Government ain't easy: Democracy (Lapham's Quarterly XIII/4)

 

 Lapham’s Quarterly XIII/3 Democracy (2020) Though most of recorded history, “democracy” was a word and concept that struck terror into the hearts and minds of the rulers. Forgive the cliche, but when it comes to politics, it’s all cliche. Such as the equation of democracy with mob rule, which will destroy peace, order, and good government as certainly as the most heinous of tyrannies. And despite the example of Athens, that’s what democracy tends toward.
     Athenian political theory is quite clear: Oligarchy will give way to democracy, which will morph into mob rule, which will attract a tyrant or king to restore order. The king may found a dynasty, but the next phase will be an oligarchy, and so the whirligig of politics will bring in its revenges. History doesn’t suggest easy way to escape this cycle.
     This collection does have a few surprises, however. For example, the Haudenosaunee or Five Nations Confederacy, which pre-dated European contact, operated on consensus. (It comprised the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Mohawk.) No decision was made until a consensus had been reached, even if it took days of talk. There is documentary evidence that democracy in the modern sense owes much to this model, for the American Revolution contained two strands, the one urging democracy, the other frankly oligarchic. Oligarchy won, and ever since the USA has been attempting to create the democracy that the Declaration of Independence aspires to describe, and which justified the Revolution.
     I think the inference from the evidence is that democracy is possible, but it requires constant effort, and constant re-invention.
     I’m puzzled that this collection omits what I think is the best comment on the whole business of government, Thoreau’s first two sentences of Civil Disobedience:
 

I heartily accept the motto,— “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,— “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
     

In the meantime, we must make do with whatever governance we are able to tolerate. As usual, an excellent collection of word and image. ****