Chapter 11: Going for Depth in Civic Education: A Design Experiment

The demise of a democracy is an unremarkable event historically. So is the reverse: “To ask why a democracy does not exist at a particular time or in a particular country in on the face of it a distorting question; its absence does not compel explanation” (Wiebe, 1995, p. 9). The reason is that tyranny, not democracy, is the historical norm. When a democracy does emerge, the occasion is marked above all else by fragility, and its prognosis is not good. In all likelihood, its appearance in the historical record will be followed, sooner or later, by a regression to the mean. Aristotle had seen and heard enough of its poor prospects by 350 B.C.E. that he could offer an explanation: “The downfalls of democracies are generally caused by demagogues Of old, the demagogue was a general, and then democracies changed into tyrannies. But in our day, when the art of rhetoric has made such progress, it is orators who lead the people.” Once elected by appealing to the resentments and prejudices of the voters, the demagogue proceeds to dismantle the democracy. Demagoguery is how democracies commit suicide, using democratic elections to kill the democracy.