsche's political philosophy, therefore, establishes a distinction between various political systems evaluating them in terms of their prophylactic potential for the purposes of universal-emancipatory development. /// A visão nietzschiana da democracia moderna inclui um aspecto que muitos intérpretes tendem a esquecer devido à experiência histórica do século XX com sistemas totalitários. Para Nietzsche, é devido ao seu triunfante progresso que a democracia 'irresístivel' tende a instrumentalizar as actividades dos seus próprios inimigos. Curiosamente, esta é a pretensão de um filósofo cuja obra Alfred Baeumler e Georg Lukács consideravam como sendo uma forma extrema de arcaísmo politico, veredicto este contra o qual durante muito tempo nenhuma objecção se levantou. Objectivo dopresente artigo, porém, é precisamente mostrar até que ponto a abordagem universalista de Nietzsche atribui aos sistemas democráticos um lugar determinado e ao mesmo tempo especifica a razão pela qual estes sistemas ocupam um lugar privilegiado no que se refere ao desenvolvimento universal-emancipatório da humanidade. A tese do autor, com efeito, é a de que é precisamente ao afirmar o carácter profíláctico do sistema democrático que Nietzsche alcança o verdadeiro núcleo central da sua filosofia, facto esse mediante o qual ele claramente se distingue de outros pensadores polítcos. A diferença está precisamente no facto de para Nietzsche um determinado sistema político nunca constituir em si um valor último ou objectivo, antes encontra o seu valor na ocasião que porporciona para a realização de ambições humanas universais. A filosofia politica de Nietzsche, portanto, estabelece uma distinção entre uma diversidade de sistemas políticos propondo uma avaliação dos mesmos de acordo com o seu potential profiláctico no que se refere aos objectivos de um desenvolvimento universal e emancipatório. (shrink)

This book is the first extended attempt to explain Plato's ethics of natural law, to place it accurately in the history of moral theory, and to defend it against the objections that it is totalitarian. Wild provides a clarification of Plato's ethical doctrine and a defense of that doctrine based not only of his analysis of the dialogues but on the belief that Plato must acknowledged as the founder of the Western tradition of the philosophy of natural law. The (...) book begins with a presentation of the major objections raised against Plato by modern authors, Toynbee, Karl Popper and others, who have condemned the so called totalitarianism of Plato's thought. Wild answers these objections point by point and with a wealth of evidence taken from Plato's own arguments. He then presents a historical study of the ethics of natural law, defining the theory and showing through an examination of relevant dialogues that Plato held such a theory. The work concludes with a systematic study of his realistic ethics and its bearing on contemporary problems. This is a reprint of the 1953 Chicago edition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to investigate the intertextual relationship between Spinoza and Tacitus in the Political Treatise, underlining how Spinoza uses Tacitus’ quotes against his main political enemy: Tacitism. I will show that Spinoza’s use of Tacitus is very selective and can be aptly characterized as a twofold political use: Tacitus’ quotes shape Spinoza’s political insights, but they are also used to confront Tacitism. To develop this twofold reading, after a brief introduction, I will consider Tacitus’ (...) reception in Early Modern period, describing Tacitism and its political standpoints. Then, I will analyse Spinoza’s use of Tacitus, considering his approach to three core themes: the nature of peace and sedition, the nature of the masses and the use of secrets (arcana). Finally, I will draw a comparison between the use to which Tacitus’ quotes are put by Spinoza on the one hand and by the Tacitists on the other, stressing how this comparison contributes to our understanding of their opposed political positions: democracy for Spinoza and monarchy for the Tacitists. (shrink)

This article attempts a reinterpretation of Aeschylus’ Persians as primarily a warning about the instability of democracy following a major military victory against an overpowering totalitarian enemy. It discusses the historical and our contemporary ideas of the democratic principles of government versus the constant tendency towards a strongman regime. I argue that the play’s underlying philosophy is based on the Heraclitan idea of constant flux, which predates our modern ideas of the relativity of time and space, and (...) the core concept underpinning any democracy that the only constant thing about it is continuous change. A short retrospective of modern productions of The Persians reveals the relationship between history and current events that can or cannot be associated with the play. By treating the thorny issue of translations and adaptations and the temptations of simplistic patriotic or antiwar interpretations of the play, the article also addresses the challenging task of determining what constitutes a just war and why a democracy is necessarily engaged in a continuous defensive battle against the forces of totalitarianism. (shrink)

The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed as the history of democracy’s struggle against its external enemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Some people think that democracy now faces new enemies: Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism and international terrorism and that this is the struggle that will define our times. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today (...) is democracy itself. Its enemies are within: what the ancient Greeks called 'hubris'. Todorov argues that certain democratic values have been distorted and pushed to an extreme that serves the interests of dominant states and powerful individuals. In the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’, the United States and some European countries have embarked on a crusade to enlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yet this mission to ‘help’ others has led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, to large-scale destruction and loss of life and to a moral crisis of growing proportions. The defence of freedom, if unlimited, can lead to the tyranny of individuals. Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience of growing up in a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examples borrowed from the Western canon: from a dispute between Augustine and Pelagius to the fierce debates among Enlightenment thinkers to explore the origin of these perversions of democracy. He argues compellingly that the real democratic ideal is to be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance between competing principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress. When one of these elements breaks free and turns into an over-riding principle, it becomes dangerous: populism, ultra-liberalism and messianism, the inner enemies of democracy. (shrink)

The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed as the history of democracy’s struggle against its external enemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Some people think that democracy now faces new enemies: Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism and international terrorism and that this is the struggle that will define our times. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today (...) is democracy itself. Its enemies are within: what the ancient Greeks called 'hubris'. Todorov argues that certain democratic values have been distorted and pushed to an extreme that serves the interests of dominant states and powerful individuals. In the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’, the United States and some European countries have embarked on a crusade to enlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yet this mission to ‘help’ others has led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, to large-scale destruction and loss of life and to a moral crisis of growing proportions. The defence of freedom, if unlimited, can lead to the tyranny of individuals. Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience of growing up in a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examples borrowed from the Western canon: from a dispute between Augustine and Pelagius to the fierce debates among Enlightenment thinkers to explore the origin of these perversions of democracy. He argues compellingly that the real democratic ideal is to be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance between competing principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress. When one of these elements breaks free and turns into an over-riding principle, it becomes dangerous: populism, ultra-liberalism and messianism, the inner enemies of democracy. (shrink)

Modern, Stevie At its annual general meeting in May this year, the Council of Australian Humanist Societies voted in support of volunteer ethics teachers entering public schools and teaching ethics programs to students as a secular alternative in religious education. The motion was put to the meeting by the NSW Society with the support of the Humanist Society of Victoria. The motion was opposed by the Queensland, Western Australian and South Australian Societies. Here is why the motion is a (...) grave mistake, and why Western Australia moved its own motion against it. (shrink)

J. JUDD OWEN AND JEFFREY STOUT SUGGEST THE NEED TO RETHINK OUR understanding of the normative commitments of liberal democracy in response to recent challenges from its "cultured despisers". In this essay I argue that Owen and Stout fail to redeem liberal democracy against these critics because they reject the possibility of constitutional neutrality with respect to an indeterminate plurality of religions. As a result, a religious test on citizenship is inevitable under any democratic constitution expressed in (...) their terms, and this test lays liberal democracy open to the despisers' main line of attack. As an alternative, I offer a defense of constitutional neutrality that is based on the work of Franklin I. Gamwell, who has developed a compound conception of justice for this purpose. Gamwell systematically distinguishes between formative and substantive conceptions of justice and the role they play in a theory of constitutional democracy. On Gamwell's account, a democratic constitution expressed as a formative conception of justice will be neutral with respect to all substantive moral disagreement. As such, it can be consistently affirmed by the adherents of an indeterminate plurality of religions. This account of liberal democracy avoids a religious test on citizenship and therefore can overcome the core objection raised against it by its contemporary critics. (shrink)

Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for (...) participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change. (shrink)

The three books presented in this volume, _Integral Humanism_, _Freedom in the Modern World_, and _A Letter on Independence_, were all written in the early 1930s, a time of dire trouble for France. France was then surrounded by enemies preparing for war and was itself so violently split between parties of Left and Right that it seemed on the verge of Civil War. In this collection, Jacques Maritain accepts the responsibility of a Christian philosopher to actively address the (...) agonizing practical problems of the time. Maritain discusses major political issues such as the relation of freedom and religion, the opposition of democracy to any form of totalitarianism, the relation of the spiritual and the temporal, the need for an integral and Christian humanism, and the prospects for a new Christian civilization, all in opposition to the materialism of both communism and capitalism. Against the fierce antagonism of the parties of the political Left and Right, Maritain declares a plague on both their houses and strongly affirms the need for independence from both of them. He does so by distinguishing between two senses of the terms Left and Right, one denoting a temperamental or physiological disposition, the other a definite political position. In the latter sense, Maritain asserts that he is an independent, while acknowledging that he is, by temperament, a man of the Left. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell described this study, with its companion volume on Hegel and Marx, as 'a work of first-class importance which ought to be widely read for its masterly criticism of the enemies of democracy, ancient and modern. His (Popper's) attack on Plato, while unorthodox, is in my opinion thoroughly justified. His analysis of Hegel is deadly. Marx is dissected with equal acumen, and given his due share of responsibility for modern misfortunes. The book is a vigorous (...) and profound defence of democracy, timely, very interesting, and very well written'. 'A powerful and important book. It is a criticism of a set of dogmas which underlie the most influential political theories, and in consequence powerfully affect the actual conduct of human affairs. Dr Popper writes with extreme clarity and vigour. His studies in Greek history and Greek thought have obviously been profound and original. Platonic exegesis will never be the same again. Nor, I think, will Marxist exegesis. Readers should not miss studying the notes collected at the end of the two volumes.' - Gilbert Ryle, Mind. (shrink)

Liberal democracy is today under unprecedented attack from both the left and the right. Offering a fresh and penetrating examination of how Leo Strauss understood the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it, Leo Strauss on Modern Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education explores Strauss' view of the intimate (and troubling) relation between the philosophic promotion of liberal democracy and the turn to the modern scientific-technological project of the 'conquest (...) of nature'. Timothy W. Burns explicates the political reasoning behind Strauss' recommendation of reminders of genuine political greatness within democracy over and against the failure of nihilistic youth to recognize it. Elucidating what Strauss envisaged by a liberally-educated sub-political or cultural-level aristocracy--one that could elevate and sustain liberal democracy--and the roles that both philosophy and divine-law traditions should have in that education, Burns also lays out Strauss' frequent (though often tacit) engagement with the thought of Heidegger on these issues." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This essay considers the tradition of criticism against Athenian democracy, in both ancient and modern times. Often this critical tradition has been seen to adduce greater interest than the very democratic experience from which it arose; in this it has been aided, in part, by the asserted absence of an ancient theory of democracy. Yet there are significant traces of a democratic theory in the ancient sources, which ought to serve both as a theoretical and ideological (...) riposte to the critics. Some of the modern objections to classical Athenian democracy take up the argument of the ancient critics and display an anti-democratic orientation. Others, however, are motivated by a certain sensibility, grown out of liberalism and the legal state, as well as the emancipation of women and the abolition of slavery. Nevertheless, these objections are sometimes lacking in historical perspective. If we reassess Athenian democracy, it may yet be seen to constitute a useful point of reference, at a time when the current model of democracy finds its legitimacy questioned.2. (shrink)

One of the dominant tendencies in the history of mankind throughout the entire course of its development has been the struggle between two opposing principles-democracy and tyranny. The very concepts, born in antiquity, reflected the clash and constant rivalry of two principles in the organization of the political order of the states of antiquity. In the narrow sense democracy was understood to mean a form of the state based on the recognition that the people [narod] are the source (...) and at the same time the bearers of power, which they realize by implementing their civil rights and freedoms. Tyranny was taken to mean a form of state power that was established through force and based on one-person rule. An important peculiarity of the genesis of tyranny is the circumstance that it arose in a transitional period in the struggle of the people against the ancestral nobility and found support in the people for a struggle against the aristocratic opposition. Scholars see the social purpose of the power of tyrants in the implementation of reforms aimed at improving the situation of the demos, developing a new social hierarchy, and forming a strong state. The authors of antiquity-Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius-who drew a clear distinction between democracy and tyranny, nonetheless saw the possibility of one form of rule turning into the other. They therefore considered both these forms of rule imperfect or even as the worst of all possible forms, and instead they saw the ideal to lie in a mixed form of government that theoretically eliminates the flaws of each of the extreme or pure forms. (shrink)

Humans may be the only creatures conscious of having a future, but all too often we would rather not think about it. Likewise, our societies, unable to deal with radical uncertainty, do not make policies with a view to the long term. Instead, we suffer from a sense of powerlessness, collective irrationality, and perennial political discontent. In _The Future and Its Enemies_, Spanish philosopher Daniel Innerarity makes a plea for a new social contract that would commit us to moral and (...) political responsibility with respect to future generations. He urges us to become advocates for the future in the face of enemies who, oblivious to the costs of modernization, press for endless and unproductive acceleration. His accessible book proposes a new way of confronting the unknown—one grounded in the calculation of risk. Declaring the classical right-left divide to be redundant, Innerarity presents his hopes for a renewed democracy and a politics that would find convincing ways to mediate between the priorities of the present, the heritage of the past, and the challenges that lie ahead. (shrink)

How are we disposed to the problem of natural resources scarcity that we face today and to the fact that certain natural sources remain unused, whereas the exploitation of others puts further strain on the already degraded biosphere? The scarcity of natural resources not only imposes a series of ecological issues on us; it also challenges democracy as organizational system and way of life, because it increases inequality, conflict, authoritarianism, and repression. One way to address this predicament would be (...) the re-appropriation of our relation with the biosphere by ceasing to see it as a limitless source of extraction and consumption. This essay suggests that a certain part of this.. (shrink)

Events in recent years have underscored the dependence of the liberal international order (LIO) on the domestic fate of liberalism in countries like the United States—where, according to critics such as Mark Lilla and Francis Fukuyama, liberals have imperiled themselves through an unwise embrace of identity politics. These critics argue that identity politics undermines solidarity and empowers the illiberal right, and that it should be rejected in favor of a unifying creedal nationalism based on common liberal values. This analysis, I (...) argue, overlooks the fact that “common” creedal values have expanded in American history when their meanings were being controversially reinterpreted from identity-based perspectives. If American liberalism is to emerge from its current crisis, it will need to incorporate the claims of identity into a sense of national belonging that can resist the authoritarian, ethnoracial nationalism promoted by the LIO's enemies. The likelihood that such a process will be controversial is reason for liberal critics of identity politics to consider how the claims of identity might be an asset, not an obstacle, to revitalizing liberal democracy against its challengers. (shrink)

This article argues that current economic upheaval should be understood as a problem of domination, in two respects: the ‘dyadic’ domination of one actor by another, and the ‘structural’ domination of individuals by a diffuse, decentralized, but nevertheless human-made system. Such domination should be contested through specifically democratic political mobilization, through institutions and practices that expand the political agency of citizens themselves. The article advances this argument by synthesizing two traditions of political thought. It reconstructs radical democratic theory from the (...) Progressive Era. These thinkers in turn help to reinforce contemporary debates in neorepublican thought, resolving disputes over the scope of domination and the relationship between domination and democracy. This synthesis offers a novel normative framework for diagnosing and responding to the current combination of economic upheaval and political dysfunction. (shrink)

The concept of the republic is a complex meta-principle that facilitates and conceals global relations of domination. Specifically, it enables the invisibility of racism as the core of political power. From its very origins the concept of republic serves to seize constituent power or politeia. In modernity, as it merges with private property, it will serve as the launchpad of a vast colonization project that then evolves in a new form of power in coloniality. The article applies the theory of (...) the ‘encryption of power’—to decrypt the historical concept of the republic. In doing so, we will demonstrate the key antidemocratic role it has played at the heart of global coloniality. We will bear witness as to how, from within the concept of republic, a refined mechanism of domination raises and expands, conforming the most magnificent and lethal form of power of our times. We exemplify our theory showing that the concept of ‘republic’ is the common thread between the law that abolished slavery in Brazil and the 1988 constitution. Within this scope, we propose a vital space of reconsideration of political ontology through radical democracy as the only means to build the world from immanent difference. (shrink)

Most contributors approach the secularization question out of concern with intolerance and repression. But a peculiar kind of religion may impinge upon secular life in a different way: a prophetic religion may generate the solidarity and will-to-sacrifice that oppressed peoples need to fight for freedom and equality. The tradition of the Hebrew Prophets played a key role in the American civil rights struggle. Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and other exponents of the tradition rejected the idea that minority rights could (...) ever be secured automatically or predictably. They viewed their fellow Americans' faith in progress with severe skepticism. The distinction between prophetic religion and normal religion will clarify the secularization debate, because it helps us see that some forms of religion are skeptical of official and/or popular beliefs. A prophet may reject the prevailing religion as strongly as an atheist does. Members of the prevailing religion will often call the prophet irreligious. Pagan Romans, for example, called the early Christians "atheists," since they believed in a mere man. There are sometimes religions that foster skepticism and critical thinking, that is. These Prophetic religions may at times be more effective against repression than secular efforts to organize opinion. (shrink)

Nietzsche's fundamental vision of modern democracy includes an essential aspect which many tend to neglect given the indelible historical experience with totalitarian systems of the twentieth century. "Irresistible" democracy, precisely on account of its triumphant progress, also sets the course for, or, to use another contemporary expression, instrumentalizes the activities of its very enemies. It is, to say the least, quite striking to read such a claim made by a philosopher whose work Alfred Baeumler and Georg (...) Lukäcs have labelled as extreme political archaism, while for a long time no serious objection was raised against this absurd verdict. We can see that Nietzsche's universalistic approach assigns a definite place to democratic systems and also specifies why these systems are of special relevance for the universal-emancipatory development of humankind. By stating the prophylactic character of the democratic system in such a decisive fashion, Nietzsche reaches the very core of his philosophy. By doing so he differs markedly and positively from several other political philosophers. The difference lies in the fact that for Nietzsche a given political system is not an ultimate value or objective, but, as already mentioned, an opportunity to realize universal human ambitions. This is why his political philosophy establishes a principled distinction between various political systems while also evaluating them according to their prophylactic potential to be utilized for the purposes of universal-emancipatory development. (shrink)

Nietzsche's fundamental vision of modern democracy includes an essential aspect which many tend to neglect given the indelible historical experience with totalitarian systems of the twentieth century. "Irresistible" democracy, precisely on account of its triumphant progress, also sets the course for, or, to use another contemporary expression, instrumentalizes the activities of its very enemies. It is, to say the least, quite striking to read such a claim made by a philosopher whose work Alfred Baeumler and Georg (...) Lukäcs have labelled as extreme political archaism, while for a long time no serious objection was raised against this absurd verdict. We can see that Nietzsche's universalistic approach assigns a definite place to democratic systems and also specifies why these systems are of special relevance for the universal-emancipatory development of humankind. By stating the prophylactic character of the democratic system in such a decisive fashion, Nietzsche reaches the very core of his philosophy. By doing so he differs markedly and positively from several other political philosophers. The difference lies in the fact that for Nietzsche a given political system is not an ultimate value or objective, but, as already mentioned, an opportunity to realize universal human ambitions. This is why his political philosophy establishes a principled distinction between various political systems while also evaluating them according to their prophylactic potential to be utilized for the purposes of universal-emancipatory development. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the relation between political populism and mass media, and how this relation becomes problematic for democratic societies. It focuses on the fact that mass media, due to their purpose and infrastructure, can unintentionally reinforce populist messages. Research findings from communication science and political psychology are used to illustrate how, for example, a combination of mass media agenda setting and motivated reasoning can influence citizens’ political decisions and impair their political autonomy. This poses a particular (...) normative challenge for modern democracies: how to counter these populism-supporting effects within the constraints of democratic legitimacy? After showing how severely limited legal measures to curb populist media effects would be, the paper argues in favour of media competence education as a way of providing future citizens with an epistemic toolkit to navigate the media environment and strengthen their political autonomy. (shrink)

The question raised by the article is: can democracy be religious and, if so, how? Can religious faith be reconciled with modern democratic political institutions? The article takes its departure from the biblical admonition to believers to be ‘the salt of the earth’ — a phrase that militates against both world dominion and world denial. In its long history, Islam (like Christianity) has been sorely tempted by the lure of worldly power and domination. Nor is this temptation (...) entirely a matter of the past (witness the rise of the Christian right and of ‘political Islam’ in our time). Focusing on contemporary Iran, the article makes a constitutional proposal which would strengthen the democratic character of the Iranian Republic without canceling religious faith. If adopted, the proposal would reinvigorate the ‘salt’ of Muslim faith thus enabling believers to live up to the Qur‘anic summons for freedom, justice and service in the world. (shrink)

Next SectionWartime challenges democracies both from without and within. The need to marshal resources against a foreign enemy prompts the centralization of authority which, in turn, threatens to compromise domestic liberty. This article, originally delivered as the 2008 Hart Lecture, examines the ability of democracies to survive military threat with their core liberties intact. The focus is not on the more familiar liberty versus security trade-offs, but on the ways in which divided political authority in democracies serves as a (...) check to both military misadventure and excessive internal suppression. The article begins with a historic account of how political accountability in democracy, from Athens forward, helps explain the relative military success that democracies have enjoyed. Furthermore, even where military emergency has forced emergency measures, the longer-term result tended to be an expansion of democratic accountability, as with the grant of the franchise to those who had served. The core argument is that the political accountability of executive authority, even in times of war, has had both military and political benefits. The article then turns to an examination of the modern war on terror. Here the historic advantages of democracy in terms of citizen involvement and common enterprise are least apparent. The final sections of the article question how well our inherited institutions will perform over long-term conditions of asymmetric warfare against non-state adversaries. The final conclusion is that the new frontier of war may place greater strains on judicial oversight of executive claims of exceptional authority precisely because the political safeguards of democracy, while still critical, may not be sufficient. (shrink)

From the school yard to the workplace, there’s no charge more damning than “you’re being unfair!” Born out of democracy and raised in open markets, fairness has become our de facto modern creed. The very symbol of American ethics—Lady Justice—wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as dirty secrets (...) of our humanity. In Against Fairness, polymath philosopher Stephen T. Asma drags them triumphantly back into the light. Through playful, witty, but always serious arguments and examples, he vindicates our unspoken and undeniable instinct to favor, making the case that we would all be better off if we showed our unfair tendencies a little more kindness—indeed, if we favored favoritism. Conscious of the egalitarian feathers his argument is sure to ruffle, Asma makes his point by synthesizing a startling array of scientific findings, historical philosophies, cultural practices, analytic arguments, and a variety of personal and literary narratives to give a remarkably nuanced and thorough understanding of how fairness and favoritism fit within our moral architecture. Examining everything from the survival-enhancing biochemistry that makes our mothers love us to the motivating properties of our “affective community,” he not only shows how we favor but the reasons we should. Drawing on thinkers from Confucius to Tocqueville to Nietzsche, he reveals how we have confused fairness with more noble traits, like compassion and open-mindedness. He dismantles a number of seemingly egalitarian pursuits, from classwide Valentine’s Day cards to civil rights, to reveal the envy that lies at their hearts, going on to prove that we can still be kind to strangers, have no prejudice, and fight for equal opportunity at the same time we reserve the best of what we can offer for those dearest to us. Fed up with the blue-ribbons-for-all absurdity of "fairness" today, and wary of the psychological paralysis it creates, Asma resets our moral compass with favoritism as its lodestar, providing a strikingly new and remarkably positive way to think through all our actions, big and small. (shrink)

This essay starts by reviewing Claude Lefort’s writings on totalitarianism, a theme that runs like a red thread through his oeuvre and plays a key role in the different stages of his intellectual development. The analysis of the USSR is a central interest of Lefort and his colleagues at Socialisme ou Barbarie (and inspires them to adopt an explicitly “political” approach against the “economism” of their fellow Marxists); the problem of totalitarianism features prominently in Lefort’s theory of democracy (...) and human rights (where it functions as the “flipside” of democracy); and the theme holds Lefort’s attention well after the events of 1989. The emphasis of this essay, however, is not on the chronology of Lefort’s trajectory, but on the methodological role of totalitarianism in his theoretical framework. Lefort’s account of totalitarianism serves him as a tool to dissect the symbolic fabric of modern society. In Arendt’s view, totalitarian rule reveals something of the essence of modernity, as a movement towards ever increasing technical mastery. For Lefort, by contrast, totalitarian tendencies arise as an attempt to close off the experience of indeterminacy that has been opened up by political modernity. He shows that the totalitarian “imaginary” (which he dissects in psychoanalytic terms) presupposes yet deliberately inverts the very ideas that sparked the democratic revolution and that are central to the self-representation of democratic societies. In consequence, democracy is continuously at risk of degenerating into totalitarianism. Importantly, the totalitarian threat, which Lefort believes to be the main threat to modern society, only becomes visible by adopting a specifically “political” perspective. It is therefore of the utmost importance that we continue to understand and to interpret our society in “political” terms, that is, in reference to the symbolic constellation of collective power. (shrink)

The question raised by the article is: can democracy be religious and, if so, how? Can religious faith be reconciled with modern democratic political institutions? The article takes its departure from the biblical admonition to believers to be ‘the salt of the earth’ — a phrase that militates against both world dominion and world denial. In its long history, Islam (like Christianity) has been sorely tempted by the lure of worldly power and domination. Nor is this temptation (...) entirely a matter of the past (witness the rise of the Christian right and of ‘political Islam’ in our time). Focusing on contemporary Iran, the article makes a constitutional proposal which would strengthen the democratic character of the Iranian Republic without canceling religious faith. If adopted, the proposal would reinvigorate the ‘salt’ of Muslim faith thus enabling believers to live up to the Qur‘anic summons for freedom, justice and service in the world. (shrink)

Nearly every major philosophy, from Plato to Hegel and beyond, has argued that democracy is an inferior form of government, at best. Yet, virtually every contemporary political philosophy working today - whether in an analytic or postmodern tradition - endorses democracy in one variety or another. Should we conclude then that the traditional canon is meaningless for helping us theorize about a just state? In this paper, I will take up the criticisms and positive proposals of two such (...) canonical figures in political philosophy: Plato and Hegel. At first glance, each is rather disdainful, if not outright hostile, to democracy. This is also how both have been represented traditionally. However, if we look behind the reasons for their rejection of (Athenian) democracy and the reasons behind their alternatives to democracy, I believe we can uncover a new theory of government that does two things. First, it maps onto the so-called Schumpeterian tradition of elite theories of democracy quite well. Second, perhaps surprisingly, it actually provides an improved justification for democratic government as we practice it today than rival theories of democracy. Thus, not only are Plato and Hegel not enemies of modern democratic thought after all, but each is actually quite useful for helping us develop democratic theory in a positive, not negative, manner. (shrink)

Talking of „democracy as a way of life“ is not as clear-cut as it immediately appears. Democracy is a form of a state. To what extent can it then also be called a form of life? The expression seems to apply to the whole life of people and thus not only to a form of state. In the sense of Wittgenstein‘s talk of the form of life or forms of life (vgl. Grosshans 2013, 183-9), democracy as a (...) form of life would then be understood as a specific cultural context of life with which a whole series of general attitudes to life are connected. The hallmark of modern - in the sense of today‘s - democracies, however, is the plurality of social systems (in the sense of Luhmann’s sociology) in the states in which we live. Political philosophy has also devoted itself extensively in recent decades to the question of how the ideological, cultural and religious plurality of citizens in democracies should be present in the public space in which the general will of the people is discursively determined. Against this background, the paper will present some aspects of the relationship of Christianity to democracy. First, some problems that arise with a formal understanding of democracy will be presented. Then, fundamental problems that traditional constellations of Christianity entail for democracy will be discussed. This is followed by reflections on a constructive relationship of Christianity to political law on the background of Protestant theology, which are then turned against currently present forms of religious politics. Finally, the relevance of human rights for democracy and the rule of law is discussed, again from the perspective of Protestant theology. (shrink)

This article undertakes a critical examination of the political philosophy of Richard Rorty with special reference to his treatment of patriotism, pragmatism and democracy. Pragmatism, especially in the work of John Dewey, provided an energetic defence of American democracy, claiming that American democratic culture did not require any philosophical lessons from European social theory. American pragmatism is in this sense a celebration of indigenous political traditions. In his defence of pragmatism and patriotism against the cosmopolitanism of Left (...) cultural critics, Rorty advocates pragmatic ethnocentrism. Through a parallel commentary on socialist internationalism, this article asks whether ‘democracy in one country’ - the United States of America - is either feasible or compatible with the critical legacy of pragmatism. In its response to the growth of international terrorism, especially in its ‘liberation of Iraq’, the United States is in danger of becoming a ‘predatory democracy’. While Rorty has in the past argued that America cannot function as a global policeman, the trend of contemporary international relations is to create an American Empire. The article concludes by arguing that Rorty’s patriotism functions as ‘a final vocabulary’ that contradicts his postmodernism and makes it difficult for modern pragmatism to remain a critical theory. (shrink)

Although this analysis tackles the immense question of political terrorism, it nevertheless has limited ambitions. It treats only that part of terrorist movements whose primary object is the destruction of modern liberal democracy and its institutions. It analyzes only the Italian Red Brigades and the German Fractional Red Army, not Irish, Basque, Corsican, or Palestinian terrorism. Actually, the destruction of physical objects or the murder of human beings which characterizes this political practice generally takes as its goal and (...) justification those political or national rights which have until now been denied by the authority against which the attack is directly or indirectly aimed. (shrink)

The growing appreciation of the global environmental crisis has generated what should have been a predictable response: those with power are using it to appropriate for themselves the world’s diminishing resources, augmenting their power to do so while further undermining the power of the weak to oppose them. In taking this path, they are at the same time blocking efforts to create forms of society that would be ecologically sustainable. If there is one word that could bring into focus what (...) is wrong with this response it is ‘democracy’. Democracy means power in the hands of the people, which, by definition, means opposition to the concentration of power. It is inconceivable that if we had genuine democracy, where people were fully informed of the issues, they would not choose to share the burdens of scarcity and organize to live in accordance with the limits of their environment. Yet the notion of democracy is problematic. Those striving to concentrate power are pursuing this in the name of democracy. They have identified democracy with the imposition of free markets and the freedom of people to use their wealth to dominate others. In this paper I will show how process philosophy provides the basis for justifying and further developing the traditional notion of democracy to counter this reformed notion, providing a vision of a democratic form of society that could address environmental problems. To achieve this, I will argue, it is necessary to reformulate the grand narrative of civilization on the basis of human ecology, a science which, construing humans as participants in a creative nature, can replace economics as the master science for formulating public policy. (shrink)

This book intervenes in contemporary debates about the threat posed to democratic life by political emergencies. Must emergency necessarily enhance and centralize top-down forms of sovereignty? Those who oppose executive branch enhancement often turn instead to law, insisting on the sovereignty of the rule of law or demanding that law rather than force be used to resolve conflicts with enemies. But are these the only options? Or are there more democratic ways to respond to invocations of emergency politics? Looking (...) at how emergencies in the past and present have shaped the development of democracy, Bonnie Honig argues that democracies must resist emergency's pull to focus on life's necessities because these tend to privatize and isolate citizens rather than bring us together on behalf of hopeful futures. Emphasizing the connections between mere life and more life, emergence and emergency, Honig argues that emergencies call us to attend anew to a neglected paradox of democratic politics: that we need good citizens with aspirational ideals to make good politics while we need good politics to infuse citizens with idealism.Honig takes a broad approach to emergency, considering immigration politics, new rights claims, contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of consumption, and the limits of law during the Red Scare of the early twentieth century. Taking its bearings from Moses Mendelssohn, Franz Rosenzweig, and other Jewish thinkers, this is a major contribution to modern thought about the challenges and risks of democratic orientation and action in response to emergency. (shrink)

The article explores Alexis de Tocqueville’s explication of democracy as ‘civil religion’ or the new sacred of modern times. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville analyzed democracy as a political system as well as a moral value. The article begins with Tocqueville’s analysis of the religious roots of American democracy. Dissociated from the affairs of the state through the principle of ‘disestablishment’, religion became secure in civil society, whereas the concept of democracy became inviolable and (...) ‘set apart’ as sacred. He noted that the power of the majority acquires an inviolable character in democracy that had the potential to turn against the very principles that it upholds. In the Indian context, the debate around a uniform civil code is one such issue that captures this predicament. Working out a roadmap for Indian pluralism signposted with a constitutional commitment to equality, liberty and fraternity has proved to be a task fraught with moral and political complexities, if not impasse. The article argues that Tocqueville’s discovery of the role of religion in civil society, his mistrust of democratic majoritarianism and his emphasis on understanding the ‘practice’ of democracy have something to offer to the polarized UCC debate in India. (shrink)

Why do some democracies self-destruct? Using the collapse of democracy in ancient Athens and the Weimar Republic, as well as the uncertain fate of democratic rule in the United States and China today as illustrative examples, Mark Chou examines the conditions and characteristics of democracy that make it prone to self-destruct. In drawing out the political lessons from these past collapses, he explains how a democracy can, simply by being democratic, sow the seeds of its own destruction.

The place of poetry in modern democracy is no place, according to conventional wisdom. The poet, we hear, is a casualty of mass entertainment and prosaic public culture, banished to the artistic sidelines to compose variations on insipid themes for a dwindling audience. Robert Pinsky, however, argues that this gloomy diagnosis is as wrongheaded as it is familiar. Pinsky, whose remarkable career as a poet itself undermines the view, writes that to portray poetry and democracy as (...) class='Hi'>enemies is to radically misconstrue both. The voice of poetry, he shows, resonates with profound themes at the very heart of democratic culture.There is no one in America better to write on this topic. One of the country's most accomplished poets, Robert Pinsky served an unprecedented two terms as America's Poet Laureate and led the immensely popular multimedia Favorite Poem Project, which invited Americans to submit and read aloud their favorite poems. Pinsky draws on his experiences and on characteristically sharp and elegant observations of individual poems to argue that expecting poetry to compete with show business is to mistake its greatest democratic strength--its intimate, human scale--as a weakness.As an expression of individual voice, a poem implicitly allies itself with ideas about individual dignity that are democracy's bedrock, far more than is mass participation. Yet poems also summon up communal life.. Even the most inward-looking work imagines a reader. And in their rhythms and cadences poems carry in their very bones the illusion and dynamic of call and response. Poetry, Pinsky writes, cannot help but mediate between the inner consciousness of the individual reader and the outer world of other people. As part of the entertainment industry, he concludes, poetry will always be small and overlooked. As an art--and one that is inescapably democratic--it is massive and fundamental. (shrink)

This book intervenes in contemporary debates about the threat posed to democratic life by political emergencies. Must emergency necessarily enhance and centralize top-down forms of sovereignty? Those who oppose executive branch enhancement often turn instead to law, insisting on the sovereignty of the rule of law or demanding that law rather than force be used to resolve conflicts with enemies. But are these the only options? Or are there more democratic ways to respond to invocations of emergency politics? Looking (...) at how emergencies in the past and present have shaped the development of democracy, Bonnie Honig argues that democracies must resist emergency's pull to focus on life's necessities because these tend to privatize and isolate citizens rather than bring us together on behalf of hopeful futures. Emphasizing the connections between mere life and more life, emergence and emergency, Honig argues that emergencies call us to attend anew to a neglected paradox of democratic politics: that we need good citizens with aspirational ideals to make good politics while we need good politics to infuse citizens with idealism.Honig takes a broad approach to emergency, considering immigration politics, new rights claims, contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of consumption, and the limits of law during the Red Scare of the early twentieth century. Taking its bearings from Moses Mendelssohn, Franz Rosenzweig, and other Jewish thinkers, this is a major contribution to modern thought about the challenges and risks of democratic orientation and action in response to emergency. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe role of resistance in the politics of modern representative democracies is historically contested, and remains far from clear. This article seeks to explore historical thinking on this subject through a discussion of what Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville had to say about resistance and its relationship to ‘representative government’ and democracy. Neither thinker is usually seen as a significant contributor to ‘resistance theory’ as this category is conventionally understood. But, in addition to their more familiar preoccupations (...) with securing limitations on the exercise of political authority and averting majority tyranny, both thinkers wrote extensively on the nature and meanings of resistance in ‘representative governments’ or democratic societies. Both thinkers are examined in the context of revolutionary and Napoleonic discussions about the legitimacy of resistance or ‘right to resist’ oppression, and against eighteenth-century discussions of the ‘spirit of resistance’ since Montesquieu. The article notes conceptual distinctions between resistance, revolution and insurrection in the period, and addresses the broader question of the extent to which early nineteenth-century French liberals sought to ‘institutionalise’ principles of resistance within modern constitutional frameworks. (shrink)

Against the Modern World is the first history of Traditionalism, an important yet surprisingly little-known twentieth-century anti-modern movement. Comprising a number of often secret but sometimes very influential religious groups in the West and in the Islamic world, it affected mainstream and radical politics in Europe and the development of the field of religious studies in the United States, touching the lives of many individuals. French writer Rene Guenon rejected modernity as a dark age and sought to (...) reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy - the central truths behind all the major world religions. Guenon stressed the urgent need for the West's remaining spiritual and intellectual elite to find personal and collective salvation in the surviving vestiges of ancient religious traditions. A number of disenchanted intellectuals responded to his call. In Europe, America, and the Islamic world, Traditionalists founded institutes, Sufi brotherhoods, Masonic lodges, and secret societies. Some attempted unsuccessfully to guide Fascism and Nazism along Traditionalist lines; others later participated in political terror in Italy. Traditionalist ideas were the ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces in post-Soviet Russia, and in the Islamic world entered the debate about the relationship between Islam and modernity. Although its appeal in the West was ultimately limited, Traditionalism has wielded enormous influence in religious studies, through the work of such Traditionalists as Ananda Coomaraswamy, Huston Smith, Mircea Eliade, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. (shrink)

In this paper I ask whether the University has a special role to play in democratic societies. I argue that the modern University can no longer lay claim to a research monopoly since nowadays research is conducted in many places outside of the University. The University can, however, still lay claim to a kind of knowledge monopoly which has to with the central role Universities play in the definition of what counts as scientific knowledge. The problem is, however, that (...) the University’s knowledge monopoly is predominantly understood in epistemological terms. This leaves only one role for the University in a democratic society, viz., that of the expert. Based on ideas from John Dewey and Bruno Latour I suggest a different way to understand the distinction between ‘scientific’ and ‘everyday’ knowledge. Against this background I argue that the University can contribute towards the democratisation of knowledge if it articulates the difference between scientific and everyday knowledge in non-epistemological terms. (shrink)

Western democracy is now at a critical juncture. Some worry that power has been wrested from the people and placed in the hands of a small political elite. Others argue that the democratic system gives too much power to a populace that is largely ill-informed and easily swayed by demagogues. This classic study of democratic principles is thus now more relevant than ever. A renowned historian of antiquity and political philosophy, Sir M.I. Finley offers a comparative analysis of Greek (...) and modern conceptions of democracy. As he puts the ancient Greeks in dialogue with their contemporary counterparts, Finley tackles some of the most pressing issues of our day, including public apathy, partisanship, consensus politics, distrust of professional politicians, and the limits of free speech. Including three lectures that Finley delivered at Rutgers University, plus two additional essays that further illuminate his thinking, _Democracy Ancient and Modern _explores the dramatic differences between the close-knit civil society of the ancient Greeks and our own atomized mass societies. By mapping out democracy’s past and its present manifestations, this book helps us plot a course for democracy’s future. (shrink)

Nearly every major philosophy, from Plato to Hegel and beyond, has argued that democracy is an inferior form of government, at best. Yet, virtually every contemporary political philosophy working today endorses democracy in one variety or another. Should we conclude then that the traditional canon is meaningless for helping us theorise about a just state? In this paper, I will take up the criticisms and positive proposals of two such canonical figures in political philosophy: Plato and Hegel. At (...) first glance, each is rather disdainful, if not outright hostile, to democracy. This is also how both have been represented traditionally. However, if we look behind the reasons for their rejection of (Athenian) democracy and the reasons behind their alternatives to democracy, I believe we can uncover a new theory of government that does two things. First, it maps onto the so-called Schumpeterian tradition of elite theories of democracy quite well. Second, perhaps surprisingly, it actually provides an improved justification for democratic government as we practice it today than rival theories of democracy. Thus, not only are Plato and Hegel not enemies of modern democratic thought after all, but each is actually quite useful for helping us develop democratic theory in a positive, not negative, manner. (shrink)

This study focuses on the concept of people developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in the context of radical theories of democracy and populism. People is defined as a subjectivity established as a contingency in the conflictual environment of politics. The construction of the people is a condition of the existence of populist politics as a form of subject that enables the division of politics and social into two camps in the form of friend/enemy and the formation of (...) antagonisms. The article seeks to answer the question of how to create a political order in Laclau and Mouffe's conception of the people in a pluralistic society, in order to cleanse politics from antagonistic (struggle between enemies) relations and transform it into agonistic (struggle between adversaries) relations, despite the danger of eliminating each other through a friend-enemy relationship. In this study, it will be discussed whether the antagonism that constitutes the foundation of politics and society is indestructible and whether it is a subject figure in which the people is organized as a counter-hegemonic subject against certain kinds of antagonisms and whether those who are partners can come together agonistically. (shrink)

The recent publication of a special number of the SAJP dedicated to a discussion of Samantha Vice’s thoughts on being a white South African prompted this reflection on justice, equity and the modern idea of the state – against the background of moral feelings of guilt and shame, cultural diversity and merging identities. Its aim is to provide a perspective on the unity of the public legal order of the state, the distinct meaning of citizenship and affirmative action (...) in terms of the distinction between constitutive and regulative legal principles also helping white South Africans to understand how affirmative action relates to injustices of the past. The classical understanding of equity will play a key role in this discussion, aimed at showing how we can avoid the apparent impasse of equality before the law and of “fair discrimination.”. (shrink)

In Read My Desire, Joan Copjec stages a confrontation between the theories of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault, protagonists of two powerful modern discourses - psychoanalysis and historicism. Ordinarily, these discourses only cross paths long enough for historicists to charge psychoanalysis with an indifference to history, but here psychoanalysis, via Lacan, goes on the offensive. Refusing to cede historicity to the historicists, Copjec makes a case for the superiority of Lacan's explanation of historical process, its generative principles, and its (...) complex functionings. Her goal is to inspire a new kind of cultural critique, one that would be "literate in desire," that would be able to read what is inarticulable in cultural statements. Choosing a variety of battlegrounds, from historical phenomena - the 40,000 unsettling photographs of Moroccan drapery taken by Lacan's mentor, G. G. de ClA©rambault; the coincidence between vampire literature and the eighteenth-century imperative to breast-feed; the recurrent emptiness of urban spaces in film noir; the rise of democracy and questions of human rights - to theoretical concepts such as the gaze, cause, and sexual difference, Copjec imagines the blows that each contender might strike. Although Lacan emerges the victor, one has a sense that for Copjec the contest is close, that she is interested not in simply dismissing Foucault but in seizing his theory at those moments when its concerns and strategies are similar to Lacan's. She is intent on understanding how two compelling theories come to diverge, how small differences distort common assumptions. Establishing the links between psychoanalysis and critical philosophy, Copjec treats psychoanalysis not as a private language but as the mother tongue of modernity. She thus makes Lacan's famous "return to Freud" a return, as well, to the best principles of the Enlightenment. By this maneuver she forces us to question the historicist dialect that we have been taught to speak and that we all but take for granted and to regret the loss in it of psychoanalysis's more rousing accents. (shrink)