Despite all those ritual oaths of allegiance to democracy in Ukraine (one is reminded of Sir Winston Churchill's words: "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.") and ritual condemnations of all democratic principles, one has to admit that these principles, perceived as they are conceptually rather than formally, remain terra incognita for the larger part of Ukrainian society. Are we fully aware of the intricacies and controversies inherent in even the best democratic system, compared to the immaturity of certain pertinent institutions? Do we realize that this is where the risks and challenges are? Are Ukrainians aware of there being no alternative to democracy, considering that it is the only system of self-organization that allows a given society and all communal members to become full-fledged citizens who consciously assume responsibility for their country and become individuals rather than cogs in the machine?
Naturally, these issues become especially topical on the eve of the presidential elections in Ukraine. Suffice it to recall Albert Camus, who died in a road accident 50 years ago, and who compared one's daily, vitally necessary effort aimed at reviving democratic ideals, in each new generation, to Sisyphus's toil that was hellish but not absurd. Below is The Day's interview with Dr. Serhii KRYMSKY, Ph.D. (Philosophy), laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine, and a brilliant veteran contributor to and a good old friend of this newspaper.
Dr. Krymsky, apparently we have to start from history, considering that far from all our [Ukrainian] readers are sufficiently acquainted with democracy and its roots and phases and that it is hard to perceive the very idea without such knowledge.
“Democracy is rooted in the initial phase of world civilization, when history started being committed to paper. We know that this process began with the emergence of polity that brought forth the aspect of political history. The latter, in turn, has various forms of governance and social order. Democracy acquired special importance among these forms, and Marx and Engels relied on it when developing their new ways of life, social standards, and philosophy in Europe and the East.
“I might as well point out that the formal division of the historical process wasn't uppermost on the mind of the fathers of Marxism (as is still generally assumed). There are lots of controversies in Georgi Plekhanov's works along the lines of Marxist thought. The main point is the distinction between the social formations in the West and the East, with varying scenarios for the predominance of this or that kind of society — Marx's concept of world history.
“And so poleis (primarily Athens) were outwardly the first manifestation of the European social order. They got in touch with the Peloponnesus and proposed to establish a marine insurance office. In other words, they were prepared to pay Athens for building a fleet and defending the poleis against Persia. That was when a social system, known to us as European civilization, came to be.
“Aristotle, tutor of Alexander the Great, suggested that Alexander spread this system to the entire world. The great warrior tried to do just that until his dying day. After his death there emerged a special kind of synthesis involving the Asian way of life and Athenian democracy — although it marked the beginning of Hellenistic Greece rather than democracy per se; it was a special kind of synthesis of the West and the East.
“With the emergence of capitalism and commercial centers like Hansa and Novgorod, the European lifestyle once again reigned supreme. A closer look at Russian history reveals its course, including the February Revolution, when the Provisional Government offered a European lifestyle scenario in Russia. But then, starting in October 1917, the trench-coated soldiers altered Russia's course, enforcing the Eastern Asian way of life — precisely as predicted by Marx when he started learning Russian. He believed that the East would take its revenge on the West through Russia.”
Could you please clarify what this Asian (Eastern) social order and the European democratic way of life are?
“In a more specific sense, Marx understood the Eastern way of life as state ownership of all means of production and the decisive role of the state and peasantry. The Chinese revolution offered this scenario on the broadest scale in the mid-20th century.
“As for the European way of life, it was dominated by the principles of political individualism, private ownership, and, above all, by the principles and the very idea of democracy.
“Getting back to history, we know that democracy originates from the poleis where everybody knew everybody, and where this knowledge resulted in what we know as direct democracy – this is when worthy communal members are vested with governing powers. However, with the increasing complexity of public life, particularly after the fall of absolutism and the French Revolution, there emerged the difficult task of finding ways of getting people involved in executive and legislative activities. By the way, Jean Jacques Rousseau, for one, substantiated this involvement by proposing the idea of delegating power to representatives of the people as deputies of social thought.”
This was an innovative and controversial task involving risks and dangerous challenges to democracy and liberties. Evidently, this is where the risks for the democratic order and dangerous challenges to freedom were hidden?
“There appeared a number of controversies in conjunction with the idea of equality for all communal members and their being personally independent of various political trends. After all, Rousseau, the father of the democratic theory, declared that democracy was meant for the gods, not mortals, considering that people always find themselves subject to governance which is anything but perfect, because to err is human.“What appeared to have more importance for democracy was the way the decisions were made by the majority rule; they could be extremely radical, because those who made them remained anonymous, thus avoiding the responsibility. Those who cast their ballot would always justify themselves by saying something like ‘I'm not guilty; I just acted like the others did.’ Moreover, such majority decisions proved ineffective in unique, nonstandard situations, simply because such decisions were not adequate to the alarming circumstances. Such decisions further proved unproductive in circumstances that had to do with morals and ethics — in such circumstances the individual opinions of minority representatives were most effective.”
In other words, minority views on a given matter are not only recognized nominally but also respected, and most importantly, taken into consideration on all levels, including the upper echelons of power, aren't they?
“In the modern world democracy is interpreted as a way to take into account what the minority has to say on a given issue — their solutions to nonstandard problems, rather than their 'neutral' stand in regard to standard situations. Accordingly, our current democracy can be summed up as a political means of securing human rights, with the principles of pluralism, liberties, the rule-of-law state, and tolerance topping the list.
“Tolerance is especially important because it implies comprehension of different notions, so that you add someone else's views to your own experience, by translating them into the language you use on a daily basis. In fact, post-modernist philosophy has it that a new kind of human being was discovered in the 20th century, one capable of keeping his/her consciousness under control while being aware of and keeping one's sins to a minimum. It was then one's point of view started being taken into consideration.
“That was the reason why Thomas Mann stated that there was a degree of tenderness behind any critique, and that such critique meant business. Here emerges the generally known principle of dialog as practiced by Socrates, something you seldom see or hear these days. I mean its principle of not destroying your opponent by proving his arguments false but having this dialog on the principle of both parties adhering to the truth — the way they understand it — as the highest priority.
“Without taking into account the principle of tolerance and the method of dialog, any decision-making based on majority opinion spells orientation toward the mid-range positions in which expert opinions coincide with those of laymen. An even more dangerous aspect is that such prepared and controlled majority is more often than not used by despots to enforce their tyrannical rule. In this case democracy is replaced with demospotism in which there is tyranny behind all democratic rhetoric (standard practice under Stalin).
“We see such combinations of democracy and slavery in ancient history. A similar political scenario has been played out by US democracy, let alone Muslim democratic rhetoric.”
Are there any other concealed threats or challenges to democracy in Ukraine today?
“Immature democracy is very dangerous; something we, regrettably, encounter within Ukrainian society and in the Verkhovna Rada. This kind of democracy is on a first name basis with mobocracy, easily identifiable with the uncontrollable dictatorship of street rallies, something Lenin criticized in 1918.
“The world-renowned Russian scholar Pavel Novgorodtsev (he was also a lawyer and helped people in the diaspora after the October Revolution) wrote in the 1920s: “It is often assumed that the proclamation of liberties and universal franchise produces a certain magic force of its own that can direct man to embark on a new pathway. In actuality, this results not in democracy but in oligarchy or anarchy, depending on the course of events, and in the case of anarchy, the worst kind of despotism is the closest and most likely ensuing stage of political development.”
“I have to agree with Novgorodtsev (he was born in what is now Donetsk oblast in Ukraine) that both immature democracy and the modern systems of the so-called ‘liberal American democracy’ can have most unwelcome subsequences. Sociologists have noted the paradoxical fact that crimes against the person are on a quickly rising upward curve in the US. I mean crimes perpetrated for no obvious reasons, ones without financial reasons behind them or aimed at liquidating a real opponent. No one knows why someone should buy a rifle with a telescopic sight, climb to the roof of a high-rise, and start shooting down passersby. Studies show that such shocking cases are typical of modern liberal democracies and are begotten by thoughtless democratic propaganda.”
Does what you have stated thus far allow one to make far-reaching pessimistic conclusions concerning the prospects of the democratic system in general?
“No. Democracy, with all its risks, remains the main strategy of the current civilization process. It's just that we have to act with an eye to the necessary balance between the decisions made by the majority and minority. In the 21st century, most countries accept the democratic scenario, which is a mounting trend, along with the progress of humankind. Democracy, its faults notwithstanding, is the only alternative to a rigidly hierarchically controlled society.”
What about democracy in Ukraine?
“Such projects are being discussed, and some are even being implemented. The problem is that Ukrainian democracy has a very long way to go to meet the Western standard, regardless of all its shortcomings. After all, Ukraine had slavery 150 years ago. Today not all of Ukrainian citizens know how to cross a street the right way. All this is very sad, considering that Ukraine boasts an old democratic tradition, particularly in terms of elective governmental and especially church posts, let alone the Cossacks and their resistance to any kind of absolutism, even the Eurasian one.
“British parliamentarism, with its 400 years of experience, stands out from among the time-tested democratic norms and requirements. The noted English philosopher Thomas Hobbes attributed this progress to the necessity of getting human hostility under control, a kind of 'war of all against all' in the form of Biblical monster Leviathan.
“Those who undertook to build a Ukrainian nation-state after the Ruin period also encountered this monster as they tried to overcome the chaos, implement what Skovoroda call a “republic of spirit,” and establish a constitutional order — e.g., Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution, a synthesis of European and Eastern Slavic culture as perceived by Teofan Prokopovych, Petro Mohyla, Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, and other Cossack intellectuals whose experience remains topical in vie of the ongoing struggle for liberty.”
