Optimates

Democracy is a Search for Optimates

By John Taylor; 2009 July 20, Kalimat 07, 166 BE

"We are saving the world for democracy." Almost a century ago this slogan moved millions of young men to lay down their lives in the trenches of a cataclysmic conflict they called "The Great War." Since then democracy has spread to all regions if not every country of the world, despite the unavoidable reality that nations where it is most deeply ensconced fall well short of many basic ideals of democracy. It is shameful, after so much blood was shed to save democracy that we do not keep it pristine. The people may well ask: How can we save the world for democracy when democracies themselves are so gravely flawed? How can we keep democracy from nullifying its own ideals?

In this series of essays I have been discussing how to extend and expand democracy to where it has had little influence. Yet the obstacles are formidable even in those all-too-narrow areas where democracy is well established. For example, in the following passage two political scientists point out several ways in which democracy has itself become undemocratic.

"Democracy as a way of organizing the state has come to be narrowly identified with territorially-based competitive elections of political leadership for legislative and executive offices. Yet, increasingly, this mechanism of political representation seems ineffective in accomplishing the central ideals of democratic politics: facilitating active political involvement of the citizenry, forging political consensus through dialogue, devising and implementing public policies that ground a productive economy and healthy society, and, in more radical egalitarian versions of the democratic ideal, assuring that all citizens benefit from the nations wealth." (http://www.archonfung.net/papers/Experiments.pdf)

The stifling effect of nationalism on democracy cannot be underestimated. Most egregiously, it has undermined one the bases of democracy -- freedom of movement. While democratic lands allow citizens to travel and live wherever they please, in the 19th and 20th Centuries permanent barriers to emigration and immigration were erected at national borders. At the same time this meant that ethical barriers went up along these borders too. Elected government leaders, no matter how powerful, are not responsible for anything but a tiny portion of the earth's surface. This inconvenient truth ties their hands from responding to climate change.

This disastrous flaw even degrades the language we use for ethical concerns. I have posted a video link on the Badi' Blog to this lecture by a prominent Canadian academic:

http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-distinction-between-accountability.html

The speaker, a ubiquitous talking head on Ontario's educational television network, TVO, discusses here an interesting distinction being made between accountability and responsibility.

"The Director of the Munk Centre for International Studies, Janice Stein, delivers her 2002 lecture on the ethics of responsibility and accountability in North American society."

Stein makes an interesting distinction between accountability and responsibility. She observes that there seems to be much more talk of accountability in the past decade and less of responsibility. This distressingly narrows our ethical pallet and leaves us open to any amount of immorality, though exactly why it is happening now she has little to say about. It seems pretty clear that the cause of this blindness is a failure to invoke and teach the Golden Rule, and religious virtue generally. The decline of religion's influence corrupts democracy as much as anything else. As citizens of a democracy we hold ourselves responsible for much that we are not accountable to anyone but, ultimately, God. As servants of God we choose a divine virtue to perfect to the full extent of our power. This goes beyond avoiding sins of neglect and even acting responsibly. It is surely a strong pillars of democracy, however invisible it may be to the materialist.

In an article this month in the New York Times, David Brooks pointed out even more assaults on democracy in modern times. With the loss of what in the time of George Washington was called the "dignity code," many of the most attractive features of democracy, features that that are absolutely foundational, have been lost.

"The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested  to endeavour to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent -- to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate -- to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm. Remnants of the dignity code lasted for decades. For most of American history, politicians did not publicly campaign for president. It was thought that the act of publicly promoting oneself was ruinously corrupting. For most of American history, memoirists passed over the intimacies of private life. Even in the 19th century, people were appalled that journalists might pollute a wedding by covering it in the press." ("In Search of Dignity, David Brooks, New York Times, July 7, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/opinion/07brooks.html)

Brooks points to several counteracting social forces that have corrupted democracy in this sorry way. These include capitalism, which encourages the individual to "become managers of our own brand, to do self-promoting end zone dances to broadcast our own talents." Popular psychology creates a "cult of naturalism" that encourages people to "discard artifice and repression and ... instead liberate our own feelings." Religion, as already mentioned, degrades democracy further, with "charismatic evangelism," which has a "penchant for public confession." Finally he points out, "radical egalitarianism" has shown a deep "hostility to aristocratic manners."

I would add individualism to Brooks' list. The selfish thinking of reducing everything to individual concerns is utterly incompatible with the benevolent spirit of citizenship. Without that spirit, no democracy is worthy of the name.

But worst of all, and underlying most of the previously mentioned factors, is surely materialism.

Materialism exaggerates this narrow, all-too-brief physical life and truncates the heroism that faith calls us to. Politically, materialism promotes an adversarial attitude that narrows reform from a united effort at progress to mere conflicts among partisans, fanatics, radicals and revolutionaries. While a moderate degree of competition can be a salutary stimulus, democracies today are infected with the misconception that open strife among partisans is tolerable and ultimately contributes to the public good. On the contrary, strife cuts us off from the God of love in whose good pleasure all our hopes lie.

The universal reform program laid out by John Amos Comenius offers the last, best hope of democracy. Comprehensive by definition, leaders would be what Comenius calls "educators of mankind" who promote a heightened sense of responsibility beyond mere accountability. This is the reverse of the fanatical radicalism and religious fundamentalism that negated efforts at revolutionary change so far. Comenius insists -- or rather insists that we insist -- that we should elect only what he calls optimates -- a Latin word that means "the best," without the bad connotations of the Greek cognate, "aristocrat." Optimates would have the best material qualifications but would also offer spiritual ones, including a devotion to divine virtue. In Universal Reform Comenius writes,

"But we must insist that only men of the highest qualifications (optimates) are eligible for these high offices, that is, with regard to the appointment of Scholars, Churchmen, and Politicians we should elect the wisest, the most pious, and the most capable respectively, yet without disregarding their possession of the other requirements also. For obviously the Scholar who is at the same time pious and capable will be a better director of Scholars than one who is simply a Scholar, and similarly a capable politician who is at the same time wise and pious will be a better director than one who is simply a politician without wisdom and piety." (Panorthosia, Ch. 15, para 19, pp. 220-221)

It is impossible to overemphasize the fact that Comenius here does not see only politicians as being chosen in free and open elections. Scholars and religious leaders too are elected democratically. And all three are chosen for wisdom as well as competence. Pure democracy for Comenius is a search for optimates, men and women committed to universal reform. Each seeks the good of all humanity and are wise in each of the three dimensions of social principle, knowledge, faith and action, as instantiated in the three main disciplines, science, religion and politics.

Once true optimates are elected, the people can trust their leaders. Nobody needs to pander to the people. We can have full confidence that there will be no conflict of interests, for as there is one God, there is just one human race. The people, having voted, can offer unqualified support to their leaders' social initiatives. This partnership must benefit all and bolster every high ideal of democracy.