https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-democracy-228045 The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy Human brains aren’t built for self-rule, says Shawn Rosenberg. That’s more evident than ever. Then, the mood changed. As one of the lions of the profession, 68-year-old Shawn Rosenberg, began delivering his paper, people in the crowd of about a hundred started shifting in their seats. They loudly whispered objections to their friends. Three women seated next to me near the back row grew so loud and heated I had difficulty hearing for a moment what Rosenberg was saying. What caused the stir? Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine, was challenging a core assumption about America and the West. His theory? Democracy is devouring itself—his phrase — and it won’t last. ... We’re to blame, said Rosenberg. As in “we the people.” Democracy is hard work. And as society’s “elites”—experts and public figures who help those around them navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with self-rule—have increasingly been sidelined, citizens have proved ill equipped cognitively and emotionally to run a well-functioning democracy. As a consequence, the center has collapsed and millions of frustrated and angst-filled voters have turned in desperation to right-wing populists. His prediction? “In well-established democracies like the United States, democratic governance will continue its inexorable decline and will eventually fail.” ... Rosenberg, who earned degrees at Yale, Oxford and Harvard, may be the social scientist for our time if events play out as he suggests they will. His theory is that over the next few decades, the number of large Western-style democracies around the globe will continue to shrink, and those that remain will become shells of themselves. Taking democracy’s place, Rosenberg says, will be right-wing populist governments that offer voters simple answers to complicated questions. And therein lies the core of his argument: Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic. Unfortunately, evolution did not favor the exercise of these qualities in the context of a modern mass democracy. Citing reams of psychological research, findings that by now have become more or less familiar, Rosenberg makes his case that human beings don’t think straight. Biases of various kinds skew our brains at the most fundamental level. For example, racism is easily triggered unconsciously in whites by a picture of a black man wearing a hoodie. We discount evidence when it doesn’t square up with our goals while we embrace information that confirms our biases. Sometimes hearing we’re wrong makes us double down. And so on and so forth. Our brains, says Rosenberg, are proving fatal to modern democracy. Humans just aren’t built for it. ... People have been saying for two millennia that democracy is unworkable, going back to Plato. The Founding Fathers were sufficiently worried that they left only one half of one branch of the federal government in the hands of the people. And yet for two centuries democracy in America more or less proceeded apace without blowing itself up. So why is Rosenberg, who made his name back in the 1980s with a study that disturbingly showed that many voters select candidates on the basis of their looks, predicting the end of democracy now? He has concluded that the reason for right-wing populists’ recent success is that “elites” are losing control of the institutions that have traditionally saved people from their most undemocratic impulses. When people are left to make political decisions on their own they drift toward the simple solutions right-wing populists worldwide offer: a deadly mix of xenophobia, racism and authoritarianism. The elites, as Rosenberg defines them, are the people holding power at the top of the economic, political and intellectual pyramid who have “the motivation to support democratic culture and institutions and the power to do so effectively.” In their roles as senators, journalists, professors, judges and government administrators, to name a few, the elites have traditionally held sway over public discourse and U.S. institutions—and have in that role helped the populace understand the importance democratic values. But today that is changing. Thanks to social media and new technologies, anyone with access to the Internet can publish a blog and garner attention for their cause—even if it’s rooted in conspiracy and is based on a false claim, like the lie that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring from the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor, which ended in a shooting. While the elites formerly might have successfully squashed conspiracy theories and called out populists for their inconsistencies, today fewer and fewer citizens take the elites seriously. Now that people get their news from social media rather than from established newspapers or the old three TV news networks (ABC, CBS and NBC), fake news proliferates. It’s surmised that 10 million people saw on Facebook the false claim that Pope Francis came out in favor of Trump’s election in 2016. Living in a news bubble of their own making many undoubtedly believed it. (This was the most-shared news story on Facebook in the three months leading up to the 2016 election, researchers report.) The irony is that more democracy—ushered in by social media and the Internet, where information flows more freely than ever before—is what has unmoored our politics, and is leading us towards authoritarianism. Rosenberg argues that the elites have traditionally prevented society from becoming a totally unfettered democracy; their “oligarchic ‘democratic’ authority” or “democratic control” has until now kept the authoritarian impulses of the populace in check. Compared with the harsh demands made by democracy, which requires a tolerance for compromise and diversity, right-wing populism is like cotton candy. Whereas democracy requires us to accept the fact that we have to share our country with people who think and look differently than we do, right-wing populism offers a quick sugar high. Forget political correctness. You can feel exactly the way you really want about people who belong to other tribes. Right-wing populists don’t have to make much sense. They can simultaneously blame immigrants for taking jobs away from Americans while claiming that these same people are lazy layabouts sponging off welfare. All the populist followers care is that they now have an enemy to blame for their feelings of ennui. And unlike democracy, which makes many demands, the populists make just one. They insist that people be loyal. Loyalty entails surrendering to the populist nationalist vision. But this is less a burden than an advantage. It’s easier to pledge allegiance to an authoritarian leader than to do the hard work of thinking for yourself demanded by democracy. “In sum, the majority of Americans are generally unable to understand or value democratic culture, institutions, practices or citizenship in the manner required,” Rosenberg has concluded. “To the degree to which they are required to do so, they will interpret what is demanded of them in distorting and inadequate ways. As a result they will interact and communicate in ways that undermine the functioning of democratic institutions and the meaning of democratic practices and values.”
This isn’t really so much about right wing, but the general public, the majority of the population.... if this is limited to right wing (maybe 20-30% of the population), democracy is fine. The argument this prof makes is the easy solution are like cotton candy for majority of people, except for a limited set of “elitist”.... a pretty elitist view lol. I’m neither convince nor not convince... but more on the nope, society has advanced too much to be stuck to the animal portion of the brain for the mass. Then I talk to common folks and realize I’m probably a bit too bias toward advancement.
Dramatic headline there.. Limits on FB political advertisement that the right wingers are so concerned with are just one of those potential steps. The likes of infowars and other conspiracy pushing "pundits" pretending to be news/journalists/experts should not have access to the bullhorn that is social media, without some checks and balances. Authoritarian governments sure clamp down on this to protect their asses. Democratic ones should push their private businesses to do something too if these businesses want to preserve democracy and remain private in the long term (even if that means short term losses for them now) Maybe at some point the social media tools can come up with real time fact checks on whatever its users are saying..
Google and Facebook are already working on it with an army of contractors and AI software. We'll see how that works out.
Obviously, some authoritarian form of governance is the simpler, more stable form because that's where most governments in history ended up. We've seen plenty of democracies backslide into populism. It's not exactly groundbreaking to predict it might happen to us. I think democracy is probably better for minimizing corruption, maximizing prosperity and justice and human happiness. But, it's not required. We've gone for centuries without it and people will still be able to live their lives even where we lose democracy. And even when we lose it, I think we'll also continue to re-invent it where societies find opportunity and advantage in doing so. So whatever.
Might as well reinvent the wheel while at it too.. Also, I'm curious as to which well-established democracy did you have in mind as an example of it sliding into authoritarian regime. I'd like to research how well it is doing since that point and how people got used to the diminished freedoms - must have been a necessity like war or economic hardship. I only cursory studied Roman history, so nothing particular comes to mind on my own..
Most famously, the Weimar Republic collapsed into the Third Reich. France returned to despotism from the republic for Napoleon and then later a couple more kings, had the Second Republic from 1848-1852, then had Napoleon III, then a republic ever since aside from a brief interlude of Nazi occupation and Vichy France. Venezuela has had a democracy since 1958, but after the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999 it has been a populist government with some sham elections. Argentina established a republic in the mid-19th century that lasted (with some crazy stuff along the way) until a military coup in 1930, and later Peron the famous populist general. But we're starting to see it again in modern times. Turkey has gotten much more authoritarian under Erdogan (the rise of Islamic fundamentalism has, in general, caused vestiges of liberalism to decline in the Mideast). Eastern European countries like Poland have been making some rather autocratic changes. Hong Kong will go kicking and screaming into dictatorship. Here is a Democracy Report from V-Dem. See Figure 1.2 for how their democracy scores are starting to bend down in the new millennium. As to how people cope, it looks like populism is usually the magic formula to make the pill go down easier. They surrender their democratic institutions to a strong and charismatic leader (Hitler, Napoleon, Chavez, Peron, Erdogan, etc) who can demonstrate tangible immediate benefits to the country and people, so there is no strong resistance. Then once they're entrenched in power you can't get them out when things start to go badly. You have to wait for them to completely crash.
I'll look into Germany I guess. I'm assuming they had an economic collapse of some sort. South America probably didn't develop industrially till only recent times, so their democracies couldn't have been "well developed". Countries would have to have a sufficient economic surplus to allow people to appreciate their economic and political liberties (instead of just being happy to be alive) Anything 19th century, same principle would apply. I think current democracies in the western world are actually pretty unique historically speaking. As soon as people who have been used to convenient and satisfying life see that their populist leaders are screwing up the economy, I would assume them to get "smart" and push back. And then the question becomes, is the Orwellian state already in place and whether it is too late to go back now. Will try to satisfy my curiosity with the example of Germany - although Hitler unravelled relatively quickly to be able to make definitive conclusions on whether there was a popular remorse on going an authoritarian route. Thanks for the suggestion.
You'll find that the Germans had a republican form of government imposed on them after their defeat in WWI, which caused resentment. And, in the interwar period, Germany faced a heavy reparations burden from the war, hyper-inflation, and then the Great Depression. There will always be a reason, a catalyst that sparks the event. There will always be a reason why you can say one or another historical example "doesn't count" because they faced some extraordinary condition. But we regularly have extraordinary conditions -- wars, depressions, foreign interventions. And it seems like in times that become too tumultuous to sustain a democracy in, we revert to authoritarianism just for the security and stability of being able to take decisive unitary action. That can happen to us if and when we have a big crisis.
Maybe the end of American democracy. I'm sure the Swiss, who have a much greater embedded sense of civic duty, will keep on chugging along like they have for the last several hundred years. Americans are, however, very invested in the language and symbols of Democracy, if not the actual thing itself. I imagine that any future hereditary ruler will still call himself President and talk the talk about the founding fathers and 1776 and whatnot. I keep thinking of the underground Kansas ruled by Jason Robards in "A Boy and His Dog".
For those who study the topic academically, the data shows we are functionally an oligarchy. (i.e. government not responsive to will of people; government most responsive to will of large companies and those who own capital.)
My rough understanding of the definitions are Oligarchy - ruled by few Plutocracy - ruled by the wealthy Of course, those aren't mutually exclusive descriptions to each other. Would you believe it's more nuanced than that, and that we should specifically label this oligarchy over plutocracy?
I think we're picking nits in the end, but I was referring to studies like this one: https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...ge-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B#
Yes I'd like to think that the crisis that will make US turn autocratic would involve the whole world turning autocratic. I had an issue with your blaise "whatever" if I am being honest here.
US was a plutocracy with democracy decorations. Now it is still plutocracy but with dictatorship on surface.
From the PRC's mouth, through your obedient ears, and to our humble American basketball BBS. Thank you.
