A Brief Point
Much more on this later, somewhere or other, but: just saw Naomi Wolf's interview on Colbert, where she was hawking a book called The End of America or something and being very conspiracy theorist about how current events mirror those that lead to dictatorships in previous historical instances. It's ridiculous, of course, and super-unhelpful, but not abnormal. All over you've got people comparing W's America to either end-of-the-empire Rome or pre-dictatorship Germany/Russia. And sure, those parallels are there, but they're missing the point. These appeals are made on behalf of democracy (Wolf said "democracy" at least 4 times), but right now, democracy is arguably the problem; we certainly have far more democracy than the founders ever intended. If you're looking for a historical analogy, it might be better to look back to the fears of the 19th century, when the popular press was constantly warning of the republic's coming annihilation, and were very aware of the fragility of the American system. If you want to talk about what's happening now, don't think about it as a path already trod, but as a regression feared from America's founding. Democracy ain't institutions, and it's the breakdown of institutions that's causing us trouble right now.Labels: democracy, naomi wolf, political theory
posted by Mike B. @ 12:27 PM
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