Chapter 3c
A 'Tyranny of the Majority' is NOT True Democracy
The means determine the ends


In our own decades of experience working in and with many social groups, we have found that allowing for and accepting a ‘tyranny of the majority’ is perhaps the most common misunderstanding of the moral tenets of Democracy that people hold. Despite the decades of struggle for minority rights in our nation, struggles that ironically have even been the very object of these many groups, it is very common that people assume that ‘the majority’ within a group should always have its way in all matters and considerations, without regard for the rights of minorities. This can only lead to entrenched and corrupted power, which is the very bane of Democracy.

A ‘tyranny of the majority’ is NOT True Democracy. A majority that has no regard or respect for the interests and rights of minorities is a tyranny indeed. The fact that it is a collective tyranny, made up from the power of the greatest number, rather than emanating from a single tyrant, does not make it Democracy. True Democracy demands that a group must always hold to the most basic moral tenet upon which the very concept of Democracy is founded. If we expect others to consider our rights and interests, then we must give equal consideration to theirs.

Even the noblest and most enlightened social policies will not likely long endure in the face of the divisiveness and social unrest set off if the rights of some are violated in the process of establishing those policies. Many believe that the ends justify the means, and occasionally that can be true, but much more often, (in fact, almost always), the means determine the ends, and despite the best of intentions, those who pursue justice through unjust means only end up with even greater injustice, (greater because it is hypocritical, as well as unjust).

Democracy itself, the process through which all other policies are established, the process that encompasses the higher concepts of the inalienable rights of all, must be our most important policy. If it is not, whatever other positions and policies we advocate and pursue, whatever agenda and platform we establish and promote, no matter how noble, no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how well-thought or well-hewn, will not long endure. If we resort to dishonorable methods in pursuit of honorable goals, our chances of success are very small, (almost nonexistent). Hypocrisy is easily perceived, and its effects on the advocacy of the hypocrites are almost always devastating.

And even should we succeed through unjust means, our success will be temporary, because those who have led us to this transient ‘victory’ through dishonorable means will be people with no regard for honor or moral enlightenment, and the foibles of human nature will soon corrupt them, and whatever noble purpose might have motivated their rationalized but dishonorable means, will be soon forgotten as they revel in their new found power.

This is a very old story, all too often told. Fools will always hope for a different ending as they tell their own version, but somehow, inexorably, the ending is always the same. Only very rarely do the ends ever justify the means. If we read the tragic stories from 10,000 years of Humankind’s struggle to become civilized, we will be hard pressed to find any in which the means did not, by the time that the dust of a presumed ‘victory’ had settled, determine the ends.

We believe that if an organization’s (or a society’s) democratic process is scrupulously maintained as such, (as truly democratic), then the organization (or society) cannot help but arrive at social policies that enhance the Common Good.

There is an element of ‘faith’ in this belief, to be sure, (since it depends on a ‘religious’ devotion to Democracy), and some may complain that ‘faith’ is irrational, but Reason itself will command us to learn what the lessons of History have tried so hard to teach us. Those that rise ‘by the sword’, (by raw power rather than through moral enlightenment), rule ‘by the sword’, (and, much more often than not, will die ‘by the sword’). Those who ascend to power through dishonorable means, will rule dishonorably.

It may require an element of faith to believe that the corollary opposite is true, that those who rise through honorable means will govern honorably, but if we back up our faith with the democratic means to hold those who rise accountable to those who elevated them, we can create a democratic system that is greater than the people who inhabit it, (a proverbial ‘whole’ that is greater than 'the sum of its parts').


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