Democracy and Danger

Americans are justly proud of their democratic tradition. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution offer a foundation on which we depend and useful lessons to much of the world. Yet what is familiar is not always understood, and our misunderstandings threaten real harm to others and to ourselves.

Chief among those misunderstandings is the belief that the Founders sought to establish a democracy. In fact, they were afraid of democracy, at least as viewed in the classical terms in which every citizen has a vote on issues before the public. Many of those we recall as patriot-heroes spoke contemptuously of the "rabble," and even the revolutionary Jefferson was not about to give the vote to women, African Americans, or even white men who did not own property. The framers of the Constitution were not interested in subjecting it to a popular vote, fearing quite rightly that it's dramatic alteration of the Articles of Confederation might ensure its defeat.

What the Founders gave us is a republic, whose chief goal is to constrain the self-interest of man which, unfettered, they feared would lead to tyranny of the majority and the destruction of society and civil liberty. As James Madison famously put it in Federalist 10, a republic is better than a democracy because, in the former, we may "refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations." The Constitution enshrined this view not only in creating two chambers in Congress, each based on elected representatives, but especially in the Senate, whose longer terms and larger districts (not to mention indirect election through the state legislatures) aimed to calm the passions of the lower house. Though we have vastly expanded the franchise since colonial times, we should remember that the Founders didn't trust "we, the people" enough to let them vote directly for the president either. So much for direct democracy in 1787.

Yet Americans assume that democracy and republican government are identical. This confusion led us to support "democracy" in the Middle East when it meant allowing the Palestinian people to vote, even if they ended up voting for the radical group Hamas. And democracy in Iraq meant letting the Iraqi people vote, even if they ended up voting along strictly sectarian lines and thus dividing the country into ethnic enclaves. In the U.S., "democracy" gets translated into the referendum, which has arguably done as much damage as good in more than one state. Our devotion to democracy has led repeatedly to calls to abolish the Electoral College and declare the winner of the popular vote president, despite a strong argument that this could lead to a multiparty system in which the president has an even smaller base of support than is sometimes true now. Our democratic idealism has even led some to propose a Constitutional amendment establishing direct democracy through the use of technology on all national issues now decided in representative bodies.

We do not need to agree with the restrictions on the franchise initially proposed by the Founders to remember the reasons for their concerns about direct democracy. We do need to keep the dangers of democracy in mind. We must not, for example, confuse an opinion with a reasoned argument. Americans have opinions on everything, but we should no more want government by opinion polls than we want doctoring by asking those in the waiting room what procedure they suggest.

Neither does direct democracy substitute for thoughtful dialogue and debate. Admirers of direct democracy like to point to the New England Town meeting, where each citizen could argue his point of view. But direct democracy in America thus far seems both more shallow and private. Political advertising keeps it short and oversimplified, and voting by computer hardly has the give-and-take of a town meeting.

Still another danger our confusion about democracy creates is its assumption that reason guides democratic decisions. The Founders knew better, realizing that passions often dictated positions, not the other way around.

The Founders also knew that education is essential to the health of republican government. And recent data on the civic literacy of Americans should give pause about our eagerness to turn public decision making over to direct democracy. A survey of college seniors last year by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute showed a mean score of only 55.2 out of 100 on questions about the American political system. Only 45.9%, for example, knew that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” comes from the Declaration of Independence. Less than 50% answered correctly on questions about the Bill of Rights, federalism, and the concept of enumerated powers. In fact, the knowledge of college students actually decreased between their freshman and senior years, giving reason to remember Jefferson's admonition that "a society that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be."
Representative government has its problems to be sure, and the Founders knew it would. They did not expect all statesmen to be enlightened, and they designed countervailing centers of power at the national level and between the central government and the states as a check on the tendency of factions to destroy liberty. But they placed a bet that representative government was still a lot safer than democracy. Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention on its last day, September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what the convention - until then shrouded in secrecy - had wrought. His answer was short yet profound: "A republic, if you can keep it." We still have that republic. Keeping it may be getting harder.

Waiting for Proof

America is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and many of the other founders believed in the power of reason and science (which they called natural philosophy). They held firmly to the belief that the progress of humankind went along with increases in knowledge. What science could demonstrate, people should accept and integrate into institutions, policies, and daily life.

This belief in the power of evidence-based science has led to some of our greatest advances in the past two hundred years, and it is integrated into our thinking and language. "Where's the data?" "Can you prove that? "How can you be sure?" Be "reason"able. We assume that we should need and ask for evidence - empirical data, facts, and scientifically based conclusions before we can confidently move forward.

But in addition to its great gifts, evidence-based decision making has one major drawback: sometimes the evidence is not clear, there is a debate about what the data mean, so we are not sure what the "truth" is. Take two situations we now face. First, the national debt, which is (there is clear data on this) over $9 trillion dollars. Has this reached a point where servicing the debt and trying to pay it off threatens our economic prosperity - if not immediately then in the foreseeable future? Economists disagree, as do policymakers. Second, consider the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Has this reached the point where ill effects on global climate, plant and animal life, as well as human well-being are evident and inevitable? Few scientists doubt the data on the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, but some scientists and policy makers disagree on why those levels exist and what they mean for the future.

Given these disagreements among reasonable people, we seem to fall into two camps on how to respond. The first is to insist on better and more data, and more scientific thinking, before we act. Enlightenment admirers might counsel this way of proceeding. It seems the approach we are taking now. But it carries a huge risk: when we can be sure of the facts, will it be too late to take effective action? In short, could we reach a tipping point with both the debt and the atmosphere where no action can reverse the cascade of ill effects that follow?

Those who raise this question are often considered alarmists - people who seek to frighten us into (unreasonable) action. It is also worth noting, however, that buried in the "let's wait till the data are clear" line of thinking is usually an admiration for and assumption about science itself that: whatever the ill, science can overcome it. Appropriately tuned fiscal policy in the case of the debt, and such tools as carbon sequestration in the case of the atmosphere, are there ready to be used if and when we need them. We ought to acknowledge, however, that the science to justify this belief in science is absent. We are staking our believe in science on faith.

The second approach we might take toward uncertainty about the debt and atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be conservative (small letter "c"). That is, we act as if the data are real and then ask: what should we do? In short, we take steps to mitigate the downstream effects before they have a chance to show up. In the case of the debt, we make fiscal and monetary adjustments now rather than waiting until severe damage to the economy and individuals is evident and unavoidable. In the case of the atmosphere, we decrease carbon emissions now rather than waiting until it may be too late to reverse the levels and their resulting damage. Some pain comes with this approach, of course, since it may mean denying current pleasures to find the resources and take the steps needed to fend off later disaster. These are clearly "pay me now" rather than "pay me later" approaches.

So the question may well be: how big a gamble are we willing to take? As a nation, we are on the path in both areas that says: "there may be a problem, but let's wait and see. If there is, (economic and atmospheric) science will confirm we need to act and also see us through."

On a personal level, this might be likened to considering what we do as parents of a child who faces the prospect of getting a deadly disease. Given the choice of waiting to see if he or she is one of the very few who will be struck down or giving a vaccination that itself carries a small risk of serious illness, the reasonable parent does not wait for the disease to strike in the hope of treating it then. The importance of preventive action is clear even though the risk of the disease appearing is uncertain or even low. Life is too precious to wait for conclusive evidence that harm has arrived.

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison written while the former was in Paris as Minister to France, articulated the principle that "the world belongs in usufruct to the living generation." What Jefferson meant was that no generation had the right to encumber the next with its debts, be they monetary, environmental, or political. Jefferson, that enlightened man of science, did not derive this from scientific reasoning. He derived it from moral philosophy.

Is it possible that our reliance on science, on waiting for the proof, has insulated us from the moral thinking without which science is a neutral instrument, as likely to cause damage as do good? Waiting for proof in the case of the debt and the atmosphere may be scientifically sound but it just might also be socially suicidal. Perhaps true enlightenment blends scientific reasoning with moral imagination.