Exasperation, pathology, irritability, a hater mentality, arrogance, dogmatism, and corrosive fanaticism: all of this is what the immense talk show of today’s society—what some describe as post-democratic—ultimately boils down to.
In reality, it would be more accurate to call it ultra-democratic, or democracy-obsessed, or even a society afflicted by terminal democracy.
To be clear, what is commonly referred to as democracy
namely participation, freedom of speech, and respect for others, is something characteristic of European civilization, which, prior to the nineteenth century, experienced very few democratic institutions. Moreover, in the rare cases where such systems were established (Athens, Thebes), freedom and mutual respect were often severely curtailed.
Through a double error—both historical and etymological—we confuse tolerance, respect, and participation with democracy, which in some respects is actually antithetical to them.
Yet the European mindset—the spirit of the poleis, of bonds of loyalty, and of the civitas—has often softened, even within democratic systems themselves, the leveling and oppressive totalitarianism that, philosophically and historically, characterizes pure democracy.
Pure democracy
seeks to impose its rules regardless of principles and erases customs and traditions, replacing them with new ones. In the end, communism comes far closer to the purity of democracy than parliamentary democracy does.
This is why today’s ruling classes, increasingly detached from reality, seek through legislation and coercion to impose a series of anthropological transformations—from gender ideology to woke culture—that human nature continues instinctively to reject.
As above, so below
It is not only the ruling classes that are affected, but also the users of social-media democracy, who feel compelled to comment instantly on everything, armed with prefabricated convictions and absolute certainties forged within chat-room ghettos. Their defining traits are readily apparent: superficiality, lack of depth, the hysteria of political commissars or inquisitors, sociopathy, and above all, hatred toward the world around them. In truth, it is this hatred alone that fuels their aggression, masquerading as political engagement.
These are unmistakable symptoms of profound existential malaise and of the desire to shift responsibility for that malaise onto others—onto anyone else—rather than accepting the task of working on oneself.
Two sides of the same coin
These two opposites of the same coin—the ruling classes that preach doctrine and the social-media rebels who attack them—are fundamentally identical. They have lost all sense of reality.
Every one of their assertions is founded on the rejection of some presumed Absolute Evil (each has its own version), which leads them to present as an Absolute Good something that is, at best, disturbing and, at worst, suffocating and dreadful.
It is striking to observe how everything they discuss is reduced to a schematic abstraction rather than something living. They do not feel the reality of peoples, individuals, tragedies, or possibilities. Instead, they speak out of prejudice, without empathy for anyone—not even for those they claim to serve.
The malaise runs so deep that—Mel Brooks reigns supreme—we now have soldiers advocating disarmament, communists championing sovereignty, anti-European Europeanists, fascists defending democracy, and so on and so forth.
Forgetful of Ethnos, History, and Genius Loci
No. For them, either the grass is always greener on the other side and any boor from North Korea, Tehran, Tel Aviv, or some Caliphate is preferable to our own decadence; or else they defend that decadence against the threat posed by such abominations, insisting that decadence itself is a virtue.
In both cases, they refuse to commit themselves to working on themselves and on the world immediately around them—hic et nunc, here and now.
Nothing else can Emerge but a widespread terminal pathology
At the top and at the bottom, regardless of the particular positions people take, it is the spirit, the mentality, and the emotional imbalance with which those positions are adopted that define this era of profound crisis.
A profound crisis means profound transformation. Before long, today’s ruling classes will be overwhelmed by reality and vitality, while today’s self-proclaimed antagonists will be swallowed by a black hole that will return them to the nothingness they so effectively embody whenever they speak.
Nature and History do not wait
And you will see that there will be more and more normal young people—normal in the sense of conforming to the norm—and life, reason, and genuine participation will return.
We will leave behind the temptations of the vulgar impotence embodied by talk-show democracy.
