The Anti-democratic Transnational Progressivism
The challenge to liberal democracy can also come from new and more insidious threats. John Fonte of the Hudson Institute notes that “transnationalism” and “Multiculturalism” are presented as unstoppable forces of history, but in reality they are “ideological tools, championed by activist élites.” He suggests that the end of the Cold War has intensified an intracivilizational Western conflict between liberal democracy and transnational progressivism, between democrats and post-democrats. According to him, the EU “embodies transnational progressivism. Its governmental structure is post-democratic. It is unelected and, for the most part, unaccountable.”
Transnational progressivism is undemocratic and authoritarian to its core. It presupposes the rule of enlightened “experts” and élite groups over the ignorant masses, who are stupid and should not be permitted to make important decisions without supervision. Its goal is to establish a benign oligarchy, where power will reside within smaller groups which will conduct their affairs out of the public view. This line of thinking is nothing less than a frontal attack on all basic principles of freedom and democracy, disguised under a benevolent façade. It needs to be exposed as such. Transnational organizations such as the European Union are a throwback to the pre-democratic age.
Snip
What should we label such undemocratic, top-down planning? The Rule of Experts, or the Tyranny of Experts? Or what about the Rise of Transnational Anti-Democrats and Stealth Fascism? I have warned against “Stealth Socialism,” Marxism masquerading as something else. Perhaps we should also look out for “Stealth Fascism,” the authoritarian rule of a small group of individuals, hailing the glories of an invented past as the path to a powerful future. All possible only if we give up our freedoms in favor of their enlightened rule, of course.
The idea behind this Rule of Experts is that the world is too complex for “common people” to understand, and that enlightened despots or, in their own eyes, educated experts, should run things. There are several catches to this theory. First of all is the contempt for ordinary citizens we find among many self-appointed intellectuals and “experts.” This impulse is, in fact, probably one of the most important challenges to the democratic system. The irony is that these “élite” groups honestly think that anybody opposed to their policies are “anti-democratic forces” and warn against their “populism,” what others call the will of the people.
I know from personal experience that the ones championing Multiculturalism and mass-immigration have been élite groups and those sections of the general public with University education. Those without significant higher education, however, have been consistently skeptical of this project. And they were right. The logic behind “hate speech” laws is that the educated people should hold the uneducated “mob” and their destructive stupidity in check. But what if some of the most destructive stupidity resides in the most highly educated groups? Who are going to keep them from getting out of control, if they cannot be criticized or stopped?
Those spending years at abstract studies can sometimes become too removed from the harsh realities of everyday life to understand their more down-to-earth compatriots and appreciate their problems. What’s more dangerous is that they may not even care. Unfortunately, some “educated” persons like to come up with elaborate schemes for restructuring the entire society, and tend to view ordinary people as little more than ants, guinea pigs to be used and abused on the road to Utopia.
The European Union as it is today is probably one of the most powerful arguments against international planning there has ever been. The system is set up so that the élites shouldn’t have to be bothered with anything as prosaic as, say, the will of the people. However, does it also expose some flaws in the democratic system?
How could a few, selected people decide in back rooms to launch a huge project of the transformation of an entire continent, without being stopped or even have this Project acknowledged in public? Is democracy just a sham, an act where the general public is allowed to make minor decisions while powerful people move behind the scenes to make the most important decisions? Or is it the very set-up of such massive, transnational organizations such as the EU that moves power away from the people and into back rooms and the corridors of power? Is the creation of Eurabia an indication of democracy’s flaws, or an argument in favor of revitalizing it?
