The Dilemma of Democracy

THE first question which statesman has to put to himself when he makes judgment on condition of democracy and its future, is: Where are we now? We also must take this pragmatic point of view if our thinking is to be of practical value. The answer to question is only too clear. All democracies are at war; they are engaged in common war, besieged and fighting for their lives. President Roosevelt in his speech of March 16, 1941 spoke of battle lines of For him, as for Winston Churchill, leader of other great contemporary democracy, first question is: Will lines hold? Has democracy, in Churchill's phrase, the faculty of survival in high and honorable and indeed glorious debate? And for them both this is no abstract question, but question of fate of Great Britain and America, without whose survival democracy as form of government, and not as mere idea, theory, or memory, must disappear from human society for long time. We are not concerned here with forms of democracy, but rather with its substance. It is worth noting that forms rather than substance are emphasized in most modern definitions of democracy. Lord Bryce, for example, in his great book, Modern Democracies, published in 1921 at height of victory of democracy, defines it as a in which will of majority of qualified citizens rules, taking qualified citizens to represent great bulk of inhabitants, say, roughly at least three fourths. The emphasis here is on forms-the franchise, voting, and majority rule. Even definitions which emphasize nature of processes of democracy-that is, government by discussion, based on compromise-hardly touch substance. The root of matter is autonomous personality, condition in which mind and conscience are sufficiently in control of instinctual drives for personality to act in accordance with conscience, reason, and reality. We shall discuss later how democracy, based on this principle, differs in its nature and operations from totalitarian regime, based not on autonomous personalities but on mass situation in which personality is completely subordinated to leader.