The democratic conversation

The true phantom that runs through our democracies is not the extreme right but the confusion about what to do with it, how to fight it with justice and efficiency: if we have to dialogue, if we enter into a confrontation that implies accepting its mental framework or if we try to introduce an alternative agenda ... In this decision we play a lot because the provocations of those who openly oppose us are less worrisome than our mistakes in dealing with them. With wrong diagnoses and clumsy reactions on our part it is not strange the growth of such adversaries.

Combat strategies are being more resounding than effective: red lines, sanitary cords, limitations on freedom of expression, exclusion of interlocutors, extension of crimes (such as the recent proposal to penalize the apology of Francoism). We seem to ignore how few things the penal code solves and we prefer calming measures than effective measures. Posts to choose, we choose what generates good conscience to us against what would cause them bad conscience. Marginalization indicates little confidence in ourselves, in the strength of our convictions and arguments, a very low confidence in the maturity of the people, whom we cannot deprive of the experience of listening to nonsense. Going to this fight armed only with the instruments of prohibition has the consequence that even the facades give the appearance of defending freedoms. With the exclusion we provide you with your two favorite weapons: noise and victimhood.

Of course there is a radical difference between governing with them and talking with them, but even the latter seems to many highly inadvisable. It is a dilemma that reappears again and again in the history of democracy and on which its best theorists have opined. Should we talk to the terraplanistas? Is it any good to listen to them? Does tolerance imply the duty to support those who defend intolerant ideologies?

There is nothing more civilizing than an extremist who checks the low resistance of the data he handles

The idea of ​​excluding certain interlocutors has made its way even in a place as antidogmatic as universities. In 2014, an intense controversy began in the United States (later transferred to many universities around the world) about whether universities could allow the presence of voices considered extreme. It is a difficult justification approach in an institution that is a place of profound diversity of opinions. When promoting science, the rules of objectivity are better, more efficient and more respectful of freedom of thought than moral convictions. A terraplanista will hardly publish in Nature, but not because of an ideological marginalization but because he will not be able to write an article of the required quality, which requires evidence, respect for objectivity and rigorous argumentation. Establishing an express ideological exclusion (in the style of "we prohibit terraplanism in universities") is equivalent to implying that those who study in it are fragile people who could be traumatized if they are exposed to extreme political ideas. As John Stuart Mill said, we are not infallible and we do not have the right to "protect" others from hearing an opinion different from ours. In a similar vein, Hanna Holborn Gray, former president of the University of Chicago, said that "the training is not to provide comfort to human beings but to make them reflect." The most liberating thing in science is the possibility of confronting intellectually with experiences that have nothing to do with one's own life experience.

Dialogue has multiple benefits for democratic life: it allows us to know them, forces them to argue, reveals their weaknesses and offers us the possibility to convince them. From the outset, excluding extremists from the democratic conversation would prevent us from knowing them and we should not forget that many of our mistakes when it comes to fighting them have their origin, rather than in their ability, in our own ignorance (how not to understand the type of outrage from which they are nourished or not to succeed with the kind of candidate and speech most appropriate for the electoral confrontation; for example, why Trump won and which would be the best candidate so that he does not do it again). If we add to this the fact that we tend to underestimate the strength of what we hate, the logical consequence is that it ends up not only detestable but incomprehensible that people vote for this or that candidate.

Democratic tolerance implies hearing things that dislike us and even detest us

If you have to talk to the extremists, it is not because you are going to be able to convince them (a more remote possibility the more extreme the interlocutor is), but for those who listen to the debate to have the opportunity to listen to their arguments and see how weak they are. The cost of democracy is that you have to explain everything; The good thing is that the whole society sees how difficult it is for some to explain themselves. There is nothing more civilizing than an extremist checking the low resistance of the data he handles and how unconvincing his arguments are. The debate, in the right place and with the required forms, does them more harm than silencing and exclusion. In addition, our willingness to recognize them as interlocutors prevents them from enjoying the privilege of martyrs.

Habermas has always seemed naive to me that in a debate the force of the best argument ends up being imposed. We have a thousand proofs that our democratic conversation is not without asymmetric advantages and obstinacy; and although it was perfectly organized, nothing assures us that it would win who deserves it. Our reasons for speaking even with those who do everything possible not to deserve it are not so much moral as strategic: because talking with them does not make them stronger but quite the opposite, and improves our democratic culture, which is precisely what we try to boost

It should be remembered that democratic tolerance implies hearing things that displease us and even that we detest morally. Stupidity is not a crime, nor is good taste politically or morally enforceable. At times like this one Paul Paul remembers: human diversity is due to the variety of ways to make a fool of yourself. What makes no sense is that we try to protect democracy with the weapons of its adversaries. Those of democracy are dialogue, tolerance and respect, also with those who have put everything on their part so as not to deserve it. If the advance of civilization consists in making the firmness of the convictions compatible with the willingness to live with those who do not share them, it is not due to weakness or relativism. The creation of an open public space has been a conquest of humanity based on the experience that we tend to identify our peculiar worldview with the right and demanded of all too lightly. The rules that regulate coexistence should protect freedom of expression against this tendency to morally disqualify what we dislike.

Liberal democracy and the republican institutions were born from the realization that in what we consider as absolute values, some advantageous interest is sneaked out, that we have enough security with respect to the things that we consider true and that the prohibition is a last resort resource that should Be carefully justified. If we want to protect democracy, we must also protect it against the strategies with which we intend to protect it. Democracy is only taken care of with democratic measures.

Daniel Innerarity is Professor of Political Philosophy and Ikerbasque researcher at the University of the Basque Country. Just published A theory of complex democracy (Gutenberg Galaxy).

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