Beyond (this) Democracy (IV): Transcending our misconception of liberty
The re-integration of democratic societies into the boundaries of the eco-system will remain impossible as long as we stick to mental models from the post-War era. This text focuses on our misconception of liberty. It is the fourth of five sketches on a new democratic purpose. These thoughts are drawn from a paper I wrote for Das Progressive Zentrum, and they will be part of a book I am currently writing.
The future potential of self-organisation
Building on the purpose sketched out in Part III, let us, for the following pages, assume that democracy’s core potential is its systemic potential to unfold, develop and deepen our creative human abilities, both as individuals and collectives. Also, let us assume that democracy’s most meaningful purpose lies in providing parameters for the sustainable self-organisation of individuals and societies, aiming to re-embed humanity into the boundaries of the eco-system.
As briefly touched upon above, the realisation of this purpose is currently systemically hindered by certain systemic parameters, most importantly the mental models these parameters are built on. Take, for instance, our understanding of freedom. Today, we feel individually entitled to produce and consume solely based on our own decision-making, even if the sum of these “free” individual decisions leads to the continuous and existential violation of other humans’ well-being and the overarching eco-system’s boundaries.
A democratic freedom that destroys
Our current understanding of freedom implies that cost-externalisation is legitimate, even if it violates other humans, species, and destructively interferes in the self-regulation of the eco-system as a whole.
This ideology contains a weird paradox. In difference to the fictional, man-made boundaries set by the constitution, the factual limitations of the eco-system’s resources are nothing we must individually take into consideration. In this understanding, political actions that limit the negative consequences of individual cost-externalisation are regarded as limitation of individual freedom.[1] This ideology severely caps our potential for successfully tackling systemic challenges like climate change. New systemic parameters — like laws or social norms — that potentially could lead to shrinking our destructive collective footprint are made impossible by this mental model, as they are regarded as ideologically unfit for the freedom democracy supposedly grants us.
Ideological mental models keep us stuck in disaster
We may be in urgent need of new systemic parameters — but due to our ideological unwillingness to systemically interfere into “free” individual decision-making, we are incapable to come up with meaningful solutions. Paradoxically, this leads to a shift of systemic responsibility that reverses the idea of representation. Individual citizens, with their limited capability of making decisions that balance both individual and systemic well-being,[2] are burdened with the task of permanently doing exactly that. For ideological reasons, we shift the solution of systemic problems to individual decision-making. For instance, we hope for people, fueled by rational insight and moral consideration, to buy emission-free cars, renewable energy, and not use plastic. At the same time, we leave systemic parameters in place that incentivise behaviour that runs counter to this expectation. Politics, which could set new parameters that facilitate meaningful individual decision-making and steer collective action into the desired direction, denies this responsibility. It reduces its actions to incremental, technical attempts to interfere into current cycles of self-destruction (like implementing deposits for recyclable cans and bottles). Governments thus externalise the attempt to “solve” current systemic challenges on individual citizens, instead of aiming for systemic solutions that then steer collective action.
This definition of freedom supports is a product of a liberal ideology that is overtly focused on the individual, which furthers an atomised perspective on society. From a future perspective, we must reconsider this viewpoint. After all, it is the quality of and the dynamic in human relationships that shapes the well-being of society (and thus shared systemic properties like culture; peace; solidarity), not primarily the state of its single parts (your material welfare). As Norbert Elias put it, civilization is ultimately created by the increasingly differentiated and interconnected level of interdependency in society.[3] On the individual level, this insight is mirrored in the findings of psychological and neurological research, which increases our understanding of the massive interdependence and fluidity of individuality in an interconnected world. As social beings, interwoven into the massive complexity of the eco-system, individuals are inseparable from that surrounding. Our individual well-being is meaningless if we, by behaving the way we behave, add to the suffering around us that ultimately undermines our own quality of life.
These thoughts remind us that there are many mental models that keep us from solving the challenges we face, instead of helping us doing so. We could confront our idea that humans are a superior, godlike species, or our understanding of progress as linear development. Such ideas have defined the modern era and hold us back significantly regarding today’s pressure for societal transformation. If we do not manage to identify and overcome these notions, we will continue to be paralysed in the face of existential systemic challenges: knowing that we have to change, but not knowing how because most strategic options are ruled out by patterns of thinking that were generated in past environments that knew little or nothing of the wicked challenges it would create.
Check out The End of Centrist Politics, the first part of this five-part-series, and Part II, Making Sense of Illiberalism. Part III focuses on the confusion of democratic structures and processes with its purpose. Part V explores on the future potentials of self-organisation and our individual lever to drive systemic progress.
[1] Think of current debates like the prohibition of Diesel cars from entering inner cities in Germany or controlling the sale of guns in the US.
[2] See Kahneman, Daniel: Thinking fast and slow, Penguin 2002.
[3] Elias, Norbert. Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, Volumes 1&2.
