Democracy: the spiritual transformation of society
“He’s very tough. He doesn’t have — and I don’t mean it as a criticism, just the reality — he doesn’t have a democratic, small D, bone in his body.” [US President Joe Biden referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping (7/2/21)]
We are so lucky living in a beautiful country like Australia. I’m thinking of people suffering away, deprived of freedom, caught in an economic straitjacket, in countries like China, Russia, Myanmar, Central African Republic, Guatemala – to name just a few. Under the thumb of dictators, one party states, military juntas, warlords, criminal gangs. Communist or fascist (which amount to the same thing in the end). It makes me feel so sad when I think of these places, and I sometimes wonder what hope is there?
In countries like Australia there is a long history of real freedom and economic development, but, in those other ones mentioned, that barely seems to happen. Sure, things aren’t perfect in Australia and there are significant challenges still to overcome – income inequality, discrimination, environmental degradation, drugs, crime – but really, we’re a long way ahead. What exactly is there in one case, but absent in the other, which makes all the difference?
Well, it’s a commonplace, to say “democracy”. But I don’t think we really understand what democracy is, and because we don’t understand it we don’t really believe in it – we downplay its significance and are even pretty sceptical about it. My view, which I’m going to try to convince you of now, is that democracy is, first and foremost, about spiritual transformation, of individuals first, then whole societies; without it societies just bounce around from one crazy tyranny to another, never quite able to get it right.
A good way to understand why democracy is spiritual transformation is to consider the alternatives. Marxism and Fascism obviously spring to mind. Both these ideologies explicitly repudiated the spiritual side of life. For Marx, far from being part of the solution, spirituality was part of the problem. Organized religion – Christianity in this case – was simply a tool the ruling classes used to keep the poor in their place – “the opium of the masses, the sigh of the oppressed creature, etc.”. Traditional spirituality and morality needed to be set aside in favour of material, economic transformation – the seizing of the “means of production” by the workers, and the setting up of a perfect socialist state, a “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
This approach led to completely predictable results, as we saw, firstly, in the Soviet Union. Into the vacuum left behind by the rejection of spirituality came ruthless material power, oppression, violence, all in the name of material, economic equality. This end justified whatever means were available, political and economic freedom were totally compromised, and one of the great disasters of human history ensued. Sure, the people ended up more equal, but it was more equally poor, unfree. Russia now, post-communism, is struggling with deep spiritual bankruptcy and economic stagnation to this day.
Fascism, for its part, was built on a nihilist philosophy – think of Nietzsche’s famous “God is dead” and “will to power”. In a world where all historical spirituality and morality is declared void, nothing is wrong and everything is permissible; the only thing that matters is material power, expressed through powerful individuals and powerful races or nations. “We shall rule the world” – and it was only ruling that mattered. Of course, we know what the consequences were, but Fascism still lives strong today, in the guise of, for example, Putin’s Russia, various forms of Islamism (ironic, because supposedly theocratic), or many corrupt African states.
What Marxism and Fascism have in common is a compelling, purely materialistic view of the world. There were actually good reasons to throw out a lot of the religious practices and ideas of the day, but in rejecting spirituality altogether, these ideologies just succeeded in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The baby in question wasn’t God – he’s no baby – it was the human spirit itself.
When Joe Biden was pointing out Xi Jinping’s lack of democratic bones (above, 7/2/21) he was obviously speaking metaphorically; democracy lives in your soul, your spirit, not your bones. This is the very thing we have to get into our heads, in fact: we are souls. Yes, you could say “spirits”, or, for that matter, “consciousnesses”, or “minds”, or just “selves”; but I’m going to say “souls”. We are souls in bodies – embodied souls – of course, and I don’t know of any evidence for the existence of disembodied souls (maybe they exist, maybe they don’t), but the important thing to acknowledge is that we are souls first, bodies second.
If you don’t think you are a soul, I wonder what you think you are?! Marx and Nietzsche got it completely wrong when they put the material side of life first. I know I’m oversimplifying things, and these two men were actually profound thinkers who had much to offer, but, fatally, they didn’t understand what really motivates us, what really drives human behaviour and action. As material beings we are certainly subject to what Marx might have called material necessity – we’ll do anything to survive, food, shelter and money are incredibly important to us, and, yes, we like to have as much control as possible over the material side of life. But we are spiritual beings also, and as such we are subject to a second, different necessity which is even deeper and more compelling.
Have you guessed what it is? You’re a human being, so I’m sure you know. What really motivates us is a deep inner yearning for, dare I say it, love. We want to love and be loved, and the love of others and of life and the world in general is more urgent for us than any amount of physical comfort or money. We’d choose death rather than be unloved.
This is what I call psychological necessity. The two necessities, material and psychological, exist side-by-side in our lives, and drive us ever on, day by day, moment by moment, living our lives to the fullest, or just trying to survive one more day. Material necessity is a leftover from our animalian past (taking an evolutionary point of view), but psychological necessity is a distinctly human thing, fruit of our unique self-consciousness. If you were a theologian you would probably think of psychological necessity as springing from the imago dei, the fact that we are (according to the author of Genesis 1) made “in the image of God”. Either way, there is definitely something about having a conscious awareness of our separate individual existence that sends us ever spinning off in search of affirmation, connection, identification, unity, communion ….. – love, in other words.
You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with democracy. Well, psychological necessity can effect in us human beings a gradual and very beautiful transformation. I’m talking both individually and historically. We start out totally self-centred and self-absorbed (how else can we start out?), then gradually learn to let go of our self-absorption in favour of respecting and caring for others. We learn to love, we learn to practice compassion, even though these things don’t come naturally to us at first (why would they?). And a society based on respect and care, love and compassion – what else is that but democracy?
You thought democracy was a voting system, a power-sharing arrangement, people yelling at each other in Parliament, majority rules. It is all these things (for better or for worse), but more than all these things it is a heart attitude, a spiritual orientation. Democratic politics is about heated debate, disagreement, posturing, virtue signalling, calling people out; but all this starts with people agreeing to talk to each other and work things out together, and that can only be motivated, ultimately, by real respect, care, love and compassion. What’s the alternative? Only one: violence – poisoning your political opponents, throwing them in jail, secret police, Big Brother watching over you, political power out of the barrel of a gun.
A model for democratic society is the early Christian communities – people agreeing to share their lives together, putting others first, bound together by a shared commitment to love and compassion. Yes, it might start out with the spiritual transformation of individuals, but inevitably that grows outwards to encompass whole communities and even societies. The irony in the democratic West is that one particular form of spirituality – Christianity – may have played a significant role historically in laying the groundwork for democratic transformation, but, having done its work, this spiritual form now seems to be “withering away”. The basic orientations of Christian love and compassion are now embedded, more or less invisibly, deep in the structure of our various democratic institutions, so maybe the church is now redundant? I’m not sure.
I’m being a bit disingenuous here – “one particular form of spirituality” indeed! There’s no doubt in my mind, in fact, that democracy is the fundamental outworking of the Gospel in relation to society. It would be much more accurate, therefore, I think, for us to refer to the Republic rather than the Kingdom of Heaven. But I’ll argue that point at a different time.
The problem we’re facing is that democratic spiritual transformation has yet to occur in many parts of the world. Russia is an amazing case in point. In the past 150 years it has moved from oppressive Tsarism, to Marxism, to Putinism – seemingly doomed to one step forwards, two steps back. The great Russian writers of the 19th century – think Dostoevsky in The House of the Dead, or Tolstoy in Resurrection – clearly saw the need for spiritual transformation first, before material transformation; but, shortly after, their hopes were dashed, and their insights quickly swamped, by the avalanche of Marxism-nihilism that was the Russian revolution. Now, in the age of Putin, Russia seems to be in an almost worse state, spiritually and democratically, than it was with the Tsars.
The spiritual transformation that leads to democracy – that is democracy – is about real change in people’s heart attitude, behaviour, practical orientation towards others – about love, care, respect, kindness, compassion. It’s not primarily about acquiring right beliefs, religious or otherwise, but there’s no doubt that belief in something – and I’d say something to the effect of “the transcendent power of love and compassion” – rather than just nothing, is a key part of bringing about the change we’re looking for. This is something Christianity can really deliver on, by the way, when you clear away all the inessential detail.
It – the spiritual transformation that leads to democracy – is a new thing that seems to have emerged in human history (who knows when or why), has gradually gathered pace and momentum, and is now, I think, more or less unstoppable. But, and this is the key point I want to make today, when you realize, and embrace, the fact that democracy is, first and foremost, a spiritual transformation (of society), you’ll have a much greater chance of being able to participate positively in the transformation that is actually occurring – even in places like Russia – rather than sitting on the sidelines feeling miserable, like I was at the start of this essay.
February 2021