The Inner Enemies of Democracy Tzvetan Todorov THE INNER ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY Translated by Andrew Brown polity First published in French as Les ennemis intimes de la démocratie © Editions Robert Laffont/Versilio, 2012 This English edition © Polity Press, 2014 Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Polity Press 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8574-8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Todorov, Tzvetan, 1939- [Ennemis intimes de la démocratie. English] The inner enemies of democracy / Tzvetan Todorov. pages cm ISBN 978-0-7456-8574-8 (hardback) -- ISBN 0-7456-8574-9 (hardback) 1. Democracy. 2. World politics. I. Title. JC423.T6213 2014 321.8--dc23 2014012440 Typeset in 11 on 13 Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by T.J. International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com Contents 1 Democracy and its Discontents 1 The paradoxes of freedom 1 External and internal enemies 4 Democracy threatened by its own hubris 7 2 An Ancient Controversy 12 The main characters 12 Pelagius: will and perfection 14 Augustine: the unconscious and original sin 19 The outcome of the debate 22 3 Political Messianism 29 The revolutionary moment 29 The first wave: revolutionary and colonial wars 33 The second wave: the Communist project 37 The third wave: imposing democracy by bombs 45 The Iraq war 48 The internal damage: torture 50 The war in Afghanistan 53 The temptations of pride and power 57 The war in Libya: the decision 59 The war in Libya: the implementation 62 Idealists and realists 67 Politics in the face of morality and justice 71 v vi The Inner Enemies of Democracy 4 The Tyranny of Individuals 78 Protecting individuals 78 Explaining human behaviour 81 Communism and neoliberalism 87 The fundamentalist temptation 91 Neoliberalism’s blind spots 97 Freedom and attachment 101 5 The Effects of Neoliberalism 104 Blame it on science? 104 The law retreats 109 Loss of meaning 113 Management techniques 116 The power of the media 125 Freedom of public speech 128 The limits of freedom 134 6 Populism and Xenophobia 139 The rise of populism 139 Populist discourse 142 National identity 147 Down with multiculturalism: the German case 150 Britain and France 153 The debate about headscarves 156 One debate can hide another 162 Relations with foreigners 166 Living together better 168 7 The Future of Democracy 173 Democracy, dream and reality 173 The enemy within us 179 Towards renewal? 184 Notes 189 Index 197 1 Democracy and its Discontents The paradoxes of freedom The question of freedom entered my life early on. Until the age of twenty-four, I lived in a totalitarian country, Communist Bulgaria. The main thing everyone around me complained about was the shortages – the difficulty of getting hold of not just basic commodities but those little ‘extras’ that brighten up life, such as food, cloth- ing, toiletries and furnishings. But the lack of freedom still came next on the list of gripes. The country’s lead- ers exercised control over countless activities through a whole range of different organizations, through occupa- tion, neighbourhood and age group, as well as through the party apparatus, the police force and the political police known as ‘State Security’. Our whole life was monitored, and the slightest deviation from the party line risked being denounced. This obviously included all the areas that could be related to the political principles laid down, from literature and the human sciences to public institutions. But it also included more neutral aspects of life, aspects that it would be difficult to imag- ine, in other circumstances, as having any ideological meaning at all: the choice of a place of residence or of a profession, and even something as seemingly frivolous as your preference for a particular garment. Wearing a 1 2 The Inner Enemies of Democracy miniskirt, or trousers that were too tight (or too loose), was severely punished. It could lead you, first, to the police station where you were given a couple of slaps in the face; for a subsequent offence, you could end up in a ‘re-education’ camp, and you were never sure you would get out alive. We suffered from this lack of freedom to a degree that depended on how much we needed it. I was a curious young man, living in the capital, studying literature, pre- paring myself for an intellectual profession, teaching or writing. The word ‘freedom’ was, of course, legitimate and even highly valued, but like the other ingredients of official propaganda, it was used to hide – or to fill in for – an absence: for lack of the real thing, we had the word. Those who wanted to participate in public life without becoming slaves of dogma were asked to practise a vari- ant of the ‘forgotten art of writing’ of which Leo Strauss speaks, the language of Aesop: do not say a thing but suggest it – a subtle game in which you, too, could end up being the loser. For my part, I was sensitive to the lack of freedom of expression, a lack which eroded the very free- dom of thought on which it was based. I had witnessed – in silence – the public humiliation of several people whose behaviour had been found to deviate too much from the model imposed, and I hoped to spare myself such sessions of ‘critique’ without betraying my convictions. During the last year I spent in Bulgaria before leav- ing, fresh out of college, I took my first tentative steps in public life by writing for newspapers. I was especially proud when I felt I had managed to get round the all- pervasive censorship. On the occasion of a national holiday, they had asked me to prepare a double-page spread in a newspaper. I chose to mention some dead heroes of the anti-fascist resistance who had fought against tyranny: these were characters of undeniable virtue. My stratagem consisted of talking about the present under cover of evoking the past, so as to remind