[CLIP] David Thunder on the Rise of Soft Despotism

very famous thinker Alex the toille you know who who wrote his famous wonderful book volume uh called Democracy in America and he predicted he was very preent he predicted that you know modern governments in promising people security and comfort um could become effectively what he called Soft despots right softly Depo despotic meaning that instead of relying on you know the police uh coming to your home and you know knocking your door and rounding you up they would just get compliance through by regulating the hell out of people's lives and um so that you know people's initiative and creativity would be destroyed by having to go through bureaucratic hurdles for everything they did um and so hyper regulation of people's lives by the state um I think in a way can really um enervate them or it can really kind of reduce their energy and it can reduce their creativity and it can convert them into it can infantilize them and so I think technocracy in itself can feed on itself by by creating habits of compliance um with minut minute rules complicated r rules and and and and and and in some ways I think people I I agree people seem to be more open to technocratic control of their lives um um but there are other people who are resisting and pushing back and we shouldn't forget that there are pretty strong resistance movements in places like the United Kingdom um and uh peaceful resistance movements uh and and so and populist movements as well that are you know anti-establishment and anti- technocracy so it's not all doom and gloom there are some signs of resistance to to these kinds of tendencies in democracy so absolutely I I wholly agree with you um you know one of the things that this whole pandemic has exposed to me and has been a topic of many shows or at least one of the topics of many shows I've done has been just this realization that I've had that some of us are easily propagandized and we we can come to believe things which are you know when you sit down and really think about it for a moment wrong right and but yet we can pick up through it being in the popular culture and being pushed out through you know let's say social media and media or you know many many mechanisms at once um we can come to believe things which you know upon reflection don't really make a ton of sense and so we live in a society where you know some portion of us and sometimes without even knowing at all you know believe in things which another portion of the population doesn't and so the idea is you know you want people to have you know a common a common set of knowledge a common set of facts right you know you can't have alternative facts right um facts are facts are facts right but but that's not where we are today yeah I mean all of that is inherently anti-philosophical it's anti-reflection it's anti-th thinking it's anti- freedom to uh to to to to present people with a a very rigid worldview that they should accept on faith essentially because it's unchallenged um and it's sort of authoritative right so we should accept it what you're you're talking about points also to the fact that our societies are quite polarized and divided and that um there is disagreement over fundamental issues that affect how we live together that affect how we run our society how we how we regulate our society and so the prospects of you know creating a feasible uh political system that we can all inhabit together seem pretty poor um and and here I think decentralization plays a really critical role um not only territorial decentralization but also uh things like you know um School vouchers so that people can select the kind of school they want to go to I want their children to attend um to have some control over the social World um so I would argue that because precisely because our society is so diverse because there's so much disagreement and conflict moral cultural religious um precisely for that reason we should try to facilitate people to organize and to um you know join communities that broadly speaking can agree on fundamental issues concerned with how they live together and and so yes of course you need an overarching Constitution and some kind of a regulatory framework but I would argue that that regulatory framework that is like an umbrella within which all these communities can exist should be minimalist it should go to the bare minimum of nonaggression you know um some kind of you know uh rules against criminal conduct um some rules about public order uh so that communities can then develop their own life in their own way and they don't all have to be celebrating a gay way of life and they don't all have to be against a gay way of life I mean I I I I I you know in a way we have to understand that it's a practical issue it's a practical problem it's not about deciding what the best most ideal Society is going to be it's about how do we get these people as they are to be able to you know uh interact with each other engage in a common Market you know pass each other in the street um that's not going to happen if we think that all of the important moral and cultural issues have to be settled for everyone in a state that's it's just not not going to happen it'll only polarize the population and it'll accelerate the demise of that Society well I mean inherently um you know some people would be you know forced to take on a set of values right in this type of context it would end up being that either a majority or um a powerful political faction which may be just a strong minority or powerful minority would end up dictating the terms of our common life in a way that goes completely against the will and the interests um and the opinions of the rest of the societ soy and they would feel trapped and when people feel trapped they become resentful bitter angry and um it it's a recipe for an unstable Society um inherently unstable and explosive uh so you know people get complacent about democracy about Western democracy and they think oh well we don't see bombings in the street um but I think that's a mistaken attitude because because ultimately um underneath the veneer of peace and respect uh you know there can be a lot of tension and resentment and if you allow it to Bubble you know to just sort of develop over time there will come a time when it explodes and um democracy relies on mutual respect and on um recognition of the legitimacy of our shared institutions and so if those institutions become polarized or only are perceived to represent the ideological or economic interests of a special class of people then many citizens will just switch off and will defect and they'll reluctantly go along with what they're told to do until they see an opportunity to overturn those institutions um I mean that sounds dramatic to say it that way but I do think and I would say the United States um is on course for a form of dismemberment if these issues are if there's a if if people attempt to resolve these issues at the federal level it's a recipe for dismembering the United States don't forget to subscribe to our alerts newsletter and you'll never miss an episode