Liberal Democracy, Past and Future

Citing the examples of Trump, Brexit and Modi, Santosh Desai fears that the very nature of democracy world over is changing:

“A new grammar of democracy has begun rooted not on the lofty ideals of how humanity should aspire to be, but on what it might really be deep down. The fears and hopes that are being funneled through the political process today come from a place of anxiety and insecurity.”

But what exactly is this older form of democracy, the one called “liberal democracy”?

Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Homo Deus, explains both its history and values. Once upon a time, people believed (and feared) that “if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan, all law and order would vanish”. So what happened once God was dead, as Nietzsche famously put it? Who or what stepped in to fill the moral void? The answer: the (then) new creed of humanism. It is best described, says Harari, by these lines by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

“Listen to yourself, follow your heart, be true to yourself, trust yourself, do what feels good.”

Except if your actions cause harm or pain to others: that’s a succinct summary of what humanism stands for. Humanism then led to the rise of democracy:

“We hold democratic elections and ask people what they think about the matter at hand… And then my authentic inner voice whispers in my ear, ‘Vote Cameron’ or ‘Vote Modi’ or ‘Vote Clinton’ or whomever… and that’s how we know who should rule the country.”

Like all value systems, humanism then split. Into three main branches:

1)      Liberalism: Politically, the voter knows best. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Economically, the customer is always right. Ethically, do what feels right to you. In short, the answers all lie within you.

2)     Socialist humanism: This was a reaction to liberalism, and manifested itself as socialism and communism: stop obsessing about yourself alone; care about others as well. Let the “socialist parties and trade unions decipher the world for us”.

3)     Evolutionary humanism: This variant felt that the sensitivity of the other two was going overboard. Rooted in Darwin’s evolutionary theory, it believed that conflict was good, as it resulted in a fitter, stronger group. Some humans are superior; to insist otherwise is to evade the truth.

Ultimately, post-World War II, liberalism incorporated some of the ideas of socialism and that is what came to be called “liberal democracy”. By definition, that is a left leaning perspective. But, Harari as warns:

“Just as Stalin’s gulags do not nullify every socialist idea and argument, so too the horrors of Nazism should not blind us to whatever insights evolutionary humanism might offer.”

Today, the difference is stark in how the three strands deal with the real world:

“Whereas liberals tiptoe around the minefield of cultural comparisons, fearful of committing some politically incorrect faux pas, and whereas socialists leave it to the party to find the right path through the minefield, evolutionary humanists gleefully jump right in, setting off all the mines and relishing the mayhem.”

And perhaps therein lies the answer to the question that Desai worries about. Did the left leaning liberal nature of democracy take things so far that the right has now become attractive to more and more? But whether this is heralding a fundamental shift in the very nature of democracy or it is just a correction of a leftist tilt that had gone too far, only time can tell.