The Specter of Hypocrisy by Raphael Sassower

Author:Raphael Sassower
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030605735
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

3.4 The Price of National Security: Loss of Identity

State-sponsored performances go back to ancient Greek military parades, gladiator games, and Olympian athletic competitions. Modern spectacles have been rebranded under fascist and democratic regimes alike to instill nationalist fervor as much as patriotic loyalty. The prominence of such state-sponsored spectacles during the Trump Administration and the celebration of the cult of personality are frightening reminders of this cynical disregard of the principles of liberal democracy, from political deliberation to the rule of law. Broadcasted on live television, President Trump’s rallies upend party politics in the kind of frenzy of zealotry that Nietzsche worried about when speaking of herd mentality. Fanning the resentment of his supporters, Trump’s performances eschew the art of persuasion and depart from nominal political conventions of leadership. Embracing the worst of the Orwellian dystopic nightmares, the Trumpian Administration forges ahead with complete indifference to mounting public resistance to some of its policies. The charge of hypocrisy is no more effective as a reminder of moral standards and reasonable political discourse against the delusional rhetoric of a narcissist than a reminder of the ideological commitments to which the American experiment owes at least a conceptual debt would be. The contempt expressed by the Trump presidency toward constitutional politics ignores the organizing and civilizing powers of some degree of hypocrisy; it is a contempt that flouts any sense of decency and challenges the very conditions of political discourse.

What political presuppositions are being ignored in this context? Chantal Mouffe, for instance, distinguishes between “political liberalism,” which promotes “the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the defense of individual freedom,” and the “democratic tradition,” which focuses on “equality and popular sovereignty.” (2018, 14) In this, she continues in a long tradition that pits liberty against equality, where preference for one is necessarily at the expense of the other. As we saw earlier, this is not, however, a problem for Arendt, for whom equality is a necessary condition for freedom. Simon Griffiths (2014) agrees with Arendt’s line of argument that no tradeoff between equality and liberty is required and extends it: the more equality, the more freedom, and vice versa. Using the British experience as his guide, he advocates a conceptual rapprochement that recognizes the mutual influence of freedom and equality. How can there be freedom of choice if the options are not the same for everyone to start with? Market socialism, for him, provides sufficient personal liberty while ensuring the collective ownership of much of the economy to mitigate against wealth and income inequalities. Though Mouffe’s position comes close to Arendt’s and Griffiths’, her analysis rests on the difference between liberalism and democracy. In her view, the tradition of liberalism embodies a commitment to individual freedom (marketplace freedom of choice) and the tradition of democracy a commitment to equality (one person, one vote). She reminds her readers that there are those, like Carl Schmitt, who contend that “liberalism denies democracy and democracy denies liberalism,” while others, like Habermas, insist on the “co-originality of the principles of freedom and equality.

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