The Political Saturation of Social Space

This chapter begins to develop the book’s diagnostic argument. Overdoing democracy is partly the result of a widespread social phenomenon identified as the political saturation of social space. Politics has permeated our lives enough to guide where we shop, what we wear, even what we drink (Starbucks latte versus Dunkin’ Donuts coffee). Our social spaces are increasingly sorted and segregated according to our political allegiances, while our political allegiances are increasingly constitutive of our broader social identities. The result is that we are more than ever enacting democratic citizenship, but almost always under conditions that are themselves politically homogeneous. Until citizens are open to each other’s arguments, we cannot plausibly see democratic political rule as consistent with each citizens’ status as an equal, and thus more than merely the tyranny of the majority.

The Place of Politics

This chapter concludes the book. It argues that no matter how thick a conception of democracy one favors, it must be acknowledged that democracy isn’t everything. This is because politics—and therefore democracy—is for something. The importance of getting politics right is partly due to the importance of the goods and aspirations that well-conducted politics serves. The point of democracy is to enable us to lead lives that involve the cultivation of valuable human relationships. But it is the essence of such relationships that the participants aim at goods beyond politics. Although our flourishing both individually and collectively surely requires social and political association, there are nonetheless components of human flourishing that cannot be won by politics alone.

Civic Friendship

This chapter provides a prescription for addressing the problem of overdoing democracy. As politics always involves loss, democratic citizens need to cultivate within themselves capacities required for sustaining democratic commitments even in the face of political loss; they need to be able to regard one another as political equals even when they also see each other as severely mistaken about justice. Civic friendship is the blanket term used to refer to these capacities. Belief polarization under political saturation creates civic enmity, so the solution to the problem of overdoing democracy is to figure out how to cultivate civic friendship. It is argued that more or even better democratic engagement is likely to be counterproductive, and that the relevant capacities can be nurtured only by means of nonpolitical cooperative endeavors. A plan is put forward for doing this.

The Problem of Polarization

This chapter completes the diagnostic argument by showing how the political saturation of social space contributes to our vulnerability to belief polarization. Belief polarization is the phenomenon by which like-minded individuals transform into more extreme versions of themselves in the wake of group interactions. It is argued that as the belief polarization effect can be prompted by mere corroboration of one’s views (rather than by face-to-face group discussion), politically saturated social environments can generate within us extremity shifts simply in the course of everyday activities. The belief polarization phenomenon initiates a broader polarization dynamic that dissolves citizens’ democratic capacities.

Democracy’s Expanding Reach

This chapter argues that the problem of overdoing democracy is inherent within the democratic ideal; we tend to overdo democracy in our pursuit of responsible democratic practice. Thus the problem is not due to an infiltration of some antidemocratic norm or tendency into democratic society. Rather, the democratic ideal of self-government among equals lends itself to progressively expanding conceptions of the social reach of democratic politics. This chapter defines the site, scope, and reach of politics, and discusses majoritarian, minimalist, particpationalist, and deliberativist views of democracy. The latter view is what we are trying to do, and, more importantly for present purposes, it is most often what we see ourselves as doing when we engage politically.

Can Democracy Be Overdone?

This chapter lays out the central thesis of the book and clarifies it be means of contrasting it with nearby or distinct opposing theses. The central thesis is that it is possible to overdo democracy, and overdoing democracy is detrimental to democracy. By emphasizing politics as part of democracy, people “crowd out” or have less time for pursuing other goods whose achievement is part of the point of pursuing the good that is overdone. The chapter demonstrates that this thesis is fully consistent with a robust, participatory conception of democratic politics. To avoid overdoing democracy, the book suggests that people find other things to do together, things in which politics has no place. Putting politics in its place does not mean that people must stand back from democratic politics to give elites enough room to govern, which is the minimalist or elitist thesis.

Introduction

This introductory chapter introduces the central theme of the book: our social spaces have become overrun with appeals to our political identities and allegiances, thereby crowding out other bases for cooperative social interaction, such as the time-honored American custom of Thanksgiving dinner. This has, in turn, rendered our politics all the more divisive and polarizing. In making democratic politics the framework that organizes all that we do together, we overdo democracy. And overdoing democracy undermines democracy. If we seek to improve our democratic politics, we must devise things to do together that are in no way political. The book contends that democracy is worth doing well because there are other things worth pursuing that can be pursued best in a well-functioning democracy.