The Three Threats To Our Democracy And They Are Us

 I recently wrote a post on Facebook that said the following

Arrogance makes us deaf.
Loyalty blinds us.
And Authoritarianism makes us stupid and foolish

 Because the above items apply to the population in general, then our politicians are not necessarily what is destroying our democracy--a democracy that might not even survive the current election. It is the people who are destroying our democracy.

Yes, certain politicians are playing a role in dismantling our democracy. But they have no power without support from the people. And the sad truth of our current state is that just as art is said to reflect life, so our politicians reflect too many of us. Suppose Trump loses and Biden is sworn in as President, we will still have the same divisions that we have under and were nurtured by Trump. We will still have some white supremacists sharing a key characteristic with their liberal and leftist counterparts and even some police officers: the inability or unwillingness to recognize legitimate limits for how they operate. And a piece of evidence that supports the claim that our politicians show us what our people are like can be seen in that too many of our politicians fight against recognizing limits to their actions.

The first statement from above says, 'Arrogance makes us deaf.' What inspired that saying is a statement made by Martin Luther King Jr. about the West as he spoke against the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

The attitude that onesel or one's group has everything to teach and nothing to learn from others is rooted in our wanting to feel significant.  But in seeking our significance in that way, we are denying the significance of others. And when we can so easily turn a deaf ear to what others have to say, we overstate our own significance. We show that our own sense of significance is rooted in feeling superior to others rather than being satisfied with merely contributing in collaboration with others. And for us to believe that we ourselves or the groups we belong to, have all the answers,  then the superiority we claim is not just that of a sports teams seeking to win a championship, it is a superiority that comes with being omniscient. 

The problem with claiming such omniscience it is that it is based on delusions of grandeur which are eventually effectively challenged by facts on the ground. And while others wait for those facts on the ground to catch up with one's claims of knowing everything, many are made to suffer.

No ideology has all the answers. And so it is just like what Martin Luther King Jr. said about Capitalism and Marxism. He said that we need to take the best parts of both approaches and merge them together in a hybrid. He said that because he noted the weaknesses and strengths of each ideology. He stated that while 'Communism forgets that life is individual,' he added that 'Capitalism forgets that life is social' (click here for the source).

 The next statement that requires examination is the one that says, 'Loyalty blinds us.'  Loyalty to a person or group is fine to a degree. But there comes a degree of loyalty that serves neither the subject(s) nor the object(s) of that loyalty. We see such loyalty in the patriotism/nationalism of many people. When their loyalty to a given nation is too great, then loyalty to the nation trumps commitment to universal principles and moral values. The result is that the nation no longer has any any outside standards with which it can judge itself. Thus, what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Such loyalty to one's own group says that whatever one's group does to others is fine, or necessary at the worst. But whatever is done against that group is immoral. This eventually leads to the rule of force even by those groups that claim that they follow the rule of law.

Finally we have the statement about authoritarianism. Here I am referencing the authoritarian personality type that was explored by the Frankfurt School in an effort to understand why the German people remained so loyal to Adolf Hitler even to the end. The authoritarian personality has both an active and passive side according to Erich Fromm (click here for the source). The active authoritarian personality is on display by those who seek more and more power.  The passive authoritarian personality is seen in those who enable the active authoritarian to seek and maintain power.

We see both authoritarian personality types on display in the reaction and response to dissent. The response to dissent doesn't employ rational thought and dependence on facts. Rather, the response seeks to attack the source because truth is determined more by the credentials of one's sources than the facts on the ground and the logic used to organize those facts. And because authoritarianism is fear-driven, the response to dissent tends to be aggressive and even hostile. Rather than trying to prove that a dissenting view is wrong, the authoritarian, by hook or by crook, attempts to discredit the source of dissent.

 And because authoritarianism is fear driven, there is the strong tendency for authoritarians to demonize those individuals or groups that express dissent. The fear that drives the authoritarian personality is that of not having enough control over others.

Because authoritarianism does not foster rational and logical responses to dissent, it causes stupidity and foolish responses. Rather than question our authority figures and rationally examine what they are saying, we accept most, if not everything, our authority figures have to say we find ourselves ignoring facts on the ground and logic. Thus authoritarianism makes us stupid and foolish.

If only our leaders demonstrated arrogance, too much loyalty, and authoritarian personalities, we could survive. Unfortunately we see these traits in more and more people from <b>ALL</b> ideological perspectives. And that is why our democracy is in trouble today. For if it was only our leaders who went off the rails, then activism could easily and quickly correctly their errors. But many who are not our political leaders cling to arrogance, have unchecked loyalty to people, groups, and/or ideologies, and have embraced an authoritarian personality.