Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Tendency towards authoritharianism is inherent in human nature. This is not something which can be avoided or done away through having a certain political system - it is entirely possible for a formal democracy to become highly authoritharian.
In part, it stems from fear. Fear of being hurt, of being attacked. Democracy is based on discussion of ideas, any functioning society is based on discussion of ideas, but fact is that such discussion can often be highly uncomfortable, even painful. Thus people have a natural tendency to seek to insulate themselves from pain.
But this is often taken too far. If their initial - perhaps reasonable - concerns are satisfied, many people will push further. So with time, we go from "protection from assaults on one's person and livelihood" to "protection from ideas which make loudest groups uncomfortable". Much like with Changelings from Star Trek, fear of potential danger which has become a psychosis is being translated into obsessive need to control others' behaviour, all to avoid being hurt.
As a result, it has to be actively fought. But modern Western society is built upon values such as "compassion". While not inherently bad, these values had been taken too far, thus enabling people with above-described fears, as well as people with simple tendency towards control, to translate said values into what is today often described as "political correctness". But PC culture and cancel culture are simply manifestations, small parts of general psychological problem facing the Western civilization.
This is not a new problem. "Protection from being hurt", in all its varied forms, is precisely how dictators and dictatorships historically came to be. Dukes and kings and feudal lords started out as bullies with gangs, who gave out protection from other gangs in exhange for being given a set (and thus predictable and - usually - manageable) amount of resources. In fact, the primary (or some would say, sole) purpose of the state, in any period, is to be the biggest bully on the block and use said status to protect people forming the state from other bullies - within or without it. But when state fails in this task, people will seek replacement of leadership - and if system is seen as failing in the task, this can and often (usually?) does lead to appearance of dictators.
While such a situation is nowadays often seen as aberration, it is a fact that democracy - especially formal democracy - is historically an aberration itself. Democracy is based on the presumption of people being educated, organized and well-off enough to act as their own bullies. People also have to know each other well-enough, to be culturally, linguistically and mentally similar and unified enough to come to common conclusions and common goals, which thus serve to remove the need to force consent among the populace, to self-organize well enough to protect against external threats and to be unified enough to make said self-organization a possibility in the first place. Thus democracy historically appeared only in very small communities - Greek city-states, Italian city-states, Swiss villages - which, due to virtue of geography, surrounding geopolitical situation, or both, could afford to remain independent without significantly endangering their existence, and which were homogenous enough to be capable of such self-organization.
But even in such communities, democracy was comparatively rare. Democractic process is inherently sluggish and ineffective, due to requirement of engaging large numbers of people in discussion. This same requirement also meant that democracy was geographically limited, as people had to come to consensus, and this required discussion - which is much easier at local than at regional or national level. It is thus not a mistake to see democracy as being, in large part, a function of decentralization. Fact is that more centralized societies are, for a given political system, automatically more authoritharian: they encompass larger poplace and larger geographical area, thus making discussion more difficult. They encompass on average larger number of different groups, populaces and peoples, thus making consent more difficult. It is not difficult to reach a conclusion that a particularly decentralized monarchy could, actually, be more democratic than a particularly centralized republic. In fact, it can be argued that formal democracy is actually dangerous to democratization of society itself, thus introducing the conflict between democracy as a value and democracy as a political system.
And that is what historically has been the case. Relatively culturally unified states with relatively decentralized political system were often able to achieve significant levels of democratization, be it formal or informal. Introduction of the theme system in Byzantine Empire saw local thematic armies serve as representatives of interests of provincial populace, overthrowing Emperors which ignored these interests. Decentralization of power which arose as a consequence of introduction of thematic system thus had as a direct consequence democratization of the Empire. Holy Roman Empire was even more decentralized - and while the Emperor was typically of the line of Habsburgs, he could not easily ignore the requests of towns and local communities, thus giving the Empire significant democratic character.
But in multicultural / multiethnic entities, any high-level democratization was largely impossible due to requirement of maintaining consent between different groups. While Holy Roman Empire had elements of democracy, Austrian Empire (which included Hungary and Croatia) very empathically did not. It is thus unavoidable that current processes of globalization, centralization and supranational integration will lead to loss of democracy, as ability to gain consent will significantly decrease.
Multicultural society is in fact in many ways equivalent to a multilinguistic one. Culture impacts thought processes, so people of different cultures very easily end up talking past each other. More significantly perhaps, it reduces the amount of inherent or implied consent - which is absolutely required for democratic governance. It is indeed possible to have democracy in a multicultural society - but this can only be achieved if each cultural group can be given significant autonomy in making its own decisions, thus reducing the - necessarily authoritharian - overhead to minimum while shifting majority of weight of government to the local level. This however requires said groups to be separated geographically, allowing each group to form governance at local level according to its own culture and propensities. Even then, need to mediate conflicts between the groups will often - perhaps unavoidably - give rise to an authoritharian authority above said groups which will be able to enforce its will. In other words, an empire.
This empire, as noted, need not have an actual emperor. What it will have is a highly centralized authority acting as a God, imposing top-down values on the rest of society - oftentimes by force. Whether said authority is an Emperor, a King, or a Supreme / Constitutional Court, is irrelevant. What matters is that such an authority exists. It is thus perhaps ironic - but not unexpected - that modern-day representative democracy promotes precisely such centralization to an extent much greater than seen in a typical monarchy.
In part, it stems from fear. Fear of being hurt, of being attacked. Democracy is based on discussion of ideas, any functioning society is based on discussion of ideas, but fact is that such discussion can often be highly uncomfortable, even painful. Thus people have a natural tendency to seek to insulate themselves from pain.
But this is often taken too far. If their initial - perhaps reasonable - concerns are satisfied, many people will push further. So with time, we go from "protection from assaults on one's person and livelihood" to "protection from ideas which make loudest groups uncomfortable". Much like with Changelings from Star Trek, fear of potential danger which has become a psychosis is being translated into obsessive need to control others' behaviour, all to avoid being hurt.
As a result, it has to be actively fought. But modern Western society is built upon values such as "compassion". While not inherently bad, these values had been taken too far, thus enabling people with above-described fears, as well as people with simple tendency towards control, to translate said values into what is today often described as "political correctness". But PC culture and cancel culture are simply manifestations, small parts of general psychological problem facing the Western civilization.
This is not a new problem. "Protection from being hurt", in all its varied forms, is precisely how dictators and dictatorships historically came to be. Dukes and kings and feudal lords started out as bullies with gangs, who gave out protection from other gangs in exhange for being given a set (and thus predictable and - usually - manageable) amount of resources. In fact, the primary (or some would say, sole) purpose of the state, in any period, is to be the biggest bully on the block and use said status to protect people forming the state from other bullies - within or without it. But when state fails in this task, people will seek replacement of leadership - and if system is seen as failing in the task, this can and often (usually?) does lead to appearance of dictators.
While such a situation is nowadays often seen as aberration, it is a fact that democracy - especially formal democracy - is historically an aberration itself. Democracy is based on the presumption of people being educated, organized and well-off enough to act as their own bullies. People also have to know each other well-enough, to be culturally, linguistically and mentally similar and unified enough to come to common conclusions and common goals, which thus serve to remove the need to force consent among the populace, to self-organize well enough to protect against external threats and to be unified enough to make said self-organization a possibility in the first place. Thus democracy historically appeared only in very small communities - Greek city-states, Italian city-states, Swiss villages - which, due to virtue of geography, surrounding geopolitical situation, or both, could afford to remain independent without significantly endangering their existence, and which were homogenous enough to be capable of such self-organization.
But even in such communities, democracy was comparatively rare. Democractic process is inherently sluggish and ineffective, due to requirement of engaging large numbers of people in discussion. This same requirement also meant that democracy was geographically limited, as people had to come to consensus, and this required discussion - which is much easier at local than at regional or national level. It is thus not a mistake to see democracy as being, in large part, a function of decentralization. Fact is that more centralized societies are, for a given political system, automatically more authoritharian: they encompass larger poplace and larger geographical area, thus making discussion more difficult. They encompass on average larger number of different groups, populaces and peoples, thus making consent more difficult. It is not difficult to reach a conclusion that a particularly decentralized monarchy could, actually, be more democratic than a particularly centralized republic. In fact, it can be argued that formal democracy is actually dangerous to democratization of society itself, thus introducing the conflict between democracy as a value and democracy as a political system.
And that is what historically has been the case. Relatively culturally unified states with relatively decentralized political system were often able to achieve significant levels of democratization, be it formal or informal. Introduction of the theme system in Byzantine Empire saw local thematic armies serve as representatives of interests of provincial populace, overthrowing Emperors which ignored these interests. Decentralization of power which arose as a consequence of introduction of thematic system thus had as a direct consequence democratization of the Empire. Holy Roman Empire was even more decentralized - and while the Emperor was typically of the line of Habsburgs, he could not easily ignore the requests of towns and local communities, thus giving the Empire significant democratic character.
But in multicultural / multiethnic entities, any high-level democratization was largely impossible due to requirement of maintaining consent between different groups. While Holy Roman Empire had elements of democracy, Austrian Empire (which included Hungary and Croatia) very empathically did not. It is thus unavoidable that current processes of globalization, centralization and supranational integration will lead to loss of democracy, as ability to gain consent will significantly decrease.
Multicultural society is in fact in many ways equivalent to a multilinguistic one. Culture impacts thought processes, so people of different cultures very easily end up talking past each other. More significantly perhaps, it reduces the amount of inherent or implied consent - which is absolutely required for democratic governance. It is indeed possible to have democracy in a multicultural society - but this can only be achieved if each cultural group can be given significant autonomy in making its own decisions, thus reducing the - necessarily authoritharian - overhead to minimum while shifting majority of weight of government to the local level. This however requires said groups to be separated geographically, allowing each group to form governance at local level according to its own culture and propensities. Even then, need to mediate conflicts between the groups will often - perhaps unavoidably - give rise to an authoritharian authority above said groups which will be able to enforce its will. In other words, an empire.
This empire, as noted, need not have an actual emperor. What it will have is a highly centralized authority acting as a God, imposing top-down values on the rest of society - oftentimes by force. Whether said authority is an Emperor, a King, or a Supreme / Constitutional Court, is irrelevant. What matters is that such an authority exists. It is thus perhaps ironic - but not unexpected - that modern-day representative democracy promotes precisely such centralization to an extent much greater than seen in a typical monarchy.