Many people get involved in political debates and start taking political action because it all seems so obvious to them. They’re sure they know what the problems are, what’s causing them, and how to fix them. In American politics, at least, an important question soon follows: If everything is so obvious, why are there all of these people who disagree with me?
Most commentators who think about this sort of situation endorse one of four kinds of responses. First, the other people might disagree because they’re stupid or irrational. Their brains just don’t work well enough to see the obvious. Second, the other people might disagree (or seem to disagree) because they’re bad people. They know what the problems are, but they don’t care, or else they’re lying to serve their own interests in some way. Third, the other people might disagree because something has sort of commandeered their thinking, some nefarious force. This could be the power of propaganda or some sort of unconscious bias that leads them away from the truth. Fourth, the other people might disagree quite reasonably and have some good points. If this is the case, then we shouldn’t think the answers to political questions are so obvious anymore. We should temper our certainty and either engage civilly or eschew political discourse entirely. I call these responses the “four Ms.” You might think your opponent is a moron, a monster, or a maniac. Or you might think, “Maybe they’re right.”
This scenario of political disagreement is what concerns Vanderbilt University political philosopher Robert Talisse in his new book Sustaining Democracy. But he is not quite happy with any of the four solutions outlined above. Explaining instead what he calls a “democratic ethos,” a kind of set of virtues that should govern the political engagement of a democratic citizen, Talisse is adamant that we should not demonize or diagnose our opponents, as the first three solutions would have us do. But he also doesn’t think democracy should require that we give up our moral and political convictions, either, as the fourth response seems to. The “democrat’s dilemma,” as Talisse calls it, is that democratic politics, generally conceived, asks us to treat our political opponents as equals, while our specific political views may entail that our opponents are moral monsters or perceive the world in a way completely at odds with reality. Presented with this dilemma, it is tempting to say simply that one should weigh these different ethical norms, just as we often weigh pros and cons in our decision-making, and see which one wins out on a case-by-case basis.
Talisse is not satisfied with this balancing idea, however, and the argument he replaces it with is the most noteworthy aspect of the book. It might seem that justice requires that we treat our political opponents as enemies, as though they’re either monsters or morons. However, Talisse argues this will tend not to serve the purposes of justice because it will make it harder for us to accomplish our political goals. Talisse thinks that when we give in to the dynamics that cause us to treat our political opponents as stupid or evil, we tend to end up treating many of our political allies that way, too. So our political coalitions tend to fracture, and we end up unable to accomplish any of the things we want to accomplish.
In making his case, Talisse focuses on a trend in contemporary politics, which he calls belief polarization. Belief polarization has many aspects to it: different political beliefs becoming associated with one another, political parties becoming more extreme, centrist views disappearing, and perhaps most importantly, the association of a political side with a cultural identity, which affects and is affected by geography, education, consumer behavior, and other factors. Under this sort of political sorting, one coffee shop might be “coded” Republican, while another might be “coded” Democratic. Barbecue might seem right-wing, while vegan falafel might seem left-wing. The NFL might seem right-wing, while New York sitcoms might seem left-wing. And so on. On the extreme end, some theorists argue that political behavior is nothing more than signaling our affiliation with one or another of these political identities or our membership in one or another of these political groups. But because polarization has these different aspects, it’s not clear that the kind of dynamic that leads us to demonize our opponents is the same kind of dynamic that might lead us to alienate our allies. This renders Talisse’s argument inconclusive.
While Talisse’s treatment of the democratic dilemma is characteristically lucid and interesting, the tensions within his idea of a democratic ethos may be more general than he allows. There are some reasons to be doubtful of the democratic ethos Talisse proposes. It doesn’t just conflict with the moral and political convictions that participants in the democratic process might have, but it might be unstable already on its own. For instance, Talisse seems to suggest both that it goes against the democratic ethos to engage in propaganda and that it goes against the democratic ethos to think of our political opponents as having been taken in by propaganda. But this requires a kind of double vision. Out of one eye, we see propaganda as potentially very powerful, capable of turning those to whom we show it into thoughtless partisans for our views. Out of the other eye, we see propaganda as powerless, incapable of turning our opponents into thoughtless partisans for their views. A democratic citizen must engage in some kind of cognitive dissonance in order to keep both of these thoughts in their head at once. Similarly, good democratic participation seems to require that we maintain our independent judgment while simultaneously trusting the will of the people.
Talisse closes the book by offering some suggestions about how people can try to escape polarization. Talisse thinks the best way democratic citizens can avoid the dynamics of political polarization and political saturation is by regarding their political convictions as being vulnerable to reasonable criticism. Talisse notes that this is not the same as saying that citizens must waver in their political commitments or be uncertain, as the “Maybe” option would have it. Rather, it just means that the citizen should acknowledge that there might be better ways of framing, arguing, or thinking about the ideas of which they’re completely certain. However, it’s not clear to me how this would help anyone avoid the dilemma that worries Talisse. If I can remain completely sure that all my political views are right even if I’m not sure I know the best argument for them, then that’s even more reason to think that I might set aside my general democratic responsibilities in favor of my particular political convictions. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini reportedly worked on speeches and practiced his rhetorical presentation for hours a day, and his democratic convictions were pretty weak.
Sustaining Democracy poses two questions to the reader: Should we maintain a commitment to democratic values in our political lives? And if so, how can we? These are very pressing questions both at an intellectual and a practical level. The framework of the democrat’s dilemma helps clarify a ton of recurrent debates about norms, civility, disagreement, partisanship, ideology, and so on, and the argument that between-group polarization is continuous with internecine bitterness should be taken very seriously. Almost uniquely among writers on these topics, Talisse is highly sensitive both to concerns of democratic process and to concerns of political substance. The book is worth reading as much for the way in which it frames its question as for the answers it gives. If I have one real complaint, it is that those questions and answers are sometimes posed in a rather roundabout way, by starting with some sort of vignette and sometimes with some sort of mental instruction, such as “Begin by noting…” The topic is, at its core, a simple one: what to make of the fact that many people disagree with our deeply held political convictions and in fact have their own diametrically opposed convictions to boot. Talisse’s treatment of the problem will be interesting to anyone who thinks about political disagreement in a culture often defined by it. It may not provide a final answer.
Oliver Traldi is a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and a writing fellow at Heterodox Academy.
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