2: The Results of Democratic Evolution
The Influence of Theories of No Rational Value
Those who cling to their beliefs are never troubled about whether they make sense, and many of the things upon which men insist have no rational value.
Religion is an obvious example: beliefs can serve as the basis for a religion in spite of an utter lack of plausibility: from the pagan gods to the modern ones, the folktales and scriptures contain a great many accounts that are clearly nonsensical and utterly impossible. Yet this does not dissuade men from believing in them quite passionately.
Science is not immune: a plausible theory is defended against all evidence to the contrary. Much of what was accepted as fact one hundred years ago seems ludicrous today. It is vanity to suppose the scientific facts of the present age will not seem equally ludicrous one hundred years hence.
Particularly in a democratic society, there is no rational standard: truth is what the majority of people claim it to be. And as such theories that are utterly devoid of any logic or basis in demonstrable fact become the foundation of society. Men will become butchers or martyrs for a cause that is based on the irrational, imaginary, and illusionary - even if they are not themselves deceived.
And in the realm of politics, the truth of a statement is not the motive of those who wish to have influence over others. They seem all the more pleased when they can manipulate others into assenting to obvious falsehoods. It can therefore be said that any man who means to become an apostle of a new doctrine is wasting his time if he means to use reason to derive the beliefs he wishes to promulgate: any plausible fiction will suffice; even plausibility is unnecessary.
The Mentality Created by Democratic Beliefs
The principles of a belief system result in a mentality among the believers - but it is entirely possible, and quite common, to adopt a mentality without understanding the principles.
The "Jacobin spirit" of hatred and intolerance has become so general in France and other countries that it has infected all political parties, even the most conservative, and the bourgeoisie is strongly affected by it. Many people who adopt this mentality are not familiar with the principles of the Jacobins, and some have never heard of them at all, but yet have adopted their mentality, often with only a vague sense of the reason they have done so.
The behavioral traits of the Jacobins, namely imposing their beliefs on other by force, has pervaded the world of politics. Political discourse is laden with bold statements, intolerance, incendiary remarks, and vague threats. Some have adopted this posture as a means to promulgate their beliefs, others have adopted it in defense against such attempts.
That France is not in a state of perpetual chaos is because the parties into which the government is divided are incapable of coming to an agreement, and routinely prevent one another from making any progress. The tenor of their interaction is not one of harmonious collaboration, but a stalemate among groups with a mortal hatred of one another, none of which is strong enough to enslave its rivals.
While hatred and intolerance are often regarded as being peculiar to the lower classes, these qualities are evident even among their betters. Those who profess to be sophisticated and intellectual use the same tactics, though in rather more decorative language. Even university journals, once the voice of scholarly indifference, have become charged with polemics.
This evolution has not only produced poltivial results but has also had considerable effect on the mentality of individuals.
One of the chief results has become the general distrust and hatred of superiority. There is an implicit hatred of anything that surpasses the average, particularly individuals of wealth, social favor, or intelligence. The results are envy, distraction, persecution, and a habit of attributing all actions to low motives.
Casual conversation, even among the most cultivated individuals, is marked with a penchant for abasing and abusing everything and everyone, and showing no respect at all. We do not honor those who are accomplished, but instead enjoy debasing them - even the most honored figures of history do not escape this tendency. The hatred of those who excel is the most prominent element in socialism, which has ceased to consider raising the standard for all but instead seems bent on dragging down any who dare exceed it.
Precipitating from this inherent hatred of excellence are more indirect consequences, which are no less profound: mediocrity is extolled, success is discouraged, and the notion of morality is abandoned. Among the general population, irresponsibility, laziness, insubordination, envy and perpetual discontent are plainly evident.
In functional terms, this leads to a culture that is barely sustainable and galvanized against progress: those who would achieve are discouraged from trying - and if they summon the fortitude to press forward, they will be impeded by an "ink-slinging administration" that will require them to expend more time and money to obtain permission to do something than is required to actually get it done.
Of the public works, it is remarked that departments "prepare and execute their plans without knowing anything of what their neighbors are doing: there is no-one above them to group and coordinate their work. This is why a road is often torn up, repaired, and then torn up again a few days later. ... any private firm which operated in this manner would soon find itself bankrupt."
Suffrage and Its Representatives
The most fundamental dogma of democracy is the notion of universal suffrage: rich and poor, learned and ignorant, are all equal before the electoral urn - an in that moment, the power of each voter is equal. But the voting public is a crowd. It is therefore subject to irrational and impulsive behavior, making decisions that are based on the immediacy of its interest.
Most often, suffrage is limited to those who are believed to be most capable, or who have the greatest investment in preserving a society: a person must be of a certain age, or own a certain amount of land, or have spent a certain amount of time as a resident in order to be allowed to vote. Women, children, immigrants, and criminals are excluded from voting, even in nations where suffrage is otherwise considered to be universal.
Statists are fearful of universal suffrage, fearing that the vast majority of men are ignorant and immoral, and as such are thoroughly unqualified to make decisions pertaining to society. They maintain that the selection and appointment of functional leaders is a more productive alternative. They seem to fail to recognize that a king is no more likely than any peasant to make wise selections.
A republic is a compromise on the two systems: it is a system by which the multitude elect others to represent themselves in a parliament that makes decisions. Once a representative is elected, he exercises absolute power until the next election. It is supposed he will govern wisely, representing the interests of his people, with the desire to be re-elected - but the behavior of elected officials seems entirely indifferent to their electorate until a few months prior to the next election.
The policy work of parliament is often delegated to committees, which comprise a few men of strong opinions and a larger number of docile and disinterested sorts that are not gifted with much intelligence nor a very high morality, and who generally merely ratify whatever the leadership proposes.
Most of the functional work of a republic is done by agencies and departments, which operate little differently than they do under a despot: an agency is created and staffed, and runs largely independently of government, and is largely ignored unless it makes some egregious mistake that arouses the consternation of the citizens.
On very few occasions a decision is ratified in a general election, in which voters are directly asked to approve or decline a notion. This is not the same as democracy, as the people have little say into what they are allowed to vote upon. Moreover, these decisions are often ones that the politicians sense are quite dreadful and are seeking to escape the blame by making it the decision of the people to proceed.
The Craving for Reforms
The demand for reform is "one of the most disastrous conceptions of the Jacobin spirit" and the cause of constantly political upheaval. Reformers cry for change, simply for the sake of making a change, on the assumption that anything would be more likely to produce a positive outcome than the present system.
The psychological basis of a demand for reform is emotion without intelligence. The sense that the present situation is unsatisfactory is largely an emotional claim, though it may be rationalized by selecting certain observable facts that support a case for discontent. But the discontented are not often clear on what, exactly, is causing their discontent - nor are they clear on the reason making a specific change would produce a better outcome or, for that matter, what specific outcome they wish to produce.
It is very common in psychological dysfunction for a person who is experience negative emotions to seek a cause for those emotions, and to do so in an irrational manner. The paranoid schizophrenic person sees himself beset by imaginary foes, or suggests that any passing stranger is conspiring against him, or that unseen spirits or inanimate objects are the cause of his discontent.
In the same sense, reformers seek to blame and set themselves upon others whom they believe are responsible for their woes, or otherwise campaign for laws to remedy their imaginary ailments - all without understanding the real causes of their complaint, or assessing whether the changes they demand will be effective in achieving a positive outcome.
The political history of many countries is marked by such behavior: there are incessant reforms, each of which "is a little revolution" that seeks to effect an improvement - but because neither the cause nor the solution has been analyzed to any degree, they very often fail and more reforms are necessary to reform the reforms of the day before.
This rapidity of change means that a plan is often abandoned before it has a chance to be fully implemented, and that there is constant effort and little progress to show for it. The result of this is not evolution, but chaos.
Le Bon presents various evidence that shows the lack of progress made by France through the nineteenth century - and, in fact, virtually all of Europe has degenerated into constant chaos as the Jacobin spirit of constant reform has them wasting much effort and constantly changing direction. (EN: I've seen the same assessment made in studying American history - that the reason the US made so much progress in the world through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries is that Europe's internal chaos effectively took it out of the competition.)
Particularly in government, there is constant strife among conflicting parties that prevents any effective decisions to be made. Or when a political party builds sufficient momentum to make a decisive maneuver, it is nullified the by next party to take control before it is effected, or often even implemented. The net result of doing, undoing, redoing, and then trying something else is stagnation and decay.
This penchant for constant change has spread from the government to the industrial and commercial sectors, which are also showing stagnation and decline.
While it is claimed that something as significant in scale as a nation makes slow progress by taking small steps in the right direction, it is more accurate to observe that it makes no progress by taking small steps in random and contradictory directions. In such a situation, the downfall of the nation is an inevitability.
Distinctions in Democracies in Various Countries
Democracy itself is not a political agenda, but a political process that is used to accomplish political agendas. As has just been described, it is largely more effective in preventing anything from being accomplished.
Societies that tend to make the most progress have a consistency of purpose, though few purposes are ever unanimous in a large enough group of people. What generally happens is that some groups take power and consistently pursue their agenda, to the neglect of all others.
It is precisely the inequality of man that generally sorts out whose agenda is to be served by a society - those who hold power, whether by force or by control of assets, see their interests served. But the rule of the aristocracy is not democracy, but oligarchy.
When class distinctions are erased and men are made equal, there is no method of prioritizing the interests of one group over another, save by the size of the group. And as people are fickle about their politics, it can generally be observed that few groups can maintain a majority for long before they divide themselves up into factions.
Democracy in America is (at the author's time) far more effective than democracy in euripi, but this is not because of equality of men: if anything it is because of an inequality of fortune: those productive members of American society amass wealth and power, and have considerable influence.
While it was once the fashion of Americans to ally themselves of the old names of the European aristocracy, it has evolved it own aristocracy by means of merit. It is also observed that the poorest of Americans are without the bitterness and spite that characterizes the European peasant: because social rank is earned rather than bestowed by accident of birth, there is the notion and the hope that any person can rise through the ranks to earn their place in the aristocracy.
He cites a few European authors, who seem at once disgusted by and admiring of the American system - though the general agreement is that power by means of wealth is likely the only natural way to stratify a society, and as Europe casts off the last remnants of its romance with nobility, it will likely fall into the same.
He also seeks England and America as possessing a quality that most of Europe lacks: tolerance. The European mind is one of intolerance and hatred, which prevents effective collaboration among people - it matters not whether an idea is worth pursuing, if we have other reasons for despising the person who proposed it. This class/group hatred, so intense in continental Europe, is scarce seen in England and America - and for this reason people who are of different creeds and religions can collaborate on common goals, setting their incidental differences aside.