Modernity and Enlightenment are fundamental inventions of human beings in the last millennium. The capitalist economy, liberal democratic political system, and technological advancements are the basic features of affluent modern human beings. Democracy is the system to sustain the identity, recognition, and equal approachability of human beings in modern societies. Erich Fromm in his book Escape from Freedom asserted that Freedom is the dialectical process in which individuals decoupled their emotions with freedom when this freedom becomes the cause of anxiousness. In the neoliberal economic order of the post-Cold War era the economic meltdown, environmental catastrophe, and crumbling identities of nation-states amid global integration caused the cultural necrophobia in recent decades from Western to Eastern regions of the world. Neo-Freudian psychologists formulated that incapable individuals escaped from the burdens of freedom and ceased to strive for democracies; choosing a self-pathway and becoming part of the sadomasochistic power structure of the authoritarian leaders.
Why do human beings reject freedom and turn into the arms of dictatorships, populist-regime and authoritarian rulers? That potential question echoes in the mind and consciousness of every sane entity. The majority of people are not aware of embracing positive freedoms like legal rights because of narrower academic exposures being designed by the division of labour. In neoliberal literature, the specialized knowledge and unawareness of parallel perspectives are core to excelling in potentially high academic excellence. People become easily manipulated by dictators in nature. Psychologically speaking, human beings are more compatible and concerned about their local identities and collective interests as a nation, as religious identities, and as sacred groups.
In the neoliberal order and prevalent liberal democracies of Francis Fukuyama, technologies and economic forces are globally integrated nations into “one world” while the identities of people in nation-states pull them back to their local and cultural representations. This confronts the instinct to be a part of the global community or to be part of traditional culture and attracts authoritarian rulers to manipulate people into thinking that their collective interests are threatened by foreign conspiracies and foreign invaders.
This illusion easily persuades them to be part of populist narratives and rhetoric. For Instance; Weimar Germany after WWI was a democratic Republic, but Hitler in 1933 in the form of Nazism popularized that German is unstable and threatened by the foreign occupation of Britain and France, this the popular narrative appealed to the local identities of the people and they democratically elected a leader who paved the way for the Holocaust and WWII.
In the 21st century appeals to local identities and nationalist sentiments are popular mantras for populist leaders to feed anti-global sentiments. The potential threat to collective and local identities of sacred groups, religious factions, and locals empowers the potential dictator to thrive in this climate. For example, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan midst the 2016 coup attempt, regardless of the constitutional protection of Kemalism pe the foundation of secularism, popularized the revival of the lost glory of local Turkish and their enriched cultural identities, appealed to the emotions and sentiments of the native population and they empowered a potential dictator to be in power.
The Neoliberal order should introduce the “social man” dichotomy rather than the “economic man” of utilitarianism in educational policy to equip individuals with social lineages rather than just focusing on the economic and short-term appeals. The change in education will lead to change in political perspectives which will provoke the instincts and consciousness for more democracy and peace.
The Internet is an ominous threat to democracies unless it is used without any check on the reachability of Authoritarian rulers like Putin and Donald Trump. There are more than five billion active users of the internet in the world. The majority of people on the internet use it to endorse their existing world-views and biases, and exchange information and evidence in the echo chamber with like-minded people. Politics in the modern arena becomes the politics of show business in which appeals are to sentiments rather than facts and logic, and that is the core ideology of rulers. Alternative facts matter more than the real facts.
The other perspective is the moral alienation phenomenon. Fear of morality alone persuades people to be conformist automata . When people perceive that the majority is biassed they ultimately annex with biases because greater aloneness cuts them from the tiers of social security. The elite dissatisfaction in the society is also a cause of turning democracies into dictatorships.
The classic example of Franklin Roosevelt after the New Deal is visible: The mutilation of the capitalist corporate mindset by FDR dissatisfied the elites of American Democracy and America was on the verge of turning into a dictatorship because this faction of elites went to the Naval Chief for aid to topple down the government of FDR. A good gesture that the Forces chief denied toppling the democratic setup. Likewise in Chile during the era of Allende’s presidency, the elite was disappointed and with the help of General Augusto Pinochet, they ejected Allende from power and allowed Pinochet to rule in power. Later he appeared as a morally brutal ruler in Chile.
Democracies are in recession for the last 20 years due to the rising alienation of voters into the political process. The voters in the average political process don’t reflect their democratic interests and political choices. This phenomenon makes them apathetic and they wilfully escape from freedom and let democracies backslide into authoritarian support. According to Steven Levitsky, a renowned political scientist and author of How Democracies Die, asserted that democracies die at the polls and in the electoral process in modern contemporary societies.
Demagogues come into power by strongman political representation and vowing to be vigorous against those who are sapping the nation’s strength so they come with rhetoric to rescue the lost dignity and glory of nations, like Stalin and Hitler. Strongmen through Political Engineering vowed to be against minorities and anti-majoritarian forces personally and professionally.
With the rise of Donald Trump in the USA, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, and Narendra Modi in India, it is clear that illiberalism in democracies is paving its way day by day. The appeal to emotion approach will slide our global norms into the dark ages of the 16th century.
Coming to the way forward of protecting the struggle of millions to prevail in the democratic culture from the French Revolution to the Cold War; we need to be committed to our democratic culture and rational choices before the loss of millions to fight against the potential monarchs and dictators. We need to redesign and redirect our preferences by reconsidering our preferences in educational policies and the health sector. Good education is the only way forward to abdicate all ills.
The Neoliberal order should introduce the “social man” dichotomy rather than the “economic man” of utilitarianism in educational policy to equip individuals with social lineages rather than just focusing on the economic and short-term appeals. The change in education will lead to change in political perspectives which will provoke the instincts and consciousness for more democracy and peace.
