World Crisis - Political Disorder
How to live with pre-democracy, democracy, and post-democracy
The political disorder of the World Crisis is presented in common political narratives as a dualistic struggle. Progress vs Reaction. Globalism vs Populism. The West vs the Rest. Democracy vs Autocracy. Total State vs Freedom. Empires vs Nations. Good vs Evil.
But political orders are not well explained by such simple dualistic categories. A way out of the ruin of political disorder is not found by establishing new dualisms.
To understand the world crisis in political disorder today you need to think about politics and ‘our democracies’ in a different way. You need to see politics not through the screen of mass media spectacle, but as governing, as a process of social coordination. You need to see politics not as theatrical combat, but the way some of us govern the conduct of all of us.
You need to see that we live today not only in democracies, but in a habitat in which live democracy, post-democracy and pre-democracy.
This post is the third in a series of articles on the World Crisis, using seven themes:
Political Disorder
Social Fragmentation
Cultural Decay
War
Economy
Environmental Threat.
My fortnightly essays over the next few months will explore each of these themes. Each essay is exploratory and reflective, as befits an outsider’s work in progress. I hope they offer prompts for your own reflections. To read the whole article, please upgrade your subscription to a paid subscription.