Is Democracy Committing Suicide?

Does Democracy Fail Every Time Human Beings Try It? And Is it Failing Again Today?

Image Credit: Maddie McGarvey

Here’s a tiny question. Is the age of democracy drawing to a close? Now, before you accuse me of exaggerating, or baiting you, let me assure you — it’s a question I mean to ask, and I think we should all be asking.

We tend to think of democracy as something like a grand, permanent turning point in history. Before, there was not democracy, and then — bang! — our forefathers and mothers discovered, or created, this wonderful and noble thing, and, like the internet or antibiotics, it was here to stay forever.

Is it? The truth is subtler. Feudalism lasted millennia. Tribalism, millennia before that. Empire, another millennia. And so maybe democracy is not something like a permanent turning point. Perhaps it was just an experiment — which has failed. Just as it has so many times before in history. Athens. Rome. The French Revolution — Napoleon’s coronation just 15 years later. Has democracy ever lasted, when you think about it? In fact, every single time in history democracy has been tried — people seem incapable of it (and discussing why is the point of this essay), hence soon enough, within a few centuries, if that long, it collapses right back into tyranny, war, and strife.

Are we being arrogant when we suppose that pattern won’t repeat itself in our time? Why should we think we are above it? Perhaps what we are learning today, all over again, is that enough people are simply incapable of the demands of democracy — no matter how hard the rest of us, who are usually a minority, try to educate, civilize, or liberate them, as equals, citizens, and peers. Perhaps enough of us will always reject those principles, which are altogether too noble and idealistic, for those of supremacy, superiority, violence, and power. Perhaps enough of us can only ever see others as rivals, subjects, and possessions to be had — and themselves as victims and martyrs, who deserve to be chieftains and rulers. Perhaps no good goes unpunished — and of all these, democracy is the greatest of all.