The Problem(s) of Democracy
CrowdSource 7.1.2024
Welcome to CrowdSource, your weekly guided tour of the latest intellectual disputes, ideological disagreements, and national debates that have piqued our interest (or inflamed our passions). This week: democracy (and Democrats) in crisis plus AI and work.
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Who are you voting for – the corpse, or the ghoul?
After a car-crash of a debate performance last week by President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party establishment is fighting a desperate fight against a pundit class in open revolt. You probably read a bunch of the emotional hand-wringing quick-takes already. The more searching stuff took a bit longer to gestate.
Institutions in decay: In the past, Ezra Klein argues, American political parties “were a bulwark against politics becoming about one person.” What we’re seeing today is corruption of that ideal. “There is not more to the Republican Party today than Trump’s ambitions. I would have told you that the Democratic Party was different, that it was not just a vehicle for Biden’s ambitions. Now I’m not so sure.” Michael Brendan Dougherty has an even more tart take than Ezra.
To win, you must be cold and bold: “Now, while I think Harris is probably a better option than Biden, she is not the Democrats’ best option,” writes Jonathan Chait. “If you undertake a change as radical as swapping out your presidential candidate because he’s losing to a sociopathic criminal, then you should really go ahead and pick a candidate whose political and governing skills have the confidence of the party elite. As Napoleon said, if you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.”
Will Xi take Taiwan? “The entire global order will be endangered if there is an empty vessel in the Oval Office, a headless superpower in a destabilizing world,” writes Ross Douthat.
The Party decides: It’s no secret that the presidential primaries are not completely transparent or democratic. Maybe that’s OK. But then there’s self-serving demagoguery that demands critics “shut the f*ck up and get on with it.” “[T]here is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods,” George Orwell famously observed. “If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means.”
Biden’s bland centrism is a bigger problem than his mental decline: Abandoning politics opens the door to populists. “This is why I put special emphasis on the negative consequences of envisaging the ideal of democracy as the realization of a ‘rational consensus,’” wrote Chantal Mouffe in The Democratic Paradox (2000). “I am convinced… that the blurring of the frontiers between left and right, far from being an advance in a democratic direction, is jeopardizing the future of democracy.” (via Osita Nwanevu)
Work and Play and AI
“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes,” science fiction writer Joanna Maciejewska recently quipped.
L. M. Sacasas disputes Maciejewska’s premises: “[W]e must resist the temptation to imagine that the path to a meaningful or satisfying life is secured by the unquestioning acceptance of the promise of time-and labor-saving technologies.”
A good life is not an easy life. If we let AI do too much of our work for us, the meaning of life might change — for the worse. So wrote philosopher Shannon Vallor two months ago. Forbes tech reporter Tim Bajarin made a similar argument that month.
In a brief note to a despairing reader, Ted Gioia inveighs against another idea implied by Maciejewska: that AI can create art. “Art embodies an authentic relationship between artist and the audience. The key elements of this relationship can never be mechanized without collapsing into pathos or parody.”
From the Crowd
John Wilson, responding to
’s “Democracy is Anti-Intellectual”:… the thought (somewhat Marx-like, I think) occurred to me that one of the functions of the working class is to restrain the upper classes from excesses that harm the common good, through unions and pitchforks and the like. It's tragic to see the categories at play in such horrific fashion in 1848, but it should stand out as an object lesson to anyone in charge. For example, I just watched an interview with Suzy Welch, the final wife of GE's famous CEO Jack Welch, and it was striking how ignorant of her wealth she was, all while trying to understand some of the uncooperative motivations in Gen Z. I would posit that Gen Z's desire to work where their values are aligned and if not that then to at least have a work/life balance are a perfect examples of the peasant classes' warning light flashing. Unfortunately, the well-heeled such as Ms. Welch will miss this and reap what they sow.
See you next week!
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Things must be bad: Chantal Mouffe hasn't gotten a WoC mention in a long time.
I challenge the description of Biden's politics as "bland centrism." The man himself has never been an ideological left-winger, but his administration has hardly been a return to the Clinton years. Industrial policy, a big infrastructure bill, keeping tariffs on China - this isn't exactly end-of-history, Third Way economics. And whatever Biden's personal instincts, there's very little debate going on among Democrats about social policy. The party's basically uniformly progressive on abortion, guns, LGBT issues, systemic racism. Some of them (including Biden) are beginning to realize border security is important, but it's not like there's a Democratic groundswell for a centrist immigration policy.