- Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. [Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944), Introduction.]
- My political ideal is democracy. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized. [Albert Einstein, from Henry Goddard Leach, Living Philosophies (Simon and Schuster, 1931).]
- A republic, if you can keep it. [Benjamin Franklin, responding to a woman’s question about the new government just after the Constitutional Convention of 1787.]
Government is social order. At a minimum, the security of the people demands a government that protects them from violent attack. Because governments must be financed, taxes are necessary. People may complain about restrictions on their liberty but without government, they would have no order in their lives and no freedom to pursue good and stable lives.
For most of human history, government’s functions could have been limited to a few things. Today, with our advanced technologies and our complex web of industry, finance, transportation, information exchange and other economic activities, governments have grown larger. They collect more in taxes and promulgate more laws and regulations because order and stability in the modern economy demands it. Rhetoric from the political right, hearkening back to the days of Thomas Jefferson in the United States, is irresponsible in denying the realities of modern economic life. The full extent of the damage to be done by this rhetoric and its accompanying effects on public policy remains to be seen.
For democracy to work properly – to serve the people’s needs – the people must be informed and responsible. This was the concern of the founders of modern democracy during the Enlightenment, and remains of paramount concern today.
Obstacles include propaganda.
Real
True Narratives
Fundamentals of democracy:
- Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021): “He doesn’t want us to fixate so much on democratic “norms” — those informal rules that beguile and bedevil political scientists — as he wants to talk about the democratic principles that animate those norms in the first place.”
- Packer, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021): “His deep fear is that Americans have lost the ‘art’ of self-government. He means, with credit to Alexis de Tocqueville, ‘not just rights, laws and institutions, but what free people do together, the habits and skills that enable us to run our own affairs.’ Self-government depends on trust, 'which we’ve lost.'”
- Brad Snyder, Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the. Making of the Liberal Establishment (W.W. Norton and Company, 2022): “Ever since the New Deal era, Frankfurter had warned liberals that fighting their political battles in the Supreme Court would backfire, since conservatives would inevitably regain control of the court and reverse their judicial victories.”
Examples of self-government:
- Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (Simon & Schuster, 2010).
Examples of government being imposed from without.
- Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton University Press, 2011): ". . .Western powers made a serious error installing Karzai in a presidency with quasi-monarchical powers."
- James Miller, Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018): What does “democracy” mean?
- Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas (1871): three essays.
- Mario Vargas Llosa, Sabers and Utopias: Visions of Latin America (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018): a vision for self-government in Peru
- Thant Myint-U, The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century (W.W. Norton & Company, 2019): “The book’s focus is on the convulsions of the last 15 years, from a seemingly unshakable military dictatorship to the beginnings of democratic rule, but examining the legacy of Burma’s colonial past is crucial to grasping what’s happened more recently.”
The messsiness of democracy:
- Lou Damrosch, Tocqueville’s Discovery of America (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010): “The contradictions Tocqueville found in Cincinnati fed into his larger conclusions. America, he found, was a nation of paradoxes. It proclaimed that all men were created equal, yet was suffused by racial prejudice. It placed unparalleled faith in the individual yet was conformist and controlled by the majority. It was materialistic yet deeply religious, commercial but puritanical. It had a carefully conceived Constitution and a well-defined political system, yet its most important decisions sprang from public opinion and mores, not the government.”
- Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein, The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality (Viking, 2019): “Neither man questioned the necessity of popular consent, but both thought democracy ought to be just one part of a properly balanced government.”
- Yascha Mounk, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (Penguin Press, 2022): “. . . The cultural aftereffects of enslavement — including high levels of Black crime — remain a problem, but Mounk argues persuasively that progress has been made, especially in income (if not the accumulation of wealth) and education.”
From the dark side:
- Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic (Henry Holt & Company, 2018): “A history showing that the Weimar Republic confronted problems of globalization with flawed leaders.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Small government, whether that of Jefferson’s day or Coolidge’s, is incompatible with the demands of the contemporary world economy. Though the global economy has diminished the influence of government under the nation-state model, stability coupled with widely shared prosperity will not be restored until the people find a new way to govern ourselves.
- Bill Clinton, Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011).
- Preet Bahrara, Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law (Knopf, 2019): “We should take our cues from American criminal trials, in which both parties are obliged to consider flaws in their own arguments and understand the mind-set of the other side. Assertions must be evidence-based; research must be rigorous; decorum is paramount. “You can’t call your adversary a ‘low-I.Q. person,’” he notes. ‘You can’t argue the prosecution is political; and you can’t make sweeping biased statements.’”
Threats to democracy:
- Elaine Scarry, Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom (W.W. Norton & Company, 2014): arguing that “the ability of one leader to deploy a nuclear weapon is inherently undemocratic.”
- Larry Diamond, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (Penguin Press, 2019): “‘After three decades in which democracy was spreading and another in which it was stagnating and slowly eroding, we are now witnessing a global retreat from freedom.’”
- Steven Levitzky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018): “Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies have collapsed elsewhere — not just through violent coups, but more commonly (and insidiously) through a gradual slide into authoritarianism. Autocrats often come to power through democratic elections rather than at the point of a gun.”
- Astra Taylor, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone (Metropolitan Books, 2019): “ . . . an idiosyncratic rumination on problems associated with popular self-government.”
- Burt Neuborne, When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic (The New Press, 2019): “ . . . noted constitutional scholar Burt Neuborne administers a stress test to democracy and concludes that our unprecedented sets of constitutional protections, all endorsed by both major parties, stand between us and an authoritarian federal regime fronted by Donald Trump’s tweets . . . ”
- Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (Public Affairs, 2019): Does and will democracy have any meaning, when a few people can use algorithms to manipulate the masses?
- Andrew Marantz, Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation (Viking, 2019): “Marantz knows that evenhandedness is a professional principle; but even more fundamental, he says, is the need for honesty.”
- James Poniewozik, Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America (Liveright, 2019): “. . . Poniewozik, the chief television critic of this newspaper, uses his ample comedic gifts in the service of describing a slow-boil tragedy.”
- Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (Doubleday, 2020) “Why Intellectuals Support Dictators”
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
- Burma VJ: Reporter i et Lukket Land(Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country): Buddhist monks lead a democratic uprising against the Burmese dictatorship
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Novels:
- Mario Vargas Llosa, The Neighborhood: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018): a failure of self-government
- Jo Nesbø, Macbeth: A Novel (Hogarth, 2018): “In the end, he offers a dark but ultimately hopeful ‘Macbeth,’ one suited to our own troubled times, in which “the slowness of democracy” is no match for power-hungry strongmen who demand unstinting loyalty from ethically compromised followers, and where the brave must band together to defeat the darker forces that threaten to destroy the social fabric.”
Poetry
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks, the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.
[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book V: Calamus, “For You, O Democracy”.]
The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him,
The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,
The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you,
Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you.
[Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1891-92), Book XV, “A Song for Occupations” (4)]
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Aaron Copland, Symphony No. 3, “Third Symphony” (1946) (approx. 40-46 ‘), is a celebration of and homage to the common people, who form the backbone of democracy and economies. Copland explained; “One aspect of the Third Symphony ought to be pointed out: it contains no folk or popular material. Any reference to either folk material or jazz in this work was purely unconscious. However, I do borrow from myself by using Fanfare for the Common Man in an expanded and reshaped form in the final movement. I used this opportunity to carry the Fanfare material further and to satisfy my desire to give the Third Symphony an affirmative tone. After all, it was a wartime piece—or more accurately, an end-of-war piece—intended to reflect the euphoric spirit of the country at the time.” “Although it does not quote any folksongs or hymns, as had many of his previous works, it incorporates his own popular Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) in its entirety, and the Fanfare’s basic melodic contours permeate all four of the symphony’s movements.” “Aaron Copland's monumental symphony gave post-war America what it needed - 'the Great American Symphony'.” Best recorded performances are conducted by Copland in 1959, Bernstein in 1986, Neeme Järvi in 1996, Oue in 2000, Kalmar in 2015, and Tilson Thomas in 2020.
In the era of apartheid, and since, many South African musicians used their craft to express the struggle of the South African black majority for freedom and self-rule. Their struggle against apartheid was in essence a struggle for democracy.
- Trumpeter Hugh Masakela was an important voice for democracy in South Africa. Here are links to his releases, a playlist, and some videos of and about him.
- Mzwakhe Mbuli is a flame-thrower for democracy and human rights. Here are links to his playlists, and to an interview.
- Vusi Mahlasela is a “singer-songwriter and poet-activist”, known in South Africa as “The Voice”. Here are links to his releases, a documentary film, and an interview.
- Dorothy Masuka sang of the struggles of South African (black) people. “By composing her own songs that were inspired by events occurring in the South African townships in the 1950s, she provided a lot of insight into socio-political issues of township life. It was as result of this commentary that she left South Africa abruptly. It was the radical spirit of Masuka’s song writing that led to her long years of exile.” Here are links to her releases, an interview, and some videos.
- Letta Mbulu is an African-American soul singer who “Helped Sing South Africa to Freedom From Apartheid”. Here are links to her releases, an interview, and some videos.
- “Brenda Fassie was a woman who stepped out of line, talked out of turn, wore the pants, pulled up her skirt and loved women and men.” “As the ultimate maverick, Fassie’s politics was manifested not through how proudly she donned any party colours, but by being anti-establishment. Under apartheid it was against the boers. After democracy, as was evident at Molelekwa’s memorial service, she took on the cultural desk commissars, industry suits and, perpetually, straight society.” Here are links to her releases, her playlists, a documentary film, interviews, and some videos.
- “Jonas Gwangwa’s music and life embody the resistance against apartheid”. “In the early '70s, Gwangwa began living in exile, but continued to employ his music as a form of resistance. From 1980 to 1990, he was the leader of Amandla, the cultural ensemble of the African National Congress.” Here are links to his playlists, a brief documentary film, and an interview.
Musicians have been advocates for democracy in other parts of the world, as well:
- Manu Chao, of Spain via France, “is seen as one of the most representative artists of the 21st century, not only for his social messages and his vindication to the popular sectors but also for his ability to fuse styles as varied as rock, rumba, ska and hip-hop.” He has said: “The big problem is money. The economic power is more powerful than the political. So we vote, but the politicians–they’re all puppets. It is not a real democracy. . . . So more and more people are not going to believe any more in democracy; and that’s very dangerous.” Here are links to his releases, his playlists, a documentary film, a lecture and discussion, and some videos.
- Yannick Noah, of France, is a former world-class tennis player who has become an anti-far-right political activist. Here are links to his releases, his playlists, a series of documentary films (part 1, part 2, part 3), an interview, and some videos.
- Silvio Rodriguez, of Cuba, has drawn criticism for his advocacy of socialism and simultaneous opposition to the Castro and post-Castro dictatorship. “The - if you like - anti-hero of the revolution, Rodríguez has always sung about everyday things, and in the process given voice to a generation of Latin-Americans.” Here are links to his releases, a documentary film, an interview, and a 2018 concert in Havana, and some videos.
- Lila Downs is an advocate for democratic participation in Mexico and Latin America generally. Here are links to her releases, her playlists, in interview, and some videos.
- Caetano Veloso is a Brazilian singer and political activist who was exiled because of his open opposition to Brazil’s anti-democratic Bolsinaro regime. Here are links to his releases; his playlists; documentary films from 1992, and 2012; in interview; and some videos.
Compositions:
- In his String Quartet No. 2 (1913) (approx. 25-26’), Charles Ives writes of four men who converse, discuss, argue, fight, shake hands, “then walk up the mountain side to view the firmament!”
- Morton Gould aspired to write the “Great American Symphony.” Messy and contentious but held together by key and tempo, his Symphony No. 3 (1947) (approx. 13-15’) leans in that direction.
- Steve Elcock, Symphony No. 6, Op. 30, “Tyrants Destroyed” () (approx. 32’)
Albums:
- Borderlands Trio, “Asteroidea” (2017) (53’) “is a collective effort with each of the musicians credited for all of the music, and all of the music is improvised. The extraordinary accomplishment here is the trio's ability to fashion clear, logical, and convincing song forms from naught.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Leonard Cohen, “Democracy” (lyrics)
- Lin-Manuel Miranda, “My Shot” (lyrics)
- Killing Joke, “Democracy” (lyrics)
- Curtis Mayfield, “Power to the People” (lyrics)
- Patti Smith, “People Have the Power” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Howard Chandler Christy, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution (1940)
- Edvard Munch, Jurisprudence (1887)
