WE Are the Enemies of Democracy

White Supremacist Richard Spenser is clearly a divisive, irresponsible provocateur whose views should be confronted and refuted thoroughly and dramatically wherever he goes. But it is naive and self defeating to believe that such ideas can be defeated by illiberal bludgeoning. The future of democracy requires that civil society takes a serious and measured response to such assaults on our future as a self determining people. Hateful antics such as Spenser's are actually necessary opportunities for bolstering the prospects of democracy in new generation of active citizens.

Public educational institutions like Auburn need to marshal the will and the resources to make events like Spenser's poisonous appearance into profound civic experiences to the extent their skills and imaginations can permit. They will need full fledged support from the surrounding community going well beyond public safety and law enforcement to include civic and religious organizations along with school and political officials. 

Colleges and universities can train and support student groups to prepare for, manage, and respond to the aftermath of these provocations. (Critical assessments of the responses to these dramatic encounters are crucial for fostering the skills to defend democracy.) Positions like Spenser's are indeed a challenge to civil society and liberal democracy, but they should be viewed as welcome challenges. They are rich with opportunities for students and community members to model gladiatorial, but edifying, responses that resound beyond the glib, the self righteous, and the topical. People should leave such events with renewed awareness of the dangers to democracy and the need to continue preparing themselves to protect our ability to rule ourselves.

Infants and toddlers need to be exposed to a wide variety of germs and pathogens so their natural immune responses can strengthen and develop. And democracy needs each generation to confront its dangers, complexities and ironies head on. Otherwise democracy becomes pathetically vulnerable to the easy manipulations of clever provocateurs.

The stakes are very high. Allowing fear and hysteria to "trump" the grueling demands of building rational and critically astute responses to atavistic and demagogic appeals is horrifyingly short sighted and hazardous. We should not waste words or energy condoning or condemning childishly self soothing tantrums. Instead we should be investing in incentives for those able to demonstrate the ability to recognize and point out unserious and manipulative rhetoric while also raising awareness that the true threats and impediments to self rule come from our own lack of skills, courage, and maturity.

Though Spenser's ideas are despicable, they have deep roots in the human psyche and in the class culture of the United States. Opportunities to confront this venom in culturally affirmative ways should be grimly welcomed by any serious person who says "Never Again" when looking "back" on the Holocaust, the genocide of Native Americans, the international slave trade and the subjugation of Africans in North America.

When contemplating the opportunity to stand against evil, some might ask "What would Jesus do?", "What would Gandhi do?", "What would Martin Luther King do?, or "What would Noam Chomsky do?"

Emotional revulsion needs to be tempered with critical deployment of rhetorical skills, critical analysis, and an acute awareness of the demands, vulnerabilities, and ironies of democracy. This does not happen in a vacuum, an incubator, or a safe space.