Backside of the Circle

The recent bending of truth in American politics toward ideological extremes is more than disturbing. It’s dangerous. Seemingly enemies, the far-left and the far-right have met at the back of the circle where anti-democratic and authoritarian behavior exists. This shared authoritarian psychological core is the true enemy of democracy, not the two dominant political binaries.

sci-fi-horror audio drama Democracy Jones Podcast .

Social media, the institution where we communicate the most, incentivizes conflict, thereby empowering extreme ideas.

The majority of journalism no longer strives for objectivity and instead of encouraging civil discourse, journalistic institutions have found themselves having to choose a political side to survive, as if it were just another form of subjective activism.

The bifurcation of political parties and views is in full swing. If you’re at least somewhat knowledgable of history, you’ll know that these trends have often led to political violence and even civil war, if reasonable, democratic values do not check our authoritarian, reactive side.

Not even the assumed belief in American exceptionalism will save us if we continue down this path.

It is not illegal to call for someone to be silenced, cancelled or to discredit others’ views, so what we are speaking of is more along the lines of cultural norms. The revolutionary democratic norms outlined in the US Constitution, in fact. Those norms call for extensive checks and balances in order to halt authoritarian attitudes before they became too powerful. These ideas, borne out of the Enlightenment, allows for multiple views to debate, then compromise.

The Greco-Roman writer Polybius felt as though the Roman Republic had such exceptional checks on authoritarian accumulation, that he announced it had successfully overcome history’s disturbing trends of civilizational decline. Call it Roman exceptionalism. But it fell unceremoniously into mob violence and civil war after years of demagogues and authoritarian personalities from both sides of the political aisle called for proscription lists and purges. Entire armies lead by populist generals clashed, killing millions. Yet it didn’t matter which side won, as it was their Republic they were unwittingly degrading due to their insulated, politicized beliefs.

Rome and the Mediterranean world were shocked and thrown into centuries of turmoil. If we continue to allow authoritarian behavior to ascend today in the United States, the entire world could suffer a new dark age. It’s time for intelligent, thoughtful people to point out corrosive, anti-democratic behaviors committed by both sides, which is the goal of Democracy Jones Podcast.

Examples of shared authoritarian behavior include demands for political conformity, rhetorical attacks against differing views, the use of group authority to coerce independent institutions into purging competing narratives, ideological rigidity, slander and personal attacks against perceived political enemies, undermining constitutional checks and balances and delegitimizing their political independence, breaking of norms and laws as a means for political ends, corruption, social policing of language, gaslighting, purity tests, ideological discipline among member groups, advocation of censorship to stifle opposing ideas, absolutist leadership, etc.

In this climate, people who can hold two conflicting ideas in their head at the same time are branded as traitors to each respective side, or simply cast as belonging to the opposing side. Cool-headed, nonpartisan Americans are attacked as if they are in the throes of a zero sum game. Yet, the line between these two sides is not black and white. In fact there is no line at all. It is a gray circle. And we need to populate the front of that circle as best we can with appeals to open-mindedness, allowance for opposing views, demand independence for our institutions, point out ideological rigidity, encourage free thinking and utilize more dialectical method of debate in place of rhetoric.

Imagine a world where opposing sides come together in the spirit of solving real world problems by finding the highest probabilities of objective truth via compromise and reasoned argumentation. And to exclude the populist demagoguery of appealing to an audience, via the recognition that popularity is a fallacy of relevance.

Invest in an idea lab. Divest from echo chambers. Compromise is not your enemy if truth is your objective. Scapegoat the backside of the circle today. Come to the front.

Although there are elements of sci-fi, horror and speculative fiction in Democracy Jones Podcast, at its heart, it takes the current American political landscape and projects it into the future, based on historical events, such as the decline of democratic norms during the Late Republic period of Ancient Rome.

Eamon Loingsigh
artofneed@gmail.com