The Politics of Political Solidarity
The Limits and Failures of Ideal Democracy (Part One of Two)
Jenifer Maroon
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| • April-May 1992 | Newspaper: Funded by Syracuse University students. | |
| The Alternative Orange: Vol. 1, No. 5 (pp. 17) | ||
| • August 27, 2000 | Webpage:  . | |
| DocBook XML (DocBk XML V3.1.3) from original. | ||
Democratic procedure and bureaucracy, as that method and practice in which governing bodies institute the ideological beliefs of late capitalist society, exists in order to formalize the notion that democracy is the regime which includes the equal participation by, for and of all citizens. In other words, bureaucratic, parliamentary pro- cedures are the materialization of the said foundation and goals of democracy itself: that citizens are best served through majority rule, through participation in a system which treats and includes all members equally, and through an objective perspective, which free from bias and prejudice, informs all democratic decisions.
The justification for this democratic procedure rests on the notion that citizens are all morally equal, and that therefore all procedures should be “fair.” Fairness, in other words, becomes the moral reasoning through which citizens are legally equal to each other. For example, it does not matter who has driven over the speed limit; the fine is the same if the violator is a woman, man, homosexual, Latino, and so on. That is, equality is represented in law and procedure, because it reflects how citizens themselves are equal; laws exist to judge only one’s behavior. What occurs within procedure then, is this direct reflection of fairness through process; because democracy is not based on the citizen herself, it is formulated on an ideal of equality.
But democracy ignores that its citizens are not equal in society; that although legislation may state it treats people equally, what procedure forgets is that there are different social positions in which certain groups of people find themselves, and different social attitudes which create, in great part, the subjectivities of groups of people in that society. That is, it is through the “fair” and equal methods employed by generally applied, democratic, bureaucratic politics and procedures that the historical social conditions and realities which position citizens differently and unequally in society become mystified as normative to one standard (a standard which mirrors that of the ruling class’ interests), and it is through this mystification that those subjects and citizens whose interests and needs are not represented and/or supported by the democratic majority (i.e. the social norm) are suppressed, silenced, and otherwise not addressed. In other words, it is through the very notion and institutionalization of democracy’s focus on “equal” law for “equal” citizens that the oppression of “marginalized” groups takes place, even though, at the same time, democratic procedure promises to ensure equal inclusivity and representation for all; through democracy’s ahistorical, normative focus, any connection to a particular history (that of a given group, society, or democratic process itself) and the needs of that history is erased. The very tenets which are the foundation of democratic procedure oppress those whose social and historical needs exceed the norms of the ideal democracy.
Because it is in this erasure of history, this mystification of part of the production of social subjectivities, in which those whose interests do not partly or completely coincide with that of the norm as supported by democratic politics, and which become oppressed and located as “marginal,” democratic procedure locates itself as the means through which all issues should be debated, discussed, and decided upon. The ahistoricity of the democratic process and procedure itself occludes an historical analysis of a citizen’s specific location and social position with that of a normative, standard position; thus the specific positionalities which are located and accepted as having high value are not seen as oppressive to other social positions; they have been “elected” through an inclusive process (“inclusive” meaning that all subjects are encouraged and invited to participate in determining what democratically is decided upon) which has taken all options and voices present into account. Any citizen or subject located outside the norm (as dictated by democratic, majority decision), however deprioritized, is only so through her lack of participation with democratic processes. But what occurs through the democratic process, again, is the erasure of history and the further marginalization of “minority” groups. Thus, the more a citizen or group attempts to find equality within democracy and bureaucratic procedure, the more she is alienated and marginalized. Democratic procedure, then, performs one of its most important functions through the production, standardization and validation of the necessity of “equal” law over the needs of specific people and groups. Because the ideology of democracy seems to make everyone equal, democratic procedure reaffirms itself as the best method of maintaining equality in society, the only valid way one is guaranteed having equality. Democracy ensures that those who actively avoid the democratic process will be located socially as extremists or anti-socials, and therefore rejected as having any social value. Thus democracy, and its method of production, democratic procedure, work to maintain that those who work within its limits will be subject to increasing alienation and marginalization, and that those who try to avoid these “equal” systems will be stigmatized as radical extremists.
When history is brought in to understanding how a society decides upon the needs of its citizens, democratic procedure no longer positions all groups equally against one ahistorical, normative standard, but instead makes an attempt to account for the historicity of citizenship itself, and the differing need of specific groups of citizens, due to their history and their present situation. In other words, this idea of a socialist democracy begins a dialectical relationship between the past and present, as they dictate a society’s needs over time. This is a movement away from ideal democracy’s understanding that one standard is good for all citizens, and that society and people take place outside of history. Socialist democracy then, understands that one’s participation in specific systematic processes is dictated by her location in history and in society, and that participation is neither the motivating force of democratic procedure (as implied by ideal democracy), nor is the method of solution to social issues and problems. Socialist democracy, as a counter system to ideal, ahistorical democracy, is one which begins the creation of the knowledge of social totality (through its emphasis on the dialectics between past and present), and as such, is a better method of achieving social equality for all groups in society, not just a selected few which are already privileged within late capitalist, democratic society.
[Jenifer Maroon is the Director of the S.U. Womyn's Center.]
