The Little Red Blog

Saturday Lecture: On Aristocratic Democracy

{I don’t know if Marcia Christoff Reina, author of the pro-aristocracy piece below, was or is familiar with the classic joke known as “The Aristocrats” (The Aristocrats - Wikipedia). Should she be exposed to it, she would be appalled, I am certain, as would any decent person. In fact, forget that I even mentioned it, and please don’t click on that link.}

Marcia Christoff Reina, from “Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy” (2014; republished in 2022):

What was once considered the ideal creation of Western Civilization was the noble individual, celebrated from Roman philosophers to 18th century Englishmen like Gibbon to 19th century Americans like Emerson. From the heights of the Promethean view of man’s potential, to the degenerate view of the human as helplessly weak, whose self-interest is usually malevolent and whose dignity inevitably disgraced, there have been few Western ideas made more subject to unrelenting corrosion in modern times than the notion of “man”.

Today, it is a corrupted notion of “the Individual” that has fundamentally rendered the massive problems of the United States no longer merely political but philosophical. This, in turn, has been the result of two vastly different understandings of democracy of which the country has lost sight: aristocratic democracy, which is what the Founders had intended, and egalitarian democracy, which is what we’ve created, much to our peril. (To be clear: “Egalitarian” does not mean equality; it means the lowest common denominator having the highest possible cultural and political influence, whether elite or popular.)

For the Founding Fathers on this point, one is referred to Jefferson’s self-admitted search for the “natural aristoi” he wanted to cultivate for public service, and to his argument that education in a Republic must be “democratic and aristocratic”.  “Aristocratic” is used here not in the sense of baronies, barbicans, or bloodlines. The term is meant in its original, philosophical sense, best summarized by no less than Lord Tennyson himself, as “self-reverence, self-sufficiency and self-perpetuation”. One is also reminded of Madison’s and Hamilton’s almost obsessive fear of “mobocracy” and their revulsion towards the idea of direct democracy. (“When I mention the public, I mean the rational part of it; the ignorant and vulgar [are] unfit to manage its reins,” wrote Madison).

The concept of Time (the long view) inherent in the aristocratic outlook is its most important aspect. If modern Western capitalistic democracy is to survive, it must incorporate that which it has long regarded as its diametrical opposite—the aristocratic. If this democracy is to perish, it will continue to promote that which has been falsely regarded as its best element—the egalitarian (the here and now, the mass appetite). If things stay as they currently are, democracy in general will increasingly take on characteristics of the totalitarian, or what Jefferson warned of as an “elective despotism”, in which in the will of a leader will become totally responsible for the helpless whole.

The egalitarian is on a path of destruction. He creates for the short-term, because the present is an ordeal to get through, the past is invariably a source of evil, and the future is beyond his control or care. The short-term is the convenient, the instantaneous, the whetting of an appetite. Soon, the short-term becomes not only the economic, but the political, cultural, and social mentality of choice. This becomes: the short-term in financial practices, the short term in political expediency, the short term in art, the short term in education standards, the short-term in durability of a product or a service, the short-term in human relationships, in concentration and commitments…all of it leading to the current crop of human capital we have today. Then, the vox populi and its elite-mass representatives bemoan the “Individual” as a rapacious, quick-scheming wretch. 

Well, they should know. They created him.

At present in the West is a population of human capital that is not really fit for democracy as it must be maintained—certainly not economically. But “capitalism” is blamed for the decline and fall, while that same capitalism is being taken hostage by politically correct terminology in hopes that it may still be coaxed into showing up and saving the day. Changes of language have been gaining currency since the onset of the economic crises and intensifying since then. One hears calls for “communitarian capitalism,” “the social market,” “social entrepreneurship,” appeals for the end of something called “Gucci capitalism,” and so on. On the surface, all of this seems harmless, even positive. In fact, to many, including business leaders, these new categories represent an intelligently progressive step in the right direction, ostensibly respecting the productive ends of capitalism while mixing some social oversight into those ends.

But therein lies the danger. For, the philosophy at the root of such nuanced language is that the traditional center and spirit of capitalist enterprise, the individual—his individual gain, his search for profit, his self-interest, his personal distinction or even “glory”—represents something distasteful at best, irretrievably criminal and inherently corrupt at worst. Meanwhile, according to such thinking, only the social-communal-group mindset is the legitimate economic goal and, by extension, the morally superior one. The premise of capitalism is thus reversed, putting the group ends of distribution as the ethical objective above and beyond the protection of the fundamental means of production—the individual and his individual mind. The egalitarian becomes the goal, while the aristocratic—the main driver of standards, long-term planning, and generational perpetuation—becomes the object of resentment.

The aristocratic element of democracy is its long-term quality. It has reverence for the past and it plans for the future. This is the necessary instinct democracy needs anew and that capitalism—the practical support of that democracy—should be free of guilty-conscience modifiers or apologetic labels tacked onto it. Once upon a time in Europe, this view meant great forestry or mining fortunes made with the goal of sustaining generations of family name; in the US it became the outlook of Madison, Adams and Jefferson, who refer time and again to the need of a “gallant citizenry” to uphold their vast and incredible experiment. Such is the outlook of the kind of individual whom no great force—emperor, soldier, government—can replace.

-------------------------------------------------

Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy - The Imaginative Conservative

And the Name of the Band Is: "Chain-Smoking, Pistol-Packing Hillbillies"

"And you say, 'Oh my God, am I here all alone?'" (Bob Dylan)

Now, where was I, before my internet service put me on hold for most of the week?

Oh: there was an election, wasn’t there? I should say something about it.

This is from Gary Legum (at Wonkette):

Americans have gone out there and empowered a jackass and an entire political party that can’t keep its nose out of women’s uteruses or transgender people’s genitals. A party that wants to separate immigrant families for no real reason other than that Stephen Miller read “The Camp of the Saints” at an impressionable age and also they are apparently a bunch of frightened, paranoid bigots who spend too much time reading and watching right-wing media.

Hello, I Am Common Decency, And Holy Hell Has This Been A Week.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Right is as gracious in victory as it was in defeat. For instance, Steve Bannon graciously addresses Democrats and their supporters:

You can kick us to the curb. You can stomp us. You can beat us in a battle, but you can't win the war, and you will not win the war. You people are revolting. Revolting. What you have done to this country, what you've done to the citizens of this country, and yes yes yes, you will pay a price for that. You will pay a price for that. It's called justice. Rough Roman justice.

What the hell is Steve Bannon talking about? Crucifixion? People being thrown to the lions as part of the Super Bowl halftime show? 

Steve Bannon: "Rough Roman justice" coming for media companies like NBC, Washington Post, NY Times | Media Matters for America

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex Jones, too, takes a measured approach:

We are coming for you. It's true. Because you've committed mass crimes. It's not avengeance, it's justice, and we can't let you commit it again. These criminals that have been hijacking the government, that committed these crimes just like the Nazis, they have to learn they're not above the law. Nuremberg two. We destroy the Democratic Party, we destroy the U.N., we destroy the NGOs, and we regain America's soul at the same time. Now that's my plan, and I can tell you that's a commonsense plan. 

Well, yes, you can tell me it’s a “commonsense plan,” but I am not required to believe you--I mean, not yet.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In fairness, we should remind ourselves that these guys, the MAGA crowd, don’t mean any of this—right? Like, back in 2021 they said, “Hang Mike Pence,” but they didn’t actually hang Mike Pence. It’s free speech, that’s all. They’re just, the MAGA crowd, compulsively hyperbolic and prone to overexcited rhetoric; basically, though, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, let us allow Rod Dreher, writing from a wi-fi hotspot in Hungary, to share his thoughts on the political ascent of J.D. Vance:

Before I sat down to read the papers and to think about the political implications of the Trump win, I had a big old cry over Mamaw, the gristly old chain-smoking, pistol-packing hillbilly who raised J.D. Vance, and who died in 2025 [sic].

Oh no—has Dreher been to the future? Has anyone broken the news to Mamaw that she’ll be dead sometime next year?

I’m sentimental about this woman. This morning, I thought about how Bonnie Blanton Vance came from deep America. She was working class. Her life, and the life of her family, were messy as hell. She’s the kind of person that the American ruling class never pays attention to, except to disdain them as “deplorable”. ¹ According to her grandson, Mamaw was a lifelong New Deal Democrat, but she had seen the party of the working man turn itself into a vehicle for liberal elites. Mamaw was one of the forgotten people.

Dreher weepily confesses that the Trump/Vance triumph “made me weep with joy and gratitude this morning for Mamaw, but more than that, for my country. It has been a long time since I’ve felt good about America.’

Rod Dreher’s “Michelle Obama moment”! I assume he will be cancelled immediately for the offense, despite his admiration for J.D. Vance, who has proven that “a boy who came from the terrible circumstances of a childhood in a disintegrating society can rise out of it to become one of its most important leaders, and put his knowledge, experience, and power to work to lift up the poor and the working class, to help give them the structural help they need to get their lives back on track, as well as the moral wisdom coming from a deep well of convictions forged from the history of strong men and women who made a nation out of the New World — well, how can you not cry? How does your heart not swell at what God has given us, in America?

The American dream still lives, after all. His name is J.D. Vance, from Middletown, Ohio. Is this a great country, or what?

I vote for “what”.

MAGA Morning In America - Rod Dreher's Diary

¹ That is the God's honest truth. As a registered, card-carrying member of America's elite ruling class, I routinely label working-class Americans as "deplorables," "garbage," "vermin," or "scum," especially if they speak with some sort of Hee-Haw accent, listen to country music, or go by names like "Mamaw" or "Memaw".   

 

Election Night with Pascal: Oh, the Humanity!

{Pascal the existential Russian blue cat has braced himself for the election results, whatever they may be. Here are his prepared post-election remarks; he asked me to release them now, as he might not be in the mood for it tomorrow.}

My fellow Americans:

I am happy to announce that, as of this morning (November 6, 2024), Happy Days Are Here Again! Or, depending on your perspective, It’s the End of the World as We Know It.

Either way, let us now unite, as Americans have always done, behind the winner of this election, assuming a winner has been determined and that the results will withstand the barrage of legal challenges, many of them quixotic, sure to come.  

Future generations will look back on this day as the moment when our quadrennial national nightmare ended, or at least paused to take a breath. 2024 will be remembered as the year that campaign rhetoric soared to heights never before imagined, featuring epithets like Tampon Tim, Island of Garbage, Comrade Kamala, Fascist, Marxist, Vermin, Scum, Poisoning the Blood of Our Nation, Couch F---er, Arnold Palmer’s 3-Wood Penis, etc. Of course, all that was just harmless hyperbole, mere partisan banter, and all in good fun! As Rodney King famously noted, we can get along, and this campaign proved it.

Were there assassination attempts? Yes—but they failed! Unlike 1968, this year’s glass of political violence was half-empty rather than half-full, probably because of the sincere Christian beliefs and commitment to non-violence espoused by both sides. Credit here especially goes to former President Trump, whose ability to turn the other cheek (literally) came in handy in Butler, Pennsylvania.  

As always, we will miss the campaign flyers filling our mailboxes, littering our porches, and hanging from our doorknobs. Here in Montana, we will miss being reminded every five minutes that we should not trust rich out-of-staters, Instagram cowboys, or victims of self-inflicted gunshot wounds; we will miss being told that having lost three fingers in a youthful meat-grinder mishap isn’t a qualification for the Senate, even with a flat-top haircut that may also have gone through a meat grinder. The price of liberty is endless unregulated campaign spending, but all good things must come to an end.

In closing, we should thank the billionaires and millionaires who sponsored this year’s contests, who paid for the constant annoyances and intrusions, and who graciously allowed the rest of us to vote. We should thank Elon Musk for not activating (so far) his Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) election-fraud-detection device. We should also thank the foreign nations—Russia, Iran, and China, for certain, and probably Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, and Israel—who, out of the goodness of their hearts, participated in our electoral process, as well as the millions of murderers, rapists, thieves, drug mules, drug dealers, and terrorists who flooded across our southern border to pay tribute to our free and fair democratic system. Let’s hope these rascals don't stick around and take all our jobs!   

Last but not least: we cannot find words to express our gratitude to the candidates themselves, so we won’t bother trying. Suffice it to say that, in the most important national election since the last one and until the next one, they did themselves and the nation proud by putting a stop to their campaigns (assuming they have stopped). It’s a shame there had to be a winner (assuming there has been a winner).

I don't know about you, but for me, 2028 can't get here slowly enough.

America: A Republic, Wrapped in a Constitution, Disguised as a Democracy

Not only do some people disapprove of democracy, but they often claim that America is not, and was never intended to be, a democracy. They quote Benjamin Franklin on our form of government (“A republic, if you can keep it”) and they cite our national Pledge of Allegiance (“And to the republic for which it stands”). They will then point out that ‘democracy’ is not substantive but only procedural, a means to the ends embodied in our Constitution. Eventually, they will resort to discussing ‘the tyranny of the majority,’ and from there the conversation will only get more tedious.

I have recently offered space to a few critics of democracy; it seems only fair to let defenders and promoters of democracy have a say. The following brief summary of American democracy is from a 2021 report titled Educating for American Democracy. The report was produced by an extensive and diverse group of American educators and scholars, and was intended to encourage better civic education about, and greater civic participation in, political matters.

The report begins with a preamble:

A self-governing people must constantly attend to historical and civic education: to the process by which the rising generation owns the past, takes the helm, and charts a course toward the future. The United States is the longest-lived constitutional democracy in the world, approaching its 250th anniversary in 2026. This occasion calls for both celebration and fresh commitment to the cause of self-government for free and equal citizens in a diverse society. Education in civics and history equips members of a democratic society to understand, appreciate, nurture and, where necessary, improve their political system and civil society: to make our union “more perfect,” as the U.S. Constitution says. This education must be designed to enable and enhance the capacity for self-government from the level of the individual, the family, and the neighborhood to the state, the nation, and even the world.

The word “civic” denotes the virtues, assets, and activities that a free people need to govern themselves well. When civic education succeeds, all people are prepared and motivated to participate effectively in civic life. They acquire and share the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective participation. Equity also is essential. High-quality education must be delivered to all; our form of government necessarily invests in all young people the chance to become civic and political leaders.

Yet civic and history education has eroded in the United States over the past 50 years, and opportunities to learn these subjects are inequitably distributed. Across the same time period, partisan and philosophical polarization has increased. A recent surge in voter participation has been accompanied by dangerous degrees of misinformation and tension, even rising to violence. Dangerously low proportions of the public understand and trust our democratic institutions. Majorities are functionally illiterate on our constitutional principles and forms. The relative neglect of civic education in the past half-century is one important cause of our civic and political dysfunction.

It is easier to say what American government is not (it is not a monarchy or a dictatorship) than what, precisely, it is. The report’s authors take up the challenge:

The United States was called both a republic and a democracy when it was founded in the late eighteenth century. “Republic” is the only word used in the U.S. Constitution to refer to our form of government, when the United States pledges that it will “guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”.

Yet Alexander Hamilton described the new constitution in the New York ratification debates as a “representative democracy.” The framers did not all share one definition of “republic” or make a consistent distinction between republics and democracies. Both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the word “republic” covered a very wide range of governments. Jefferson explained to John Taylor in 1816 that he used the word to “mean a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority.” Here Jefferson defined “republic” to mean what many today would call a direct democracy.

In recent decades, political theorists have used the word “republic” in specific (but debated) ways—for example, to name systems in which civic virtue is strongly emphasized, majority rule is fundamental but also limited by durable structures of government, or certain forms of liberty are paramount. A democracy is widely defined as a political system in which ultimate power lies with the whole people and in which all citizens share power equally at decisive moments, such as during elections. Both concepts convey popular sovereignty—but the former emphasizes the importance of institutions and structure and the latter the importance of participation, electoral and otherwise. The former term tends to be held up by those who celebrate liberty; the latter by those who celebrate equality.

The Declaration of Independence, however, makes clear self-government depends on both liberty and equality. It is, after all, the work of free and equal citizens. It requires both order and participation. The phrase “constitutional democracy” honors both sides of the debates. The system that the framers (and especially the Federalists) created had some aspects that were republican and some that were democratic, both in their own vocabulary and in modern parlance. The decision to deploy representation rather than mechanisms of direct democracy was and is seen as “republican.” The decision to elect the president from the people as a whole, even if through an electoral college, was seen as democratic.

Over time, that process of election has become increasingly democratic. Between 1776 and 1807, some women had the right to vote and used it, but then that right was revoked. In 1800, a substantial majority of American men were not permitted to vote. Voting rights first began to expand significantly during the Jacksonian era, such that by 1840, most free white men could cast ballots. In the wake of the Civil War, the passage of the 15th Amendment (1870) guaranteed all men, including freed slaves, the right to vote in federal and state elections. The formal disenfranchisement of women at the national level ended only in 1920. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enshrined the general principle of one person, one vote, removing many barriers to African American voting; the 26th amendment (1971) extended the franchise to 18-year-olds. These and other voting reforms over the last 150 years have made the United States much more democratic than it was at its founding.

The culture of the United States has also grown increasingly democratic, with wider commitment to the ideal that everyone can and must have a voice in governing. Institutions such as universal schooling and the mass news media sustain this ideal. Alexis de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’ (1835/1840) described the American governments (state and federal) as constitutional republics, but discerned that by the Jacksonian era, America’s predominant political culture had become democratic. He chose the title of his classic work with an eye to the tension between our complex forms of representative government largely devoted to sustaining liberty and political equality, and our broader demand for social equality and direct empowerment.

Twentieth-century American leaders strongly and frequently endorsed democracy, and they referred to the United States as a democracy. For example, on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan emphasized that the Second World War had been fought for democracy, saying, “One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.” President Barack Obama emphasized the connection between democracy and citizen participation: “Democracy was never meant to be transactional—you give me your vote; I make everything better. It requires an active and informed citizenry.”

The United States, of course, also remains a republic. If that word has had one consistent core over its more than 2,000-year history, it means a government that belongs to the public (‘res publica’ means “the public’s affair”), not to a monarch, a specific class, or a foreign power. The United States is thus a republic organized as a constitutional democracy.

Our form of government, call it what you will, has held up for 235 years. It’s messy, it’s noisy, it’s annoying, it’s imperfect, and what it produces, as often as not, is nothing to brag about. Still, until we come up with something better, it’s what we’ve got; let’s keep doing our best to make it work.    

-------------------------------------------------------------

Educating-for-American-Democracy-Report-Excellence-in-History-and-Civics-for-All-Learners.pdf

 

Sunday Sermon: "Democracy"

"Democracy" (by Leonard Cohen)

It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on ...

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

-------------------------------------------

The original:

Leonard Cohen - Democracy

A cover version:

Judy Collins - Democracy (Leonard Cohen)

 

Saturday Lecture: The Pobedonotsev Gambit

{Konstantin Pobedonotsev (1827-1907) was a legal scholar who played an important role in the writing of Russia’s judicial reforms of 1864. In 1865, he became a tutor to the Tsar’s family and directed the education of the future Alexander III. In 1880, he was appointed procurator of the Holy Synod, an office he would hold until 1905. He also supervised the education of Nicholas II. Pobedonotsev’s resistance to democracy and to democratic reforms helped to further radicalize the Russian intelligentsia, which was radical enough to begin with.}  

Konstantin Pobedonotsev, from "On Parliamentary Democracy":

The ambitious man comes before his fellow-citizens and strives by every means to convince them that he more than any other is worthy of their confidence. What motives impel him to this quest? It is hard to believe that he is impelled by disinterested zeal for the public good. 

On the day of polling, few give their votes intelligently; these are the influential electors whom it has been worthwhile to convince in private. The mass of electors, after the practice of the herd, vote for one of the candidates nominated by the committees. Not one exactly knows the man, or considers his character, his capacity, his convictions; all vote merely because they have heard his name so often. It would be vain to struggle against this herd. If a level-headed elector wished to act intelligently in such a grave affair, and not to give way to the violence of the committee, he would have to abstain altogether, or to give his vote for his candidate according to his conviction. However he might act, he could not prevent the election of the candidate favored by the mass of frivolous, indifferent, and prejudiced electors.

Each vote, representing an inconsiderable fragment of power, by itself signifies nothing; an aggregation of votes alone has a relative value. In a Democracy, the real rulers are the dexterous manipulators of votes, with their henchmen, the mechanics who so skillfully operate the hidden springs which move the puppets in the arena of democratic elections. Men of this kind are ever ready with loud speeches lauding equality; in reality, they rule the people as any despot or military dictator might rule it.

Elections in no way express the will of the electors. The popular representatives are in no way restricted by the opinions of their constituents, but are guided by their own views and considerations, modified by the tactics of their opponents. In reality, ministers are autocratic, and they rule, rather than are ruled by, Parliament. They attain power, and lose power, not by virtue of the will of the people, but through immense personal influence, or the influence of a strong party which places them in power or drives them from it. They dispose of the force and resources of the nation at will, they grant immunities and favors, they maintain a multitude of idlers at the expense of the people, and they fear no censure while they enjoy the support in Parliament of a majority which they maintain by the distribution of bounties from the rich tables which the State has put at their disposal. In reality, the ministers are as irresponsible as the representatives of the people. Mistakes, abuse of power, and arbitrary acts, are of daily occurrence, yet how often do we hear of the grave responsibility of a minister? It may be once in fifty years a minister is tried for his crimes, with a result contemptible when compared with the celebrity gained by the procedure.

In theory, the elected candidate must be the favorite of the majority; in fact, he is the favorite of a minority, sometimes very small, but representing an organized force, while the majority, like sand, has no coherence, and is therefore incapable of resisting the clique and the faction. In theory, the election favors the intelligent and capable; in reality, it favors the ambitious and impudent. It might be thought that education, experience, conscientiousness in work, and wisdom in affairs, would be essential requirements in the candidate; in reality, whether these qualities exist or not, they are in no way needed in the struggle of the election, where the essential qualities are audacity, a combination of impudence and oratory, and even some vulgarity, which invariably acts on the masses; modesty, in union with delicacy of feeling and thought, is worth nothing.

All the important actions of Parliament are controlled by the leaders of the party, who inspire all decisions, who lead in combat, and profit by victory. The public sessions are no more than a spectacle for the mass. Speeches are delivered to sustain the fiction of Parliamentarism, but seldom does a speech by itself affect the decision of Parliament in a grave affair. Speechmaking serves for the glory of orators, for the increase of their popularity, and the making of their careers; only on rare occasions does it affect the distribution of votes. Majorities and minorities are usually decided before the session begins. Such is the complicated mechanism of the Parliamentary farce; such is the great political lie which dominates our age.

The history of mankind bears witness that the most necessary and fruitful reforms, the most durable measures, emanated from the supreme will of statesmen, or from a minority enlightened by lofty ideas and deep knowledge, and that, on the contrary, the extension of the representative principle is accompanied by an abasement of political ideas and the vulgarization of opinions in the mass of the electors.

Pobedonotsev After Dark?

(Drawing, but not captioned, by Priscilla Meyer)

 

Hobbits, Hooligans, and Vulcans, Oh My!

“Democracy is the most complicated and most burdensome system of government recorded in the history of humanity.” (Konstantin Pobedonostsev)

As all decent, responsible, civic-minded Americans prepare to cast their ballots in what is once again the most important election of anyone’s lifetime, an election in which Democracy itself is at stake and in which the choice is between an alleged Fascist and a purported Marxist, it is time to ask ourselves: is the democratic charade worth it? Is it even fooling anyone anymore?

When it comes to the democratic process, skeptics abound; they provide food for thought to sustain us as we wait for hours in the inevitable voting lines on November 5. I have sampled the anti-democracy buffet and have chosen a few of the more delectable offerings; I will make one available each day until the election.

The first item on the skeptical menu comes from Jason Brennan’s 2016 Against Democracy:

The mantra “Get out the vote! Every vote counts!” is dangerous. Most citizens are not doing us any favor by voting. Asking everyone to vote is like asking everyone to litter.

About 65 years ago, we started measuring how much voters know. The results were depressing then and they are depressing now. For as long as we’ve been measuring, the mean, model, and median voters have been misinformed or ignorant about basic political information; they have known even less about more advanced social scientific knowledge. Their ignorance and misinformation causes them to support policies and candidates they would not support if they were better-informed. As a result, we get suboptimal and sometimes quite bad political outcomes. Since democracy and the equal right to vote have no intrinsic value, we should be open to experimenting with other forms of governance. Justice requires “one person, one vote” only if it turns out, empirically, that doing so generates more substantively good outcomes than other forms of government.

I defend experimenting with what most people would regard as the most offensive alternative: epistocracy. ¹ Epistocratic forms of government retain most of the normal features of republican representative government. Political power is widespread rather than concentrated in the hands of the few. Powers are separated. There are checks and balances. But, by law, epistocracies do not automatically distribute fundamental political power evenly. Rather, by law, in some way or other, more competent or knowledgeable citizens have slightly more political power than less competent or knowledgeable citizens.

In general, there are three models of voter behavior. (1) Hobbits are low-information citizens with low interest and low levels of participation in politics. Hobbits generally have unstable or only weak ideological commitments. (2) In contrast, hooligans are higher-information citizens who have strong commitments to politics and to their political identity. They are beset by cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias or intergroup bias. For them, politics is largely a team sport. (3) Vulcans are an ideal type—perfectly rational, high-information thinkers with no inappropriate loyalty to their beliefs.

Nearly all citizens fall on the hobbit-hooligan spectrum. The average non-voter in the United States is a hobbit and the average voter is a hooligan. But the problem is that many philosophical theories of democracy presume that citizens will behave like vulcans. Philosophers presume or hope that getting citizens involved in politics will transform them from hobbits into vulcans. But our best evidence is that political engagement tends to turn hobbits into hooligans and tends to make hooligans even worse hooligans. Democracy is the rule of hobbits and hooligans.

Is epistocracy therefore rule of vulcans? I should make it clear here: no. There are probably just too few vulcans out there. Further, while it’s relatively easy to distinguish high-information from low-information voters, it’s more difficult to test for cognitive bias on a large scale. That’s not to say it can’t be done. We could indeed create a test that both examines how much knowledge a person has, and also tests to see if they interpret data in a biased way. My point is less ambitious: realistically, epistocracy would be the rule of hooligans, but it would be a better batch of hooligans than what we get in democracy.

--------------------------------------------------------

Jason Brennan, Against Democracy (2016; Princeton University Press)

¹ “Epistocracy” is a neologism. It means “rule by the wisest” or “rule by the smartest,” both terms (“wisest” and “smartest”) being infinitely contestable.

We have met the hooligans, and they are us.

Wednesday with Pascal: Here Comes Democracy!

{Pascal the existential Russian blue cat believes himself to be quite the wit. I always tell him he's only half right, but he persists.}

Here Comes Democracy

‘Tis a week ‘fore election,

And all through the land,

People are wondering

How much more can they stand

Of ad blitzes and flyers

And debates between liars,

Of propaganda and insults

And denying the results

Before the votes have been cast.

Is this election our last?

And should we even complain

At not having to go through

All this again?

 

On red states, on blue states,

On purple states too!

Vote for your favorite!

But beware of bamboo

And other scurrilous tricks,

Like Iranian hackers

And Hunter Biden’s dick.

Then sit by your tv

Keep your fingers crossed

And pray that your mail-in

Ballot’s not lost

Or burned by Antifa

Or some Marxist cabal

That doesn’t believe

In elections at all!

 

We know in advance

The race will be tight.

It might even require

More than one night

To end the suspense

(And maybe the nation).

But when it’s all done,

Joy and celebration!

Or else more bickering

And possibly a riot:

Democracy is great,

Someday we should try it!

Merry Election, everyone!

The heartbreak of Election Fatigue

Wednesday with Pascal: Egalitarianism or Aristocracy?

{Pascal the existential Russian blue cat has been searching somewhat aimlessly through various archives, hoping to find something to spark his interest. He found an essay based on the premise that the problem with democracy is people—the wrong sort of people, that is—and he decided to have at it. And yes, Pascal knows that today is Thursday; he just refuses to change the standard title of his post.}

Marcia Christoff Reina has (or had, as of 2014, when her essay “Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy” was first published) a bone to pick with most of us:

Today, a corrupted notion of “the Individual” has fundamentally rendered the massive problems of the United States no longer merely political but philosophical. This, in turn, has been the result of two vastly different understandings of democracy of which the country has lost sight: aristocratic democracy, which is what the Founders had intended, and egalitarian democracy, which is what we’ve created, much to our peril.

Ms. Reina begins by defining (one of) her terms: “To be clear: ‘Egalitarian’ does not mean equality; it means the lowest common denominator having the highest possible cultural and political influence, whether elite or popular.”

I’m sure Reina has her sources, but her definition of “egalitarian” is at odds with the prevailing view, as expressed by Wikipedia:

“Egalitarianism, or equalitarianism, is a political philosophy that prioritizes the concept of social equality for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. As such, all people should be accorded equal rights and treatment under the law. Egalitarian doctrines have supported many modern social movements, including the Enlightenment, feminism, civil rights, and international human rights. Egalitarianism emphasizes equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances; it aims to level the playing field and reduce disparities that result from social inequalities.”

The usual charge leveled by conservatives against egalitarianism is that it demands not just equal opportunities but equal outcomes. Ms. Reina at least avoids that trope; she focuses instead on how modern egalitarianism amounts to a coup against the aristocracy upon whom she believes democracy is dependent. For support, she cites “Thomas Jefferson’s self-admitted search for the “natural aristoi” he wanted to cultivate for public service,” and “his argument that education in a Republic must be “democratic and aristocratic”. ¹ “One is also reminded,” Ms. Reina continues, “of Madison’s and Hamilton’s almost obsessive fear of “mobocracy” and their revulsion towards the idea of direct democracy. ‘When I mention the public, I mean the rational part of it; the ignorant and vulgar [are] unfit to manage its reins,’ wrote Madison.”

The Founders’ antipathy towards direct democracy is well known, which is why Americans have had to be content with representative democracy instead, including such anti-democratic features as the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College, the legislative filibuster, etc. Such existing guardrails have endured for over two hundred years, but they are not enough to suit Ms. Reina, who believes that an egalitarian citizenry, heads stuffed with drivel peddled by mass media, mass culture, and mass education, will inevitably drive our politics into a ditch:

If modern Western democracy is to survive, it must incorporate that which it has long regarded as its diametrical opposite—the aristocratic. If this democracy is to perish, it will continue to promote that which has been falsely regarded as its best element—the egalitarian (the here and now, the mass appetite). If things stay as they currently are, democracy in general will increasingly take on characteristics of the totalitarian, or what Jefferson warned of as an “elective despotism”, in which in the will of a leader will become totally responsible for the helpless whole.

Even if we escape, or at least delay, our political destruction, Reina sees egalitarianism (i.e., everything designed for the lowest common social denominator) as having a pernicious effect on, well, everything. “The egalitarian,” she explains, “is on a path of destruction. He creates for the short-term, because the past is invariably a source of evil, the future is beyond his control or care, and the present is an ordeal to get through. The short-term is the convenient, the instantaneous, the whetting of an appetite. Soon, the short-term becomes not only the economic, but the political, cultural, and social mentality of choice. This becomes the short-term in financial practices, in political expediency, in art, in education standards, the short-term in human relationships and commitments, all of it leading to the current crop of human capital we have today in the West: a population that is not really fit for democracy as it must be maintained.”

When you welcome the mob into the palace, you cannot express surprise when the silverware is stolen, the artwork vandalized, and the draperies and carpets abused. Ms. Reina holds egalitarians responsible for teaching that “The individual—his individual gain, his search for profit, his self-interest, his personal distinction or even ‘glory’—represents something distasteful at best, irretrievably criminal and inherently corrupt at worst. The egalitarian becomes the goal, while the aristocratic—the main driver of standards and of long-term planning—becomes the object of resentment.”

Aristocracy, whatever the Founders thought of it, has never been accepted by Americans. We have had our family dynasties, political and economic—e.g., Adams, Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush—but we have pretended to be a society without class structures or divisions, a nation where Jed Clampett could enjoy a pleasant evening with Amy Vanderbilt and where Bo and Luke Duke could date Gabor sisters. Despite that, Ms. Reina does not believe that the American experiment should be entrusted to commoners, rustics, or the lumpen proletariat; she insists that we need nobility and gallantry if we are to survive. “The aristocratic element,” she concludes, “has reverence for the past and it plans for the future. This is the necessary instinct democracy needs anew; in the US, it was the outlook of Madison, Adams and Jefferson, who refer time and again to the need of a ‘gallant citizenry’ to uphold their vast and incredible experiment. Such is the outlook of the kind of individual whom no great force—emperor, soldier, government—can replace.”

Ms. Reina implies that it is only great men who make history. She may be right; the problem, though, as James Joyce explained, is that history is a nightmare from which all of us are trying to awake. As far as I'm concerned, the less history we make, the better.

-------------------------------------------------

Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy - The Imaginative Conservative

About - MARCIA A. CHRISTOFF REINA (marciachristoff.com)

¹ Indeed (as Wikipedia helpfully confirms), Jefferson believed that “the best geniuses must be raked from the rubbish annually” by an education system meant to identify, and nurture, the best and the brightest. The Jeffersonian aristocracy would today be called a “meritocracy”; most people are in favor of such a thing, though they would probably avoid Jefferson’s “rubbish” metaphor.

God save the aristocracy!

Bluster & Bravado 2024

{This commentary is belated, and the presidential race has changed, but what difference, at this point, does it make? I foolishly ventured into the CNN transcript of the Biden v. Trump debate; I warn you, do not go there. It should be labeled ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter.’ I know this is a painfully long read but imagine how painful it was for me to write it.}

“I never knew a man could tell so many lies.” (Neil Young, “Ambulance Blues”)

Consider this a Public Service Announcement: adjectives are not facts, bluster and bravado are not evidence. ¹

I make this announcement because a substantial number of Americans are enthralled, it seems, by the alleged accomplishments of a man whose actual accomplishments are all but nil. This man—let us call him “Klump”—praises himself to the skies while heaping abuse on his opponents. That in itself is neither novel nor noteworthy, but what is striking about Klump is that his self-praise is a litany, not of facts, but of adjectives. If you removed descriptors from his statements—words like “best,” “worst,” “greatest,” “beautiful,” “powerful,” “strong,” “weak,” etc.—you would find no evidence, no statistics, nary a fact in sight: nothing but a thesaurus’s worth of meaningless adjectives attached to unproven assertions. “I have all the best words.”

How did the American economy do under President Klump? “We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. We had never done so well. Every – everybody was amazed by it. Other countries were copying us. We did a great job. We got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military, and no wars and so many other things. Everything was rocking good. It was the greatest economy that we’ve ever seen.”

Foreign policy? “What’s happened to our country in the last four years is not to be believed. Foreign countries – I’m friends with a lot of people. They cannot believe what happened to the United States of America. We’re no longer respected. They don’t like us. We give them everything they want, and they – they think we’re stupid. They think we’re very stupid people. What we’re doing for other countries, and they do nothing for us. What this man has done is absolutely criminal.”

Border security? “We had the safest border in the history of our country. Now we have the worst border in history. There’s never been anything like it. And people are dying all over the place, including the people that are coming up in caravans.”

Since Klump belittles, mocks, and lies about anyone who stands against him, his “successes” seem that much greater. Under Obama, for instance, America was a “disaster,” struggling through the “weakest economic recovery” in its history. Crime was rampant, the border was porous, terrorists were everywhere (including on the roof of a building in New Jersey on 9/11), America’s infrastructure was crumbling, the airports were at a third-world level, and the military was out of ammunition (“Sir, we have no bullets.”).

Magically, Klump turned it all around. He secured the border (“the safest border in our history”), he rebuilt the military (“I made our military the strongest in history”), he cowed our enemies (and, when necessary, our friends)—"If we had a real president, a president that was respected by Putin, he would have never – he would have never invaded Ukraine. Russia would’ve never attacked if I were president.” Imagine the very stable genius required to undo the disaster that was Obama’s America and to restore the nation to greatness—in three years! “The country was going like never before.” Alas, now “we’re like a third world nation,” just as we were under Obama. Apparently, Klump’s successes, impressive as they were, were not sturdy enough to withstand the assaults of the Biden regime.

Klump is and always has been a publicist, inflating his net worth (except when it’s time to pay taxes) and exaggerating the grandeur of his properties, while wiping the public slate clean of his many failures (Klump University, Klump Steaks, several bankruptcies, failed marriages, etc.). “I’ve been a success at everything I’ve ever done,” insists the man who managed to lose money running a casino in Atlantic City. The key to understanding Klump is the “Principle of Persistent Prevarication”: if you just keep lying, repeating the same lies over and over again while adding new lies on top of the old, many people will come up to you and say, with tears in their eyes, “Sir, you are the only politician who tells us the truth.”  

His mentality is Manichaean: black and white. He is the best; his opponents are the worst. His policies are the greatest; their policies are taking us down the drain. America is either great (again) like it’s never been before (again) or it’s a disaster, a third-world country (“We’re literally an uncivilized country now”). There is no middle ground, no shades of gray in his rhetoric. Nuance is beyond him. He speaks exclusively in world-historic terms: there’s never been anything like it, no one’s ever seen anything like it, people are amazed we could do it, people can’t believe how bad it’s gotten, best in our history, worst in our history, worst in the history of the world. “Nobody’s been worse than him. I had the highest approval rating. The secretary general of NATO said I did the most incredible job he had ever seen.”

Capable of reasoned criticism? “Biden’s presidency, his – without question, the worst president, the worst presidency in the history of our country. He’s become like a Palestinian. But they don’t like him, because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one…He is the worst president. He’s the worst president in the history of our country. He’s destroyed our country. If he wins this election, our country doesn’t have a chance. Not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won’t have a country left anymore. That’s how bad it is. He is the worst in history by far.”

Able to engage in serious policy analysis? “Biden caused the inflation and it’s killing black families and Hispanic families and just about everybody. It’s killing people. They can’t buy groceries anymore. They can’t. You look at the cost of food where it’s doubled and tripled and quadrupled. They can’t live. They’re not living anymore. He caused this inflation. I gave him a country with no, essentially no inflation. It was perfect. It was so good. All he had to do is leave it alone. He destroyed it with his green new scam and all of the other – all this money that’s being thrown out the window. He caused inflation. As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”

A friend of the environment? “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air, and we had it. We had H2O. We had the best numbers ever. And we did – we were using all forms of energy, all forms, everything. And yet, during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever. And my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage, actually.” ²

A truly decent, admirable human being? “I am the least racist person you have ever met.” “I have the biggest heart on the stage.” “There’s my African-American!” “I prefer heroes who don’t get captured.”

Self-awareness? “I’ve never seen anybody lie like this guy. He lies – I’ve never seen it. He could look you in the face. So – and about so many other things, too. And we mentioned the laptop, we mentioned “Russia, Russia, Russia,” “Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.” And everything he does is a lie. It’s misinformation and disinformation. It’s a disgrace.”

Coherence? “We’re doing very well at addiction until the COVID came along. We had the two-and-a-half, almost three years of like nobody’s ever had before, any country in every way. And then we had to get tough. And it was – the drugs pouring across the border, we’re – it started to increase. We got great equipment. We bought the certain dog. That’s the most incredible thing that you’ve ever seen, the way they can spot it. We did a lot. And we had – we were getting very low numbers. Very, very low numbers.

Closing statement, sir? “The only reason I’m here is he’s so bad as a president that I’m going to make America great again. We’re going to make America great again. We’re a failing nation right now. We’re a seriously failing nation. And we’re a failing nation because of him. His policies are so bad. His military policies are insane. They’re insane. These are wars that will never end with him. He will drive us into World War Three and we’re closer to World War Three than anybody can imagine. We are very, very close to World War Three, and he’s driving us there.

For three-and-a-half years, we’re living in hell. We have the Palestinians and we have everybody else rioting all over the place. You talk about Charlottesville. This is 100 times Charlottesville, 1,000 times. The whole country is exploding because of you, because they don’t respect you. And they have to respect their president and they don’t respect you throughout the world. What we did was incredible. We re – rebuilt the military. We got the largest tax cut in history, the largest regulation cut in history. All of the things that we’ve done, nobody’s ever – never seen anything like – even from a medical standpoint. Right to Try, where we can try Space Age materials instead of going to Asia or going to Europe and trying to get when you’re terminally ill.

Postscript:

Best exchange of the debate: Klump: Let’s not act like children. Biden: You are a child. ³ Lincoln-Douglas this was not.

Most memorable line ever in a presidential debate: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star, number one.” As Bill Clinton might have said, it depends on what the meaning of ‘star’ is.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the above quotes are taken verbatim from the CNN debate transcript: READ: Biden-Trump debate transcript | CNN Politics I have here and there spliced together separate transcript quotes; in a few instances, I have recycled Trump quotes from the past.

¹ “Bluster and Bravado”: band name or law firm?

² Technically, claiming to have “the best numbers” is not itself “a statistic”.

³ Neil Young shouts at his TV screen, “I am a child!”

Biden's America: Cities on Fire with DEI