In an hour like the one our Chilean society is currently experiencing, it becomes really urgent to think about democracy. For this we can turn to contemporary philosophers who, in recent years, have reflected on this fragile system of political coexistence that has suffered so many shocks and misfortunes since its inception, back in the fifth century BC.C. in ancient Greece.
One of them is Paolo Flores d’Arcais, from whom we recommend his book Democracy! (Ed. Gutenberg Galaxy). He warns us that we have the duty to meditate on democracy, to take it seriously today more than ever so that it does not become a master key to “new despotisms in postmodern version”.
To start the reflection it is necessary to know what is and what is not. Flores d’Arcais proposes the exercise of reducing democracy to the most essential and, from there, examining the deviations that try to destroy it. The essence of democracy is a principle: “One head, one vote.” This is its minimum procedural content that no one can doubt.
“One head, one vote” leads us to the autonomy of the person as a democratic foundation, to an attitude, to a moral will to realize the Kantian imperative that orders to treat the other always as an end and never as a means, to citizen brotherhood through justice and freedom as opposed to the arrogant individualism of privileges.
This principle is incompatible with others. For example, with “one bullet, one vote”: criminality cannot guide or condition the election of our representatives. Ethnic mafias, drug cartels and human traffickers are real attacks on democracy. Therefore, the defenders of democracy must subscribe to radical, effective and intransigent policies in the fight against all organized crime.
Likewise, “a wad of banknotes, a vote” is another antithesis of democracy no less devastating. Political corruption, patronism, influence peddling and tax fraud must be punished with the full rigor of the law. This necessarily presupposes the autonomy of the administration of justice with respect to political power. The test that measures this in our societies is to check whether the effective constitutional guarantees (i.e., severity or impunity) are the same for the honorable defendant and for the ordinary, godless offender, if they are the same for the powerful and the humble.
“A lie, a vote” and “a show, a vote” are also not democratic principles for our thinker. Truth and transparency must dominate public life in democratic regimes. There must be a pluralism of information in the media; freedom of expression should be promoted by promoting the debate on all issues relevant to citizens.
In democracy, the law is decided by men and only men, citizens must be free and sovereign to give themselves the laws. Theocracy has nothing to do with democracy. “A blessing, a vow” or “a Mass, a vow” distort the essence of democracy. This is secular or it is not. God must be exiled from the public sphere, no matter how religious democratic politicians may be. The philosopher writes: “Democracy guarantees that God has a space in the golden exile of consciences and places of worship, but it must forbid him any title of legitimacy as soon as it intends to spread in public life. The presence of God in any phase of the process of deliberation that leads to the enactment of the law means an attack, a heteronoma colonization of democratic coexistence, of republican sovereignty.” Democracy must advocate rational argumentation, discourse based on logic, proven facts, scientific evidence, constitutional values deductible from the minimum denominator “one head, one vote”. To be a citizen, the believer must absolutely renounce to propose that the law punish as a crime what for his dogma is sin.
Clearing democracy of its antinomies, protecting the autonomy of the citizen, is how it can be defended in the face of attempts, internal and external, to destroy it. Paolo Flores d’Arcais points to education as fundamental to the protection of democracy, because it guarantees the critical spirit necessary for free voting.
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