For several decades the totalitarians always get away with it even pretend garb of democracy. The reflections of Dr. Sánchez House help to perceive.
"The truth does not depend on universal suffrage. A good government is not opposed to increasing knowledge but can never legitimately determine what is true or good. If the public authority imposes his opinions as truth, destroys freedom "
Democracy alone, no vaccine against totalitarianism. Democracy is opposed to autocracy or dictatorship, but not totalitarianism. Talmon wrote an essay entitled Rousseau and the Origins of Totalitarian Democracy . Democracy and totalitarianism are therefore not incompatible.
At the end of Democracy in America, perhaps the best book ever written on democracy, writes Alexis de Tocqueville : "The nations of our day can not avoid equal conditions within it, but that depends on them equality leads them to servitude or freedom, civilization or barbarism, to prosperity or misery ".
And Macaulay said "pure democratic institutions will lead, sooner or later, to the destruction of freedom, civilization, or both ". No democracy, but pure or radical democracy. Democracy does not guarantee freedom, civilization and prosperity. Of course, nor the permitting. Born it two ways, depending on each nation which of the two taken: that of freedom, civilization and prosperity, or servitude, barbarism and misery. It may not be impertinent to ask which of these two pathways is moving today the English democracy.
see no reason to deny that in Spain the freedom, civilization and prosperity are threatened. We have, without doubt, democratic institutions, but its operation is often defective. But we know that this does not guarantee freedom. A master democratic and more or less benevolent no longer a master. And there is no freedom if there is a master.
Tocqueville warned that in democratic times the science of despotism, once much more complex, it was simplified. Despot with love enough to equal or at least pretend that he loves. Citizens will reject any attack on equality, but will accept delivery of your submissive free democratic power.
Three examples Domestic interference illegitimate government in education, the imposition of historical memory, and the invasion of manners, as does, for example, the new draft Law on Equal Treatment. We are in danger of imposing state-a sort of "religion" and secular politics.
Condorcet wrote: "The same people who wanted to liberate men from the yoke of religion risk becoming a server worship no less oppressive. As soon as it is the power that tells the people what to believe, we have a kind of political religion, just better than the previous one ". The temporal power seeks to impose beliefs and you agree. The power can thus monitor and control everything, even conscience. It is a journey, slow and steady toward despotism. Those who think that citizens do not need to defend freedom from our representatives. The liberal tradition has rejected the claim of the States to determine the content of education.
Moreover, a State teacher is almost a contradiction in terms. One thing another is the power and truth. John Stuart Mill said the government should promote and enforce a good education for children, but never provide it for himself. The State's role in education is to ensure the right to it, but never determine its content. Unless one chooses to totalitarianism.
The truth does not depend on universal suffrage. A good government is not opposed to increasing knowledge but can never legitimately determine what is true or good. If public power impose their views as truth, destroys liberty.
I think what has recently sentenced Tzvetan Todorov in The spirit of the Enlightenment : "not for the people decide on what is true or false, or the parliament discussion on the meaning of historical events of the past or the government to decide what should be taught in school. The collective will of the sovereign people or clothing here with a ceiling of truth, over which it has influence. This independence the truth while protecting individual autonomy, which can appeal to the truth to power. The truth is above the law. For its part, the country's laws are not based on an established truth, but an expression of public will, always subject to change. The search for truth does not depend on public deliberation, and this of that ".
Sometimes, it seems that some attack on religion (Christianity) or the Catholic Church to take its place as spiritual power. But if the spiritual and temporal power were to meet in the same hands, freedom inevitably succumb.
Moreover, the logic of the welfare state in practice lead to invalidate the criteria for delimiting Mill when society can legitimately interfere with the freedom of a person. Everything I do or fail to do can, to some extent, affect others. Therefore, everything can be regulated or prohibited. It appears that these are. The same applies to the interference in customs. As the State seeks to regulate everything, can not leave out anything, including what charges the civic sense or good education.
There are things that can not be imposed by law, or, if attempted, is counterproductive. I call to Amartya Sen, who is not, I think, an ultra-liberal: "The ethical importance of freedom of a stutterer not to be belittled or ridiculed in public can be very important and deserve protection, but it is not likely to be a good subject to punitive legislation (fines or imprisonment for unscrupulous) to remove the violation of freedom of expression of the person affected. The protection of human right would otherwise obtain, for example through the influence of education and public discussion about civility and social behavior ". Leave aside the detail that if it is a human right, then the law must intervene. Except this, Sen is right.
freedom, civilization and prosperity are threatened us, though most, somewhat myopic, single repair in the third. No sensible compare our situation with that imposed century totalitarianism past. But there is totalitarianism, perhaps weaker and benign, but no less totalitarian, which oppresses consciences directly without violating the bodies.
In this sense, it is that freedom is being taken away from us but rather we lose by disuse, lack of affection and attachment to it. Therefore, it seems more urgent today claim that equal freedom, because it is much more threatened. In any case, we face an inexorable fate. It depends on us that democracy will lead to freedom, civilization and prosperity, not to serfdom, barbarism and misery.
Chamber Ignacio Sánchez is Professor of Philosophy of Law
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