What do you say about people who use democratic freedom to end democracy? (Quora)

 

This is an old, and complex, question.

It is hard enough to define democracy. Even supporters of the democratic principle have been known to confuse it with the tyranny of the majority. Such a restricted democracy implies the freedom to agree with the majority but not to dissent from it, which is no true freedom at all.

A true democracy implies that freedoms of thought, speech, belief (religious or other), and so on pertain to all citizens and no-one has the right to constrain such freedoms except at the point where they harm, or impinge severely upon the rights of, another citizen or citizens. By such a criterion there exist today very few, if any, true democracies. 

The key requirement of a true democracy is tolerance. This is not an easy concept to explain, and far less easy to practice. It requires patience, understanding, and an acceptance that one is not necessarily always right. It requires one to overcome assorted logical fallacies, especially including ad hominem, and to concede that criticism may be valid, rather than to resort to bombast and abuse when one runs out of reasons. 

Relatively few people today even possess the capacity for reasoned discussion, as opposed to emotional argument. Many people believe in pursuing those of contrary opinion by vilification, harassment, restraint of trade, destruction of property and even physical injury or worse. These people have little or no respect for democracy, or indeed for any view except their own. Often they are monomaniac and incapable of contextualising their own particular passion. They declare themselves the law, the judge, the jury and the exactors of punishment. In short, these people are intolerant, not tolerant, and lack a fundamental grasp of what it means to live in a democracy. 

The problem with this, as has been pointed out by philosophers going back at least to Plato, is that in a conflict between tolerance and intolerance, the latter always wins. Plato believed that all democracies would end in tyranny, which is the worst form of government, because complete freedom of the individual implies legitimising action to restrict the freedom of others. 

Karl Popper is perhaps the best known of those who have discussed the paradox of tolerance. He concluded that a tolerant society could not tolerate intolerance without planting the seeds of its own destruction. Some have quite rightly argued that this makes a tolerant society intolerant (that is, of intolerance). However, that is why we call it a paradox. 

The problem is always going to be where to draw the line. The secretly intolerant, even those who profess themselves liberal, are always going to want the line drawn fairly tightly around their own point of view. The openly intolerant want to enforce their own point of view on everyone else. 

The best answer is a clear understanding of the concept of harm. Tolerance ends where significant harm to others begins. Significant harm does not include hurt feelings or taking offence. Significant harm does not include getting the worst of a rational argument, or being obliged to assert that rationality does not apply to questions where ones own beliefs are challenged. 

I have described above the extent to which some people today believe they are entitled to take the “right to protest”. Peaceful protest is no longer the norm. Intimidation (by behaviour, chanting, placards etc.) is common. The intolerant arrogate to themselves the right to threaten, damage property, disrupt legitimate activities of others, incite violence and so on. There exist no such rights in a free society, and these people are all ignorantly taking democracy down the road to destruction that Plato predicted. 

But those who exploit the tyranny of the majority in order to restrict the legitimate rights of others by law are no better. The fanciful declaration that anything contradicting fashionable moral orthodoxy is “hate speech” is an egregious example of legislative myopia that also cuts the foundations from under democracy. 

If a citizen today must self-censor the expression of his peaceful views because he fears retaliation, either by thugs or by the authorities (who either themselves practise or have yielded to thuggery), then he is not a citizen of a democracy.