Closing thoughts on David Runciman's How Democracy Ends. A two-parter? Curse that DR!
On Catastrophe
There was a time when warning the public of environmental catastrophe was expected to galvanize it into collectively pressuring elected officials to remedy the situation. Not today. After decades, the threat of climate collapse, supported by a towering body of evidence, hasn't. Anyone attempting to have the same effect, Runciman observes, is at a disadvantage: The worst consequences must be imagined. Of the consequences visible now, they're both unevenly felt throughout the world and gradual. Even striking the right tone can be difficult, since most thoughts, including those about democracy, have a tendency to dissolve in the face of true catastrophe.
People need to believe that what they do still matters. Otherwise they are liable to feel powerless. The challenge for anyone wanting to scare people into action is not to scare them into inaction instead. If democracy is just a sideshow, then democratic citizens are bound to feel sidelined. They might drift off again.
(Runciman also reasonably speculates that apocalyptic warnings were once novel but, in the 21st century, people have heard about the fast-approaching End one too many times.)
Neither democracies nor non-democracies have taken the steps necessary to halt or mitigate climate collapse. In the former case, politicians voice support or denial, thereby putting it up for debate, creating another source of conspiracy theory. With no general agreement on the facts and no unified demand for proper action, democracy appears unable to decide what to do. Runciman displays what passes for optimism in 2022: Once the consequences are evenly felt throughout the world, he trusts it'll respond accordingly, as it has in the past, though by then it may be too late.
One scenario that's missing from his list of catastrophes is a pandemic. What we've learned from our recent experience with one is that hospitals can fill up, medical workers can complain of burnout and express a sense of betrayal and leave the field, people can die in the hundreds of thousands in the US alone, the economy can be ravaged, and still there'll be no general agreement on the facts and a unified demand for proper action. What we get is more conspiracy theory. Each side uses the pandemic to attack the other. One state's policy differs from the next state's policy. A vaccine arrives but it's unclear how many are willing to take it. The Supreme Court, preventing the Biden administration from enforcing a testing-or-vaccination mandate on large companies, isn't too worried about the coronavirus as an occupational hazard. Looking to yesterday's track record on this matter doesn't seem to serve as a reliable guide for collective future behavior either. Updated with the latest findings, the record is now spottier. For a considerable number of people, serious illness and death can simply be waved off if it means being inconvenienced or going by the word of a liberal.
Nuclear disarmament was once a pressing issue. Now barely anyone talks about it. The few who do are unelected officials. To disarm or not isn't a question asked of voters in democracies. And we can't be sure how we even managed to get this far, whether through skillful political maneuvering or sheer luck or some mysterious combination of the two. Until a nuke detonates or we get rid of them entirely, we live with uncertainty.
Nuclear catastrophe lacks grip because it is an all-or-nothing phenomenon. There is nothing that can make it real without threatening to make everything else effectively meaningless. It is too huge to grasp. So we cross our fingers and hope that our luck holds.
Runciman similarly examines the potential for the system to be infiltrated by evil, the threat of new technology, and the threat that one flaw in an interconnected system can take everything down, and finds that democracy and existential risk make a bad pair. Democracy can't manage any of the catastrophes he writes about, while the experts and theorists focused on existential risk tend to think of democracy as a distraction or of secondary concern without being able to elude or suppress it. Yet they remain a pair. And we live with uncertainty on all fronts.
On Technological Takeover
The date for the emergence of AI has been pushed back repeatedly, and can't do it.
Alternatives to Democracy
As tempting as it is to write about the entire book, I can't give so much of it away. To promote the joys of discovery, and to not be lame, I jump ahead to my
Conclusion
One can make a record of reality as it unfolds and leave it there. Or one can go further, warning of distressing trends today. And yet further: Provide a solution or prophesize where we will be tomorrow. Issuing a warning on the state of democracy is natural and sensible. Who'll listen? Those shouting for a better democracy may be shouting for a worse democracy or no democracy (while accusing the other side of the same). The situation devolves. As Runciman puts it: "conspiracy theory v. conspiracy theory in the name of democracy." Constructive solutions are hard to come by and Runciman doesn't have one either, though he doesn't pretend to have one. Prophecies are easier to come by. It'd be an exaggeration to say Runciman has his own. Instead he argues comprehensively and persuasively that democracy will be here when we wake up, limping into the foreseeable future and, a few years on, that's precisely what's happened. But the coming years or decades could prove him wrong and if he is, he'll be pummeled on that basis alone. (Treatment that certain prophets may not receive if their prophecies turn out to be wrong.) Set the crystal ball aside. My last compliment for David Runciman is that his book enlarges and refines my view of the present.
