Friday, May 17, 2013

Opinion - The logic of democracy

15 May 2013

by Creston Davis & Santiago Zabala
 
Physicist Stephen Hawking recently said that philosophers have not kept up with science and their art is dead [EPA]
“When it comes to political deliberation, philosophy is a good servant but a bad master.”

From a political point of view people still believe in nostalgic and dangerous ideas like "objectivity" "reality", "truth" and "values" as a precondition for democracy. But believers in absolutes forget a crucial lesson borne out of the historic record namely, that the tide of secularisation is irreversible and remains inextricably bound-up in the human condition. This reality necessarily checks and harnesses the search for fanatical, absolute truth-claims that, we maintain, are contrary to the very nature of democracy.


Indeed the demand democracy places on us is therefore a commitment to maximising critical, open dialogue whilst maintaining a minimal peaceable solidarity among different social and political actors. We thus submit the need to dispense with arrogant notions of truth opting instead for more temperate and humble philosophical programmes, ones that, for example help nurture a larger more volatile discourse of human flourishing. 


It is worth briefly examining the logic that appeals to claims that are absolute and beyond the reach of history. From the birth of religion and early philosophy the ever-changing natural world was interpreted as threatening, chaotic and unpredictable. This further resulted in a neurosis, which was only cured, it was thought, when the threatening material world of change was a result of a more fundamental unchanging, immaterial idea, or a God.


By appealing to absolute moral foundations, or a God, or Truth, any disagreement could be resolved so long as everyone agreed with the final appeal pronounced by the ruling class. And if there was disagreement, the rulers in power, like political or religious authorities, could be justified in exacting violence against a dissenter.  


Pragmatic and hermeneutical approach



The danger in this metaphysical universe was that only the King or Pope (or the philosopher-king) could discern what the true will of God (or Reason) was on earth without question or criticism. In this way, an eternal, unchecked idea was given moral justification beyond the reach of democratic discourse. Consequently, unjust political regimes could get away with implementing their power in the name of the Almighty or an idea.


It is little wonder that one minor tradition in Greek philosophy, the Platonic legacy, was quickly adapted into the Greek and later Roman Empire, as Peter Sloterdijk has recently argued. This legacy could then easily be transferred into the hegemony of Christianity in the form of the Roman Catholic Empire, which neutralised many other divergent Christian, religious, pagan and philosophical traditions in order to alight as an absolute authority both religious and political. This set the stage for the spread of the Islamic Empire in the 7th century.    

By contrast, we submit that history and not religion (or unchecked Reason) must be taken seriously as opposed to idealising absolutes, which, in political theologies, only serve as flimsy veils behind which violent and inflexible premises invariably lurk. It is difficult not to interpret mainstream religious ideology and its historical reality as employing appeals to almighty God as a means to dominate the cultural, political, moral and even economic discourse.


By contrast, when, for example, Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government excluding all others, what he meant was that you cannot find a better system if you take history seriously. This is a pragmatic and hermeneutical approach, which entails a modest style committed to an experimentation and perpetual improvement on inevitable shortcomings.  
Richard Rorty, American philosopher


Post-metaphysical philosophy has never claimed inerrancy; indeed it knows the tools it provides in good faith are nevertheless fragile, incomplete and above all contingent unlike extreme and historically unsustainable version of scripture that allows no room for error and all the room for "justified violence". For this reason we agree with Stephen Hawking, who recently pronounced the death of philosophy.


The philosophy that is dead is, of course, the one that appeals to absolutes, that is, metaphysical philosophy. And with Hawking we join sides with Slavoj Zizek and the late American philosopher, Richard Rorty, by claiming that the duty of philosophy is a modest task. 

"I think philosophy is a very modest discipline," says, Zizek. Philosophy does not solve problems, "the duty of philosophy is to show how what we experience as a problem is a false problem". Philosophers deal less with absolute truth claims, like Hawking thinks, and operate more like Rorty says, "when it comes to political deliberation, philosophy is a good servant but a bad master". 

In this modest sense, philosophy is useful in formulating new interpretations of social phenomena, but neither is it indispensable. What is distinctive about the hermeneutic (the philosophy of interpretation) approach is that it gives priority to relations between knowledge and social life, that is, to the concerns that arise as the inevitable result of one's own existence: mortality, freedom, meaning and death.


Developing a democratic society

A democratic society may develop itself only by generating culture not as an abstract body of superior knowledge but as a complex dialogue that must never come to rest. In fact, democracy must become a lived philosophy, which it can only do by refusing absolute truth and its attached totalitarian regimes. The only hope of a democratic politics is to form citizens who articulate their own practical needs, freely and unencumbered by the pressures of simplistic and lazy metaphysical systems. 

The political message of philosophy after the end of modernity is that there is nothing outside our human and natural community. Philosophers must understand problems as rooted in society. The danger is that philosophers become alienated from communities - as has happened to so many analytical philosophers. We therefore submit that philosophy must subordinate itself to the political demands of democracy. 

Rorty, together with Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gianni Vattimo, Zizek and many other philosophers, understand hermeneutics as possessing this possibility because it does not presuppose an absolute that dissolves differences. Hermeneutical philosophy is humbled by the hope that agreement will never be lost as long as the conversation lasts. And so the hope that characterises hermeneutics as the philosophy of postmodernity depends on privileging human historical narratives as opposed to abstract theories of reality. The moral justification of a political institution cannot thus be found through a philosophical explanation alone but also in those historical narratives that allow the conversation and even disagreement to continue unfolding. 

The point is to retrospectively interpret history as a continuation of events that arrives at conclusions needed for the betterment of society; that is, only by interpreting can we verify whether we are not simply regurgitating outdated phantoms that continue to reproduce unjust symptoms and forms of repressions. For example, when the American president, George Bush tried to construct a case for going to war in the Middle-East, he did this by appealing to God's will and used the Bible as evidence to justify his theocratic agenda.

This way of appealing to absolutes should therefore be interpreted as giving up on dialogue and democracy in a panic moment to push a ruler's own agenda in the name of the religion. Democracy continues to be difficult work, which never arrives at a resting place, but is always under revision, refinement and revaluation. In this respect, democracy is not an ideal - rather it is a process of employing tools of a modest hermeneutical philosophy. In sum, democracy reminds us that we need each other for our very survival. 

Creston Davis is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Skopje. He is the co-author (with John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek) of Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology; co-editor (with John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek) of Theology and the Political: The New Debate; editor of John Milbank and Slavoj Zizek The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? and author of Ghostly Icons.  

Santiago Zabala is ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona. His books include The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy (2008), The Remains of Being (2009), and, most recently, Hermeneutic Communism (2011, coauthored with G Vattimo), all published by Columbia University Press. 


The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Democracy! a man shouted. What is a democracy? he asked? Everyone turns around and looks at this man as he was sane or simply a joke. Those who preached about democracy usually do not what they are talking about. They think they know, but if you are forcing them to respond, eventually, they will shock that they do now have a clue. Most would contradict of what they are saying. Between Communism, Socialism and Capitalism, it is all about who are in control and as long as they are in control; They could careless of what regime might that be in a given society so long as they are in power. Communism corrupted. Socialism corrupted and Capitalism is also corrupted. If all of these regimes are a corrupted regimes then what is left for us all? The answer is that it is not about any regimes, but a question of bad people who got elected to run the nation and the nation's wealth. Imagine, a nation such as United States whose Federal Reserves has trillion of dollars and a currency printing machines at their disposal. Khmer proverb once said,"ស្រមោច ហើយនិង ស្ករ។" It is like a magnetic and iron. Both is inseparable. This is why human must focus on law. The same a fisherman needs his compass when he travels the vast ocean front. Without his compass tells him where to go he would not know where to begin. Laws of a nation written by men. This is why you are speaking of democracy. When you are of democracy you are also speaking of rule of law. To write law, you need men of integrity; men of intelligence; men of wisdom. These men are voted into higher public offices because of their ability to understand public needs and hold them accountable for their actions. Hence, the birth of Congress where House of Senates and House of Representatives who will come together to draft law which will rule the entire nation and it comes to be known as Constitution. The same as when King Sihanouk created the Supreme National Council with the intention to draft Cambodian Constitution. But right after January 7th, 1979, from this time until our Constitution has drafted, we must ask ourselves, how many legal scholars and professors of law do we have? The answer...not many. But from 1979 until this present time, it has been 34 years to the moment I wrote this article. If you wish to know the truth then not fly to Cambodia and all you have to do is sit and observe. I have been to Cambodia many times. In fact, I have travel to many places. But what matter most is Cambodia. Why one might ask? I am borne Khmer. I will live my life as Khmer and I will die as Khmer. But as long as I am alive, I will do my best trying to help my country as best I know how. There is nothing more important than speaking out against anything that you do not like, specially to a politicians. They are voted into offices with power which entrusted on to them without question and it is to their best ability that which they must act on behalf of the people and the nation. This is why a true democratic society we must have. I can understand that humanity is easily corrupted, but not all. Having said that, it has brought to another subject: Term Limitation of a Prime Minister or a Presidency of a country. Let's take US for an example. Any candidate for Presidency if won, he or she will sit in the seat of power for 4 years for each term and 2 terms you are out. The only US President that has ever held power for 3 consecutive terms was Franklin D. Roosevelt and after that he was out. Unlike Cambodia, there is no term limitation and this could place a candidate to behave like a dictator or a tyranny of a nation. It is a very fine line to which Cambodia is walking on as we speak.


Phnom Pench Post

Anonymous said...

It is easier said than done. The truth is, Cambodia is being controlled by the outsiders. Whatever decision made is through corruption. e.g do what I say or else. So, to be able to act like one, we have to have an independent state or a 'state of sovereignty'. But sadly, Cambodia is not independent, so, no matter how much we want to change or how we much to run our nation with our way of life, it is merely impossible, why? because our leaders are not prepared to fight for what is rightfully ours, mainly because of thread and intimidation towards its members.

If Cambodia wants to survive, we have to prepare to fight and speak out loud to let the international community knows that we are being controlled by such crooks and needs to be rescued from its tyranny, oppressive and aggressive way of life. Yes, it is true that, 'if the wicked rule the nation, it will eventually fall apart' but how can we avoid if we are being taken as their hostages?

They killed up to 3million of our educated ones, in order for them to take over srok khmer and to control us khmers. They created Po Pot to kill Lon Nol and created Hun Sen to kill Pol Pot and in the end they said 'khmers are dumb, stupid, and very lazy', while they continue to steal, rob and kill us despited the rule of 'they shall not steal and kill' and so who is the dumb one here?

3million souls

Anonymous said...



សម្តេច​​តេ​ជោ​​ថ្លែង​ថា "គេ​ចង់​ដូរ​បែប​ហ្នឹង បើ​ដូរ​តែ​ខ្ញុំ ដូរ​តែ​គណបក្ស ប្រជាជន​វា​អត់​ចោទ​ទេ តែ​គេ​ដូរ​របប​រាជានិយម​ចេញ​តែម្តង...”

នេះបញ្ចាក់ថា សម្តេច​​តេ​ជោមានការ ព្រួយបារម្ភនិងមិនទុកចិត្ត នូវសមត្ថភាព ខ្លួន ក្នុងការទប់ទល់ ចំពោះមុខ​គណបក្ស ប្រកួតប្រជែងនានា ដោយទាញយកអ្នក​របបរាជានិយមចូលមកបន្ថែម ដើម្បី ពង្រឹងនិងសង្រ្គោះ គណបក្ស ប្រជាជន។

ហើយមួយយ៉ាងទៀត សម្តេច​​តេ​ជោ សំដែងនូវ ឆន្ទៈអារម្មណ៍ ថា សុខចិត្ដបាត់គណបក្ស ប្រជាជន ជាជាង បាត់នូវនាមខ្លួនជា សម្តេច​ ។

នាមជា សម្តេច មានតម្លៃលើសជាងអ្វីទាំងអស់ សំរាប់សម្តេច​​តេ​ជោ។


នៅចំពោះមុខចលនាផ្សេងៗនៅសហរដ្ឋអាមេរិក ដែលសម្តេច​​តេ​ជោថា មានលាក់ខ្លួនក្នុង​គណបក្សប្រឆាំង។

​ សម្តេច​​តេ​ជោ​ថ្លែង​ថា «​ចំណុច​នេះ​ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋ​​ត្រូវ​ក្តាប់​ឲ្យ​បាន​ច្បាស់​មិនមែន​ខ្ញុំ​បំភ័យ​ទេ ហើយ ដែល​អះ​អាង​ថា កើតសង្គ្រាម​គឺ​វា​កន្លែង​ហ្នឹង​»​។

នេះបញ្ចាក់ថា នាអនាគតនិងមាន ការចាប់ចង បោះ សំអាត អ្នកប្រឆាំង ហើយ អាចប្រើកម្លាំងអាវុធ រលំ ពុំទទួលស្គាល់នូវ រដ្ឋាភិបាលថ្មីណា ដែលកើតឡើង ដោយការបោះធ្នោតខាងមុខ ក្រៅពី រដ្ធាភិបាលនៃគណបក្ស ប្រជាជន ?។

លទ្ធិប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ នៅកម្ពុជា មាន ហានិភ័យ អន្តរាយ?។


លទ្ធិប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ នៅកម្ពុជាជា លទ្ធិប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ក្លែងក្លាយ?។

Anonymous said...

Just wondering why this bright scholar Khmer patriotic at 6:38 AM and at a few other places changed the signature from "Phnom Penh Post" to "Phnom Pench Post"....as previously in:

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14854511&postID=3739762445771722120&isPopup=true

Smart ass must not be insecure and/or scared at all?




Anonymous said...

Well, impersonation doesn't kill anybody, but why take a chance?

Anonymous said...

when will physicists like Hawking ever learn? if he ventured a bit further than his blackboard, he will see that it's precisely his idea that "there is no God", "God is dead" etc.. that gave rise to the worst massacres in history from the world wars to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.. why? because in Hawking's eyes man is only matter and matter doesn't matter and therefore man is disposable. When fools like Hawking say there is no God, i can only say, wait for the day you have to show up before Him and give an explanation why despite being gifted by God with such a brilliant mind, he turns around and insult his own Creator?

Anonymous said...

Philosophying all you want...But do we know where Khmer is at this point of history?