In the regime of representative democracy, two main opposing forces are called upon to balance: that of the elected power which is called upon to express the will of at least the majority, and against it the other opposing force which is society itself. A society deeply divided to claim without being clear the component of the collective will.
Depending on the strength of each trend, the equilibrium point moves either towards the side of state sovereignty, when we have despotism, bright or dark, or towards society, where we have either the acceleration of developments, sometimes positive and sometimes unpredictable. , and the chaos of anarchy. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy (1588-1679) for this reason he concludes that the world is “the war of all against all” (bellum omnium against omnes).
The phenomenon of the conflict of these two different forces has been established since Greek antiquity, when the so-called direct democracy was first established. Solon (Solon (630BC-560BC)-was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.), and not only, quickly realized that on the balance of the two opposing forces depends both the freedom of the individual and the ability of the government to satisfy the demands of the citizens and to prevent social conflicts and / or conflicts. And he tried to institutionalize their balance now. Thus was born the first democracy in Greece, during which the rulers derive their existence as elected directly from the citizens, are accountable to the citizens, but in order to overcome the difficulties of consensus and achieve governance they establish the principle of majority. The principle of majority, the problem of governance, as well as that of difficult consensus, did not solve everything.
Aristotle (Aristotle (384BC-322BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.), points out from the outset the problematic nature of the majority principle. In particular, he said that “because democratic law expresses numerical equality and not meritocracy / proportionality, and since this is the accepted upright principle of justice, it necessarily turns out that the majority is the ruling power of the regime and the decisions of the majority are also the purpose and the law “.
The same problem and much more acute appears more than two thousand years later, with the establishment of representative democracy. One of the authors of the first US Constitution, James Madison, again said about the need for balance between these two forces: “The great difficulty of representative democracy lies in the following: we must first allow the government to control the governed and then force it to self-control. ” “Self-control” is easy to proclaim, it is very difficult to observe. The principle of the majority facilitates the functioning of the state, neither the achievable principle of justice nor that of the possible is always covered. These necessities always remain, and fortunately, the defining points of the balance of the two Powers. And this is because while order can exist without individual freedom, freedom without order can not exist. Representative democracy, in order to exist, must balance freedom with order. That is, the right with the obligation and ultimately the individual with the team. That is, the power with the supremacy and to become the guarantor for the observance of the balance with the establishment of a Constitution, but also by the patriotism of the citizens who have the right and are obliged to resist by any means against anyone who tries to overthrow the Constitution by force.
In a democracy, therefore, any choice of government to be functional and sustainable must at the same time be fair in order to satisfy the public’s sense of justice but also feasible in order to be sustainable. However, accurate reading of the possible is neither easy nor pleasantly accepted.
But when verifiability and refutability are determined by political cost, and in a state of polarization the critical discourse holds incense or a bat in its hand, then both law and reality are subject to the argument of the fist, instead of the fist of the argument. Beliefs in a fragmented society are endless. But if the claim of the one and only truth is not stable, then the dialogue between the two Powers would become unnecessary. But democracy is the same again, which generously gives us the right, but also the obligation, at the same time, not to resort – both politicians and citizens – to the “empty” refuge of myths. On the contrary, it requires that we treat the commons together and on the basis not only of the principle of majority but also of that of law, but also of what is possible.
