Beyond Authoritarian Rage:The Cultural Will to Democracy

“Democratic laws and institutions can only function effectively when they are based on a culture of democracy.” —Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (2018)

If political rage propels authoritarianism, what supports democratic governance? If a culture of democracy is required, is it attainable? Or has the slide into authoritarian rule crossed the point of no return? The time of cultural reckoning has arrived.

U.S. democracy, historically thin, is susceptible to demagoguery and oligarchy. As political philosopher Benjamin Barber observed decades ago, “the survival of democracy remains an open question.” It will endure “only as strong democracy,” secured by a competent, responsible, politically engaged, and well-informed citizenry; a lasting commitment to self-governance requires a civically educated public.

Strong democracy presupposes a culture of democracy.

What is a culture of democracy?

This question is so important that in 2018 the Council of Europe—an intergovernmental human rights organization representing 46 European member states—published a three-volume report dedicated to answering it. According to the report, a civic culture strong enough to sustain democratic institutions, laws, and practices consists of a full set of values, attitudes, and knowledge acted upon by the citizenry in public spaces. This is a high standard, especially for a markedly diverse country of over 300 million. It presumes adherence to key values, command of relevant knowledge, and proficiency in corresponding competencies.

Democratic values include a commitment to human dignity and rights, cultural diversity, equality, fairness, justice, the rule of law, and democratic procedures. Human rights apply universally, are safeguarded without distinction, and are exercised short of violating the rights of others. Respect for cultural diversity enables the contribution of diverse perspectives to public deliberation and decision-making. Decisions by majority or plurality vote are made without resort to coercion and with continuing respect for civil liberties.

Among democratic attitudes, openness to cultural diversity entails a suspension of prejudice and a willingness to cooperate with citizens of different cultural identities in a relationship of equality. An attitude of tolerance and respect presumes the intrinsic dignity and equality of others regardless of their differences. An attitude of civic mindedness and self-sufficiency involves a sense of interconnectedness among citizens, a concern for one another’s welfare, a willingness to serve the common good, an expectation of personal accountability, and a belief that one’s contribution can make a positive difference. Civic mindedness extends to dealing creatively and constructively with complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties.

A functioning democracy requires a substantial investment in cultural knowledge, not just technical competency.

Implementing these values and attitudes requires various democratic competencies. Analytical thinking consists of logical and systematic analysis of issues and arguments together with critical thinking to make evaluative judgments about options and to sort out political propaganda, while recognizing that one’s own judgments are contingent on a working perspective. Active listening and close observation are required to appreciate subtleties, identify inconsistencies and omissions, and understand cultural differences. Empathy is requisite to apprehending the cognitive and affective orientation of people with dissimilar cultural backgrounds. Flexibility and adaptation to changing circumstances and experiences are necessary to reconsider fixed habits of thought. Competency in communication is needed to express opinions, ideas, and wants, to request and provide clarifications, to persuade and negotiate constructively, to compromise, cooperate, manage conflict, and build consensus.

The democratic knowledge expected of citizens is familiarity with the complexities of the larger world. It encompasses an understanding of political and legal concepts such as rights, equality, and justice as well as an awareness of how democratic institutions operate; knowledge of current affairs and the political views of others; knowledge of the history, texts, doctrines, practices, and diversity of religious traditions; understanding how history is constructed and shapes contemporary perceptions; knowing how media select, interpret, and edit information for various purposes, and their impact on the public’s judgment and behavior; understanding economic processes, their consequences for profit and employment, and their intersection with social, political, and environmental issues.

Is a culture of democracy attainable?

Even more than the above synopsis, the full text of democratic values, attitudes, knowledge, and competencies conveys an expectation that is well above the present capacity of publics in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. This disjunction between aspiration and reality raises a question of feasibility. Can the public’s competencies be raised to a closer approximation of the ideal, to a level close enough for civic culture to support democratic politics?

The decline of liberal arts and civic education is indicative of the difficulty of answering the feasibility question affirmatively. Democratic culture is undermined rather than advanced by a commitment to technical and applied training at the expense of teaching the humanities, arts, and social sciences. A functioning democracy requires a substantial investment in cultural knowledge, not just technical competency. Nor can a balanced education be restricted to elites if the aim is to develop an able, well-informed public.

Beyond the deficit in formal education, lifelong civic learning is hampered by economic struggle, health crises, life’s everyday demands, violence riddled entertainment, sensationalized news media, and polarized politics. The country is caught in a downward political spiral exacerbated by its diminishing influence in the world, the economic disruption of globalization, inequity of wealth distribution, ongoing demographic shifts and migration, and imminent climate change, culminating in the election of a rightwing authoritarian regime. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to foresee a rise of civic culture above even the minimum needed to sustain thin democracy.

The value of an aspirational model as a gauge of the democratic deficit is that it can provide a goal and sense of direction for rectifying present deficiencies. The problem with an aspirational model is that the ideal can be too far removed from exigent circumstances, frustrated expectations, and fragmented politics to inspire commitment to a democratic future. It takes strong faith to bridge the gap and to move forward in an imperfect world.

Has faith in the democratic ideal expired?

Perhaps the spirit of democracy is most immediately in need of revival, if that is possible. An analytical ideal of democratic culture is abstract, literal, even antiseptic, and thus stripped of narrative texture and figurative transcendence. Absent a binding mythos, a people’s shared sentiment fades, and collective faith in democracy diminishes. The people are deprived of a political north star.

Just as Trumpism mobilizes the country’s dark impulses, historian Jon Meacham argues, the people must call upon their better angels and reach within the nation’s soul for a noble guiding vision. That “ancient and perennial” soul is an “immanent collection of convictions, dispositions, and sensitivities that shape character and inform conduct.” It is “the vital center, the core, the heart, the essence of life.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson documents how the country’s antidemocratic leaders have rewritten the nation’s story to abandon the principle of equality. She also observes that Americans have managed, despite several close calls, to hold on to democratic principles for over three centuries, “however imperfectly they lived them.” In her view, “the true nature of American democracy … is, and has always been, a work in progress.” The task at hand in this “time of testing,” she writes, is one of “keeping the dream of equality alive.”

By these accounts, reawakening the spirit of democracy is a plausible undertaking. An imperfect citizenry might draw sustenance from its centuries-long, checkered quest for liberty and equality, and it might reasonably hope to muddle through dark times.

When robust democratic deliberation is rendered inherently destabilizing, the modes of responsible and active citizenship by a competent public are diminished.

That said, rhetorical scholar Jennifer Mercieca observes that the capacity of the citizenry to act democratically is “ambiguous.” American citizenship, depending on “whoever ‘the people’ are thought to be,” is a “conflicted, paradoxical, and complex” phenomenon that does not ensure the kind of national stability the Constitution was designed to protect. By representing active citizenship as a danger to stability, the country’s Constitutional founders strayed from the revolutionary conception of citizens actively watching and critiquing government, resisting corruption and oppression, and working for the common good. Over the course of time, a pseudo-democratic conception of citizenship, informed by an infantilizing discourse of a distempered public, a public that must be contained and constrained by political parties, has demoted citizens from decisionmakers to bystanders and relegated them to consumer status. When robust democratic deliberation is rendered inherently destabilizing, the modes of responsible and active citizenship by a competent public are diminished.

While the slide into authoritarianism has perhaps reached the point of no return, which we cannot know for certain, now might instead be regarded as an exigent moment for revitalizing the spirit of democracy. Reconstituting civic will would take a fugitive act in the Jeffersonian sense of instigating a little rebellion now and again—a rebellious interval of deliberative dissent with sufficient intensity and duration to jump start the democratic dream. There can be no guarantee, only a conviction that an effort to prevent the demise of democracy might succeed.