If you don’t want to receive this newsletter, push the button I received a few email messages—surprisingly few, actually—from people who asked to be taken off this list. I am eager to accommodate. Exceptionally eager. No means no—I get that. And now that I know you' don’t want to hear from me, I am even
An excellent exposition. Two points (or questions) arise in reading the above:
1. re: "People who care about speaking and writing precisely—people who use the full range of the English language’s rich vocabulary, people who understand language as a subtle and nuanced tool—have become despised by both the right and the left as elitists."
With Trumpian examples readily evident, I'm well aware of this phenomenon from the right. I'm less aware of it as a phenomenon from the left. Might some illustrative example(s) be cited?
2. re: "He is right to point out that many liberal democrats have made sloppy arguments in defense of their system of governance. But he’s wrong to suggest that any alternative in human history has ever provided a better form of governance. Whether by means of an invisible hand, providence, or coincidence, it is a blunt historic fact that liberal democracies have proven far more adroit than rival regime types at solving universal human problems. Citizens of liberal democracies enjoy astonishing levels of wealth, better health, longer life expectancy, vastly greater public hygiene and safety, and historically unequalled lives of ease and comfort. Liberal democracies are more technologically innovative. Their environments are cleaner. They are more peaceful.
If it is true that liberal democracies, too, give rise to poverty, disease, hazards, discomforts, economic stagnation, indignities, and environmental destruction, it is also true that no other modern human society, to date, has a better record in any of these aspects; all have been quite a bit worse, and some have been infinitely worse. . . . "
Generally I can accept your thesis here. Yet I find it to be challenged a bit (or potentially so) in the case of the People's Republic of China, which at least poses a puzzle. The PRC ostensibly has achieved much to eradicate poverty, disease hazards, discomforts, economic stagnation (at least), despite its adoption of a political model running in stark opposition to liberal democracy. Perhaps its Achilles heel (the need to suppress dissent, to suppress religious or potential regional or minority splinter counter-nationalisms) will ultimately be its undoing; and perhaps the inhumanity of its measures dealing with those things will prove the truth of your thesis. Nonetheless, the PRC has apparently been one of the most longstanding (& generally successful) counter-examples to emerge from the laboratory of the 20th century. IMHO, it presents an ongoing puzzle or even challenge to the liberal-democracy-is-always-most-effective thesis.
This is a well-written, well-researched, and insightful article. Two questions:
1. Do you think some American politicians consider Liberal Democracy as their goal?
2. The Mass is the majority of the society. How could a society pursue Liberal Democracy without the support from the Mass? Or, how could such support be won?
Apologize in advance if I am asking questions you plan to answer in the next piece.
I might follow-up on Marshal's question and pose these related questions:
1. Do Americans actually understand the difference between Liberal Democracy and Populist Democracy
2. Do Americans actually understand that say Putin's Russia is not a "pure" dictatorship and uses a façade of democracy and civil institutions to justify it's legitimacy. Thus when actually analyzing Putin's Russia it is incorrect to say that Russia isn't a democracy because there are no elections instead you have to make a deeper analysis of Russia. Does the average American actually get or understand these distinctions?
3. More important do American politicians and media figures in both parties understand these distinctions? Is say someone like Rachel Maddow or Bernie Sanders(or on the other side Josh Hawley and Tucker Carlson) a believer in Liberal Democracy or more of a populist majority rule small d democrat.
Thanks, Marshal. I will add another question as I just finished a private email discussing this very question. That is do Americans understand as a matter of human right law internationally that there are many human rights violations short of just killing people. Do they get that if Putin simply locked up or exiled all of his opponents short of trying to kill or poison them he would still be a very bad person? Perhaps not as bad as the Putin who murders people but still very bad i.e. you can still be a human rights violator even if you don't kill people.
Thus when some in America defend American democracy by saying well we don't kill people like Putin tried to kill Navalny and others(and I am excluding capital punishment for the point of this discussion) or more specifically Trump didn't order his opponents killed like Putin that is in fact setting a very very low bar far lower than I think many Americans realize in my opinion.
An excellent exposition. Two points (or questions) arise in reading the above:
1. re: "People who care about speaking and writing precisely—people who use the full range of the English language’s rich vocabulary, people who understand language as a subtle and nuanced tool—have become despised by both the right and the left as elitists."
With Trumpian examples readily evident, I'm well aware of this phenomenon from the right. I'm less aware of it as a phenomenon from the left. Might some illustrative example(s) be cited?
2. re: "He is right to point out that many liberal democrats have made sloppy arguments in defense of their system of governance. But he’s wrong to suggest that any alternative in human history has ever provided a better form of governance. Whether by means of an invisible hand, providence, or coincidence, it is a blunt historic fact that liberal democracies have proven far more adroit than rival regime types at solving universal human problems. Citizens of liberal democracies enjoy astonishing levels of wealth, better health, longer life expectancy, vastly greater public hygiene and safety, and historically unequalled lives of ease and comfort. Liberal democracies are more technologically innovative. Their environments are cleaner. They are more peaceful.
If it is true that liberal democracies, too, give rise to poverty, disease, hazards, discomforts, economic stagnation, indignities, and environmental destruction, it is also true that no other modern human society, to date, has a better record in any of these aspects; all have been quite a bit worse, and some have been infinitely worse. . . . "
Generally I can accept your thesis here. Yet I find it to be challenged a bit (or potentially so) in the case of the People's Republic of China, which at least poses a puzzle. The PRC ostensibly has achieved much to eradicate poverty, disease hazards, discomforts, economic stagnation (at least), despite its adoption of a political model running in stark opposition to liberal democracy. Perhaps its Achilles heel (the need to suppress dissent, to suppress religious or potential regional or minority splinter counter-nationalisms) will ultimately be its undoing; and perhaps the inhumanity of its measures dealing with those things will prove the truth of your thesis. Nonetheless, the PRC has apparently been one of the most longstanding (& generally successful) counter-examples to emerge from the laboratory of the 20th century. IMHO, it presents an ongoing puzzle or even challenge to the liberal-democracy-is-always-most-effective thesis.
Hi Claire,
This is a well-written, well-researched, and insightful article. Two questions:
1. Do you think some American politicians consider Liberal Democracy as their goal?
2. The Mass is the majority of the society. How could a society pursue Liberal Democracy without the support from the Mass? Or, how could such support be won?
Apologize in advance if I am asking questions you plan to answer in the next piece.
I might follow-up on Marshal's question and pose these related questions:
1. Do Americans actually understand the difference between Liberal Democracy and Populist Democracy
2. Do Americans actually understand that say Putin's Russia is not a "pure" dictatorship and uses a façade of democracy and civil institutions to justify it's legitimacy. Thus when actually analyzing Putin's Russia it is incorrect to say that Russia isn't a democracy because there are no elections instead you have to make a deeper analysis of Russia. Does the average American actually get or understand these distinctions?
3. More important do American politicians and media figures in both parties understand these distinctions? Is say someone like Rachel Maddow or Bernie Sanders(or on the other side Josh Hawley and Tucker Carlson) a believer in Liberal Democracy or more of a populist majority rule small d democrat.
You asked what I meant to ask in a much better way :-)
Thanks, Marshal. I will add another question as I just finished a private email discussing this very question. That is do Americans understand as a matter of human right law internationally that there are many human rights violations short of just killing people. Do they get that if Putin simply locked up or exiled all of his opponents short of trying to kill or poison them he would still be a very bad person? Perhaps not as bad as the Putin who murders people but still very bad i.e. you can still be a human rights violator even if you don't kill people.
Thus when some in America defend American democracy by saying well we don't kill people like Putin tried to kill Navalny and others(and I am excluding capital punishment for the point of this discussion) or more specifically Trump didn't order his opponents killed like Putin that is in fact setting a very very low bar far lower than I think many Americans realize in my opinion.