RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM

G e n e r a l C h a p t e r	B o l o g n a '9 8
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RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACY AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Fr Maciej Ziêba OP

I. Democratic Spirituality

Democracy -- a most arduous and time-consuming system: we are frequently tired of it but we are also always proud of it. Because democracy is, at the same time, a brave, or we could even say, bold undertaking, which should not succeed in practice. That is why it has not been spared many a critical remark throughout the ages from distinguished thinkers such as Herodotus and Plato, Hobbes and Mill, Ortega y Gasset and von Hayek..

The Optimism of Dominican Democracy

If, therefore, after almost eight hundred years, our Dominican democracy does not show signs of senile dementia, but, on the contrary, is still creative and fertile, it is because democracy is not just a form of government for us, but, as Timothy Radcliffe points out, is at the centre of our spirituality.⁽¹⁾ In other words, democracy is a basic institutional expression of the spirituality of our order. The first and fundamental condition for Dominican success in eight centuries of experimenting with democracy has been general understanding of the fact that democracy, while secondarily belonging to the realm of politics, is first and foremost, a spiritual undertaking. But this still does not alter the fact that it is a bold experiment, and it is bold because the spirituality of democracy is unequivocally optimistic. Is it not bold indeed to assume that brethren sent "to the ends of the earth" will not only find a common language and common aims but also manage an effective self-government, regardless of whether "these ends" stretch from Castile to the land of the Cumans, from Norway to the Republic of South Africa, or from Canada to Vietnam? Is it not bold to assume that this community, which is capable of self-government and of working out its common aims, will include sophisticated academics and country preachers, extroverts and introverts, pragmatists and "crazy aesthetes", or, to put it differently, economists and artists? Is it not bold to assume that this community will renew itself from generation to generation?

Democratic spirituality is bold because it is optimistic. And, at the same time, it is Dominican because the optimism that is included in this form of government is another way of expressing the same optimism which emanates from Jordan's letters to Diana, from Fra Angelico's frescoes, or from the writings of St. Thomas.

Homo democraticus

The optimism inherent in democracy is the necessary result of the not always overtly expressed assumptions of the anthropology on which democracy is based. Homo democraticus, acknowledging the real equality of other people, not only has an attitude of full respect towards ideas that are different from his own, but also recognises his own fallibility, accepting that others may know better. He also believes that the majority of the community to which he belongs is capable of generous behaviour towards the minority, while the minority is capable of being loyal towards those who have voted a decision not to their liking. In his creed there is also a belief in a general and constant good will (at least over a longer period of time and among the majority of the community). Homo democraticus is characterised by the intelligence and imagination that are a condition for a grain of that priceless empathy which is necessary for making creative compromises. He also has the common sense to trust in rational discourse and have the courage to participate, because a democratic debate also means permission to expose oneself to public scrutiny.

Even if such a "democratic person" is only an ideal type, then in order for democratic society to be something more than mere abstraction, most of the traits mentioned above should be characteristic of at least a clear majority of the members of this society. This is a necessary prerequisite. That is why the eminent thinkers mentioned earlier, while having democratic leanings, criticised this system: they simply did not believe that such a society could exist permanently. For Plato, democracy was a system that was "nice and lawless" and which always and unavoidably moved towards anarchy. For others, democracy was doomed to be dwarfish, since "the small will not elect the great" (Burke); to be unstable, since it is governed by the "tyranny of opinion" (Mill); or to have "equality impose despotism over it" (Tocqueville).

Are we short of evidence in favour of such pessimism? Does not a note of realism sound in this criticism?

The Dominican Answer

Yes, it is true that anarchy, instability, and primitive levelling, are not only contagious but most often fatal diseases that democracy may contract. If, therefore, our religious structure has not only survived throughout the ages but is even faring quite well, then it means that our elder brethren have been aware from the very beginning that democracy is, in actual fact, not a procedure but a great spiritual undertaking. Strictly speaking, democracy is a theological undertaking.

Yes, it is true that a fundamental threat to democracy is its lack of arché; its anarchy. But then the answer to the question about the arché of Dominican democracy is more than obvious: en arché en ho Logos. Christ is this arché.

Democracy is also threatened by fragmentation, by the erosion of a sense of interpersonal community among people. But our order accepted the Rule of St. Augustine which was constructed around the idea of unanimitas; it is an order which has from the very start opted for freedom, openness and flexibility, both in its laws and institutions.⁽²⁾ It is precisely because of this free and democratic system of our order that Humbertus de Romanis has stressed: unitas cordium nobis est in praecepto.⁽³⁾

This unitas cordium, since every democratic community is also a community on the way, was also strengthened by the common aim -- our own and others' salvation.⁽⁴⁾ And if our order has kept its unity and its democratic structure over the course of successive centuries and continents, it means that despite the complicated twists and turns of history, a clear majority of our brethren have always understood and respected the theological nature of democracy.

The Theological Character of Democracy

When stressing the theological nature of Dominican democracy, I have in mind the fact that it was built not on sand but on a rock, and Christ was this rock (1 Cor 10, 4b). Further, the ideal of unanimitas did not just remain a theoretical slogan but, from generation to generation, has been arduously incorporated into Dominican reality, and effectively so, since it has been the Holy Spirit, vinculum unitatis, who is the inexhaustible source of this striving towards unity. The aim of this community has also been theological: to enter the house of the Father -- our own and others' salvation.

This is not to say that every democratic community should have a trinitarian character. It does mean, however, that every democracy, if it is to reproduce itself and, furthermore, develop, must have, at least implicitly, a deeper spiritual structure which is theological at its core.

Three things are necessary for the vitality of a political democracy: as its arché -- respect for the dignity of each person; as the principle of its unity -- the honesty of public debate and elementary consensus; and as its aim -- the common good. Thus, "democratic faith" does not, expressis verbis, refer to transcendence; it can have many different justifications, both lay and religious. If, however, we ask about the source of human dignity and the justification for the common good from the point of view of nature, then we will arrive either at the law of nature, or at the Absolute. If we ask this question from the point of view of grace, we will arrive at the dignity of each human person which has been sealed by the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ, and we will arrive at the "ultimate common good" - the salvation of mankind. From this theological perspective we can thus say that Dominican democracy is, in a way, an extrapolation of all forms of democracy ad infinitum.

II. Procedural Democracy

I do not think that these are merely theoretical speculations. I have taken them up for two reasons. First, because at the threshold of the new millennium, democracy, which organises the life of societies across the greater part of our globe (and to which many other societies aspire), faces a serious challenge. Second, because this challenge is not without significance for our order.

The first reason is enough to merit attention. This is because democracy is, or more precisely, may be a good system. John Paul II writes: The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.⁽⁵⁾ The relatively broad participation of society in political life, a comparatively great transparency, and the easy transfer of power among political elites give democracy an advantage over all those other systems that a larger or smaller group of "enlightened" ones to oversee the whole.

But Plato is right. Democracy is best suited to be a system in which to seek the one which could be the most beautiful of all.⁽⁶⁾ Democracy is, therefore, just a beginning, a possibility. In the meantime, however, current democracies are as if a bit anesthetised by the very fact of long-term stability. They are also somewhat anesthetised by the aggressive ideological secularism present in society (it is not at all a neutral Weltanschaung or a passive secularity!). And for such present-day democracies the answer to the difficult challenge posed by the hitherto unknown plurality in world views and in cultural forms is to give up, to marginalise the spiritual and ethical elements, and to adopt legalistic minimalism. First among the elite, but lately with increasing speed and reach encompassing ever broader areas of society, democracy has started to be solely a procedure.⁽⁷⁾ Outwardly nothing much has changed, but in essence the change is qualitative.

For someone who, like myself, has been brought up in a non-democratic milieu, where totalitarian systems have for years reaped their bloody harvest, it is very easy to see that democracy is fragile and destructible, just as fragile and destructible as all human endeavours. Worse still, to see that this elementary fragility is simply ignored by procedural democracy makes one anxious about the future. This is because two scenarios are possible -- stagnation or evolution.

Stagnation

The first scenario assumes that economic development plus the lack of external threats, and the omnipresent philosophy of consumption (or Daniel Bell's "pop-hedonism"), will ensure procedural democracy relative stability and durability. But some scholars already see a gloomier outlook. The development of proceduralism will mean that inside the democratic world there will be a shift towards social tribalisation.⁽⁸⁾ We shall then witness the atrophy of common debate and interpersonal solidarity. We shall witness, they say, the transformation of today's larger societies into federations of autonomous villages and isolated ghettos whose boundaries are drawn along ethnic lines, along lines of race, of sex and religion, and of per capita income. This is a world in which "male culture" will be separated from "female", "Catholic" thinking will be separated from "Orthodox" and "Buddhist", "black" language from "yellow" or "white" languages, and the "well-to-do" sensitivity of the wealthy will be separated from that of the "poor" by an insurmountable wall. This is a world in which democratic procedure decides everything, and subsequently in which everything becomes "political".

For people living outside "the world of procedures", the implications of such a development of democracy are amusing. We shall not die for Gdañsk, sang Maurice Chevalier in 1939. The doctrine of indifference: these days we shall not die for Ruanda or Algeria, for Kosovo or Chechnya, for Tiananmen or Chiapas - this is the typical response of the followers of procedural democracy.

What is the significance of this trend for Dominicans? It is of secondary importance whether candidates to our order are disillusioned with such democracy or reconciled to it; they will have been brought up in a different culture. For both the former and the latter, "democracy" will have basically a meaning different from the one which has been in use among Dominicans for the past eight centuries. The "dictionary of democracy" used in the near future will be very limited: voting and the legality of procedures. This dictionary will not include such entries as "common good" and "magnanimity", "unity of spirit" and "solidarity". How can we show these future Dominicans the spiritual structure of democracy? How, in this situation, can we Dominicans continue to go to "the ends of the earth", when "these ends" get more and more varied, and move further and further apart? And how can we build unanimitas? These are the important challenges that our order now faces.

Evolution

The other scenario, i.e., the evolutionary one, allows for two possibilities. This is because it assumes a future crisis, a time of decision, after which either there will be a return to the past understanding of democracy, as tasks within the common good that are to be fulfilled, or it will turn out that such a return is no longer possible. Then, however, one should start reading Book VIII of Plato's Republic no longer as ancient speculation but as present-day "documentary".

I will certainly not venture a futuristic description of The Day After..., a vision of the degeneration of the political system and its potential mutations. These mutations could be brutal. They could also be subtly disguised by education and the media, and, simultaneously, highly computerised and selectively repressed. Suffice it to say that a certain totalitarian threat is not quite unreal. In that case, could a democratic order develop in an undemocratic milieu?

The first intuitive response would be affirmative. After all, the Dominicans lived and functioned from the very beginning of the order until the 19^th century in a milieu that did not know democracy; and during that time the order experienced many periods of splendour. But I think that this is false intuition. For in earlier times, "systems of holding the society in check," even if they had authoritarian aspirations, did not have, on the whole, totalitarian ambitions. Above all, they did not have the means to satisfy such ambitions. Today the situation is radically different. The means are there, and the potential slide of the democratic society into anarchy could be followed by an attempt to control the chaos by undemocratic means. Such an attempt, in societies without a common system of values and authority figures, might very well become -- and with high probability would become -- totalitarian in nature.

I realise that for many, especially for those who have been brought up and educated in democratic countries, such speculations may seem rather abstract. But for those of us who have been brought up east of the Berlin Wall, it is not difficult to imagine very concrete developments along those lines.

My old friend, the first non-communist prime minister in the Eastern Bloc, Mr Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was appointed in the early 90s the UN representative in the former Yugoslavia. He tried to awaken public opinion to the fact that genocide was being carried out in the very heart of Europe, in full view of the world. He watched at close quarters the indolence and arrogance of bureaucracy, the widespread playing of egoistic economic games, and the unfolding of petty rivalries among politicians, the military, and the media. Powerless to act in such a situation, he gave up his mandate as a sign of protest. He told me later, "You know, Mathias, after World War II I was convinced that people would draw conclusions once and for all from that lesson of inhuman frenzy. I was sure of that for several decades. But these last few years I have begun to be afraid."

I do not see myself as a futurologist, or a prophet. I am only trying to analyse the facts and sketch possible scenarios, knowing quite well that in the long run one cannot break the laws of spiritual physics and get away with it. After all, one cannot, to my mind, doubt that if present-day democracies develop along the lines of merely formal procedures used for petty-minded pragmatism, then the risk of anarchy will increase. The following argument also seems valid and empirically tested: in a totalitarian environment Dominican democracy inevitably degenerates.

Totalitarianism - The Polish Experience

Totalitarianisms may be varied, from cruel and brutal to mild and velvet. In the years 1939-1989 in Poland we got to know all those shades of totalitarianism. The last, in the 1980s, was relatively mild; it merely tried to bribe the Church. And although we can safely say that the Polish Church, and the Polish Dominicans, withstood the test of that half-century very well, we must also add that it left its mark on us. I am quite sure, from this point of view, that this mild totalitarianism, this period of trying to win over the Church by bribery, was not at all better than the previous forms. For the totalitarian environment persistently forced us to keep finances covert, and this area of covert finances then widened of its own accord. This environment also forced a centralisation of power which later petrified. In addition, the domination of ideology over the whole country was all-pervading, as the 1996 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Wis³awa Szymborska, wrote: "Even when you are walking through forests and woods, your steps are political, on political foundations". In such a situation even monastic enclosure did not protect our communities from being politicised. The system of social mistrust spread far and wide. Finally, the omnipresence of censorship made it impossible to have an open debate about Dominican work and priorities. With time, the very need for such a debate began to fade.

With effort and not without pain, we are trying to shake off the burden of totalitarianism that each of us inevitably carries -- the same way that the inhabitants of Central Eastern Europe are also trying to shake off the very same burden.

This is an arduous and difficult process, much more difficult than could have been foreseen. Yet, every day, from the bottom of my heart, I thank the Lord, together with my brothers, that He has allowed us to participate in this process.

Conclusions

It is time to sum up. At the threshold of the new millennium we face new challenges: progressive globalisation, in the face of cultural and religious pluralism, and the development of science and technology accelerating at a geometrical. The democratic system faces new dangers connected with the evolution of democracy towards a merely procedural form, and the spread of petty-minded pragmatism and pop-hedonism; the latter two are a kind of pre-philosophy of our times and are connected with procedural democracy.

That is why the Dominican democracy, which so significantly shapes the identity of our order, is today in need of a deepened self-awareness. First of all, we need to reflect on the theological nature of our democracy. Moreover, we need its theological application in our life. What is becoming more and more important, however, is the need to analyse how present-day political democracy influences the Dominican understanding of democracy.

The globalisation of processes and developments, and the pluralism of the world, once again and more forcefully place before our democracy the problem of unity. How can we work out common aims? Maintain a common debate while recognising the multiplicity of our experience? Strengthen our mutual and fraternal bonds? Systematically create a place for meeting and cooperation?

Most of all, how can we -- in each of us and in each of our communities -- deepen our bond with Christ? It is only in Him that all differences disappear, and it is only He Who erases all divisions among people (Eph 2, 14-16; Ga 3, 28). Furthermore, the distinctness of our vocations and the diversity of our talents, when united with Him, in whom dwells the whole Fullness (Col 1, 19b), becomes our wealth and our strength. Jesus Christ is the source of a new dynamism and energy which enables the Friars Preachers to bring the Good News to the ends of our modern-day world.

1. T. Radcliffe OP, Dominican Freedom and Responsibility, 2,2.
2. Cf Early Dominicans. Selected Writings, ed. S. Tugwell OP, Paulist Press 1982; Constitutiones Primaevae S.O.P., Conventus S. Dominici de Faesulis 1962, and also, for instance, R. Hittinger, Reasons for Civil Society, unpubl.; S. Tugwell OP, The Way of Preacher, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1979, Polish ed. Pasja Dominika, Kraków 1996; G. Bedouelle OP, Dominique ou la grace de la Parole, Fayard-Mame 1982, Polish ed. Dominik czyli ³aska s³owa, Poznañ 1987; W.A. Hinnebush OP, The Dominicans. A Short History, New York 1975, Polish ed. Dominikanie - krótki zarys dziejów, in Dominikanie. Szkice z dziejów zakonu, Poznañ 1986.
3. Humbert de Romanis, Expositio Super Constitutiones Fratrum Praedicatorum, in: Opera de Vita Regulari, vol. II, Turin 1956, p.3.
4. LCO 1. II.
5. Centesimus annus 46.
6. Plato, The Republic, Books VIII, XI.
7. The first to define procedural democracy was J. Schumpeter in his book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, published in 1942.
8. Aptly described by A. Schlesinger Jr. in Disuniting America, New York 1993.

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