democracy
This is theory. There is no democracy alone. It is a force, even as statute, which plays amongst other powers.
Octavio Paz tells us that democracy is not teleological: “. . . [it] is not an absolute project about the future: it is a method [italics mine] of civilized co-existence.” 1 He is correct when he points to relativism as the crux of democratic society. It does assure the peaceful co-existence of people within a range of their differences. However, I cannot agree with Paz’s position that this basis is an empty one; a core that “. . . ceaselessly enlarges and empties souls.” 2 Democracy is an agreement, and as such, it is only partly a method. Equally important is the mutual value agreed upon by the very virtue of its practice: it is an agreement to share the basic equalities of citizenship. I maintain that the price we pay for sharing these rights is twofold. Firstly, because democracy is partial, we must accept many things which compromise our individuality in order to establish the mere possibility of getting along. All democracies have sacred content upon which they cannot operate without risking disintegration. 3 For example, they require a social contract based upon sufficient individual wealth that its majority can live (judge themselves to live) with enough independence, security and quality that the agreement (to participate) remains sufficiently satisfying. Such satisfaction may amount to no more than a continuation based upon a lack of alternatives for improvement. Democracy rests upon a minimal standard of majority pacification. 4 Secondly, the freedom gained from democratic relativism engenders individual responsiblities unknown to the subjects of authoritarian rule. Democracy’s reliance upon only the most basic (even abstract) rules of community does not provide sufficient meaning for human culture. This is the emptiness which Paz and so many others identify as the key problem of modernity. But this characterization is a holdover from our premodern heritage. The universe does not tolerate emptiness. Human culture began to fill the void long before it was ever identified. Pained by the loss of imposed meanings, like an adolescent troubled by no longer being able to stand behind the parent, democratic societies (like others) have moved on. The challenge they present is to the individual: gaining in freedom but also in responsibility. This responsibility is to create and evolve . . . to face the void and put content into it.
Democracy does not imply a static society. Rather, it relinquishes the dream of control and accepts blind faith. It accepts that change is yet another aspect of reality which transcends our limitations. We are agents within, not gods unto ourselves. We cannot bemoan our inability to return to the “innocence” of divinty. 5 Paz has stated that he was sure of one thing: that we are living an interregnum. 6 Perhaps progress ammounts to no more than the realization that we always have been and always will. The concept of stability is only a reflection of our myopia. Interruption is movement, is history, is us. We are the interval in which the universe reflects upon itself. It can be no surprise that this reflection is local. The difficulty Paz identifies is that once radically stretched or extended, the local reveals the vastness of its context. Eternity and endlessness are brought home. The important point is that such an interregnum is not unsurpassible. We are simply, painfully pushed to extend our selves . . . once managed, we regain our focus and the local is re-established within the unbounded. The basis of meaning once again remains.
1 Octavio Paz,, Itinerary: An Intellectual Journey, trans., Jason Wilson (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1994): 88.
2 Ibid.
3 This content is resilient but not static.
4 Majority, as history amply illustrates, is a quantity of power. If democracy has any teleological effect, it may be that it works to free the distribution of power as a flow seeking its equilibrium within the world’s population. This would appear to be a very slow process.
5 Could anything be more loaded!
6 Paz: 89.
Octavio Paz tells us that democracy is not teleological: “. . . [it] is not an absolute project about the future: it is a method [italics mine] of civilized co-existence.” 1 He is correct when he points to relativism as the crux of democratic society. It does assure the peaceful co-existence of people within a range of their differences. However, I cannot agree with Paz’s position that this basis is an empty one; a core that “. . . ceaselessly enlarges and empties souls.” 2 Democracy is an agreement, and as such, it is only partly a method. Equally important is the mutual value agreed upon by the very virtue of its practice: it is an agreement to share the basic equalities of citizenship. I maintain that the price we pay for sharing these rights is twofold. Firstly, because democracy is partial, we must accept many things which compromise our individuality in order to establish the mere possibility of getting along. All democracies have sacred content upon which they cannot operate without risking disintegration. 3 For example, they require a social contract based upon sufficient individual wealth that its majority can live (judge themselves to live) with enough independence, security and quality that the agreement (to participate) remains sufficiently satisfying. Such satisfaction may amount to no more than a continuation based upon a lack of alternatives for improvement. Democracy rests upon a minimal standard of majority pacification. 4 Secondly, the freedom gained from democratic relativism engenders individual responsiblities unknown to the subjects of authoritarian rule. Democracy’s reliance upon only the most basic (even abstract) rules of community does not provide sufficient meaning for human culture. This is the emptiness which Paz and so many others identify as the key problem of modernity. But this characterization is a holdover from our premodern heritage. The universe does not tolerate emptiness. Human culture began to fill the void long before it was ever identified. Pained by the loss of imposed meanings, like an adolescent troubled by no longer being able to stand behind the parent, democratic societies (like others) have moved on. The challenge they present is to the individual: gaining in freedom but also in responsibility. This responsibility is to create and evolve . . . to face the void and put content into it.
Democracy does not imply a static society. Rather, it relinquishes the dream of control and accepts blind faith. It accepts that change is yet another aspect of reality which transcends our limitations. We are agents within, not gods unto ourselves. We cannot bemoan our inability to return to the “innocence” of divinty. 5 Paz has stated that he was sure of one thing: that we are living an interregnum. 6 Perhaps progress ammounts to no more than the realization that we always have been and always will. The concept of stability is only a reflection of our myopia. Interruption is movement, is history, is us. We are the interval in which the universe reflects upon itself. It can be no surprise that this reflection is local. The difficulty Paz identifies is that once radically stretched or extended, the local reveals the vastness of its context. Eternity and endlessness are brought home. The important point is that such an interregnum is not unsurpassible. We are simply, painfully pushed to extend our selves . . . once managed, we regain our focus and the local is re-established within the unbounded. The basis of meaning once again remains.
1 Octavio Paz,, Itinerary: An Intellectual Journey, trans., Jason Wilson (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1994): 88.
2 Ibid.
3 This content is resilient but not static.
4 Majority, as history amply illustrates, is a quantity of power. If democracy has any teleological effect, it may be that it works to free the distribution of power as a flow seeking its equilibrium within the world’s population. This would appear to be a very slow process.
5 Could anything be more loaded!
6 Paz: 89.
posted by haro d' aires at 5:01 p.m.
1 Comments:
I am a big reader of Octavio Paz. He is a great figure in contemporary thought and poetics. A God of sorts. you are brave to disagree, but i find myself sympathetic to your refusal of his strongly negative tagging of democratic co-existence. while I have grave doubts about the workability of democracy within today's corporately dominated world, I have a hard time thinking that of itself it is soul destroying. You seem overly positive about it though. Are you sure Paz point doesn't have more to do with the unworkability of pure democracy (based on individuals) in a world ever dominated by power structures which transcend both national governments and nations themselves?
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