Democracy

The last utopia

For some time now, democracy has been the object of attacks and criticisms of many different kinds. A useful lesson can be drawn from such an accumulation of reproaches. Because, in addition to the absolutely real threat to democracy posed by various forms of authoritarianism, there is another, no lesser menace related to the sphere of ideas. This is the danger of understanding democracy in purely instrumental terms, as a mere set of formal procedures for organizing life in common. This would mean disdaining the enormous emancipatory potential of democratic systems, the possibility that they offer us of being the best way of finally materializing those values that gave birth to the modern world.