“If liberty is ever lost in America, it will be necessary to lay the blame on the omnipotence of the majority that will have brought minorities to despair.”
– Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America
In 1831, an ambitious French aristocrat, Alexis De Tocqueville, visited Jacksonian America, writing diligently on the progress of our nation’s experiment with universal liberty. The eventual result of his journey was Democracy in America, widely regarded as one of the most influential and perceptive treatises in political literature. The composition is prominent not only for its amusing observations of the daily life in 19th Century America but also for its astute analysis of social freedom. While impressed by the relative independence many citizens enjoyed, De Tocqueville was dismayed by the troubling undercurrent of repression and fear mongering which often reared its head. The foreign observer was shocked by the substandard treatment of African Americans, Native Americans, and women, as opposed to the extensive freedoms which were afforded to white men. He was acutely troubled by the widespread disregard held for the concerns of less fortunate people, as opposed to the systemic privilege afforded to the Caucasian-patriarchal majority in power. No stranger to the experience of a moralistic majority forcing its opinions upon an unwilling minority, as he had barely survived the volatile fervor of the French Revolution, De Tocqueville coined the phrase, ‘tyranny of the majority’ to describe this phenomenon. While nearly two centuries have passed since his infamous visit to the United States, the aristocrat’s beliefs have not aged, rather, the contemporary encroachment of populism and righteous indignation has increased the issue. When the majority attempts to enforce a moralistic standard upon society, the individuality and liberty of the minority are irreparably harmed.
The tyranny of the majority is ultimately caused by the inherent weakness in society to place the interests of a majority above, and at the cost of, those in the oppressed minority group, leading to structural despotism. While the phrase was initially found in De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the fundamental theory has been existent since the time of Socrates and was a philosophy of the Framers during the writing of the United States Constitution. As James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 51, there is a “great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part”. While the unfettered oppression of the minority by an omnipotent majority is not a solely American phenomenon, the uniquely impassioned emotions of the American people leaves them uniquely vulnerable to a societal panic, and is why we must keep a vigilant eye for the forces which seek to undermine liberty.
The mechanisms in the United States for preventing a moral tyranny are most evident in the existence of the Electoral College to decide the victors in Presidential Elections, and a Senator’s elected term being six years long. The former prevents the emergence of a fanatical plurality by expanding the electoral map beyond the most populous states, and the latter accomplishes this by safeguarding an elected official from the immediate whims of the voting age population. Though it has become fashionable in the past two years to decry the Electoral College as a relic, it is an essential barrier to the threat of populous states forcing their views upon the minority, as you must accumulate a variety of states across the union to actually claim victory (Jahncke). While there are several reasons for a free society to disconnect itself from the dogmatic views of an all-powerful plurality, the two essential issues are that a majority often preys upon the fears and paranoia of the populace to enact reform, and that rights of the minority are essential to fostering universal freedom and nonconformist beliefs.
The tyranny of a majority is distinctly harmful because the populace is often controlled by short-term emotional outrage which threatens freedom, and then quickly dissipates once the fervor is no longer in vogue. The most destructive of moral panics may only last for a relatively short period, but are often purposeless and haphazard, with permanent negative ramifications for multiple generations. In the case of the day-care ritual-abuse scandal of the 1980s, in which children falsely accused baby-sitters of Satanic torture, lives were ruined and faulty crime legislation was passed that impacted governance for decades (Casey). Once the tumultuous hysteria has ebbed, the minority is forced to live in a society which has been structured to oppress and disregard it, leading to well-deserved malcontent towards the majority. In an opinion essay concerning the long-term consequences of the rushed ‘Brexit’ decision on the Northern Irish citizens who voted to remain in the European Union, Aresh Pashakhanlou writes that “a majority of them voted to Remain. But since they only represent roughly 1.5% of the UK citizens, they fell victims to the tyranny of majority as well. Their future will be decided by people who do not live there”, a truly horrifying miscarriage of justice. Even though 48.1% of the United Kingdom’s voting age population decided to comfortably remain in the EU, their fate was determined by a slim majority of citizens who selfishly did not give any consideration to the minority’s concerns. The fervently nationalistic and patently xenophobic sermons of Nigel Farage and the Leave Campaign appealed to the base emotions of humanity, those of fear and discriminatory skepticism, and thus were able to disregard the wishes of the sensible minority. The social panic that inevitably occurs whenever a majority decides the minority’s actions are threatening the well-being of a conformed community has dangerously permanent effects. In their triumphant ode to the counterculture of the late 1960s, “For What It’s Worth”, Buffalo Springfield celebrated the actions of civil rights activists who fought an unjust curfew in Hollywood that disproportionately affected young Latinos and African-Americans, and which was implemented by an all-white community board. The inciting incident had been a fiery moral panic concerning the integration of racial minorities in predominantly wealthy Caucasian neighborhoods, a concern which the song describes as “paranoia [that] strikes deep” which “starts when you’re always afraid”, a textbook case of ignorant fear that sweeps up the hapless minority. The false morality of the majority was oppressive to the individualistic freedom of the minority, as a salacious panic was quickly created to disseminate false truths and suppress any dissent.
Furthermore, the populist tyranny of the majority is detrimental to the rights of individuals because any serious consideration of the minority’s concerns is often scorned, leading to inexorable injustice that degrades all of society. While some may argue that a group’s interests should be accepted in relation to its population size, the liberties of outnumbered social groups should be defended to maintain the stability of a community as a whole, especially when the majority is actively hostile. Aside from the morality that is inherent in protecting the helpless, any society that encourages or simply allows the subjugation of a minority group risks a probable future where the majority becomes a minority, that is, in turn, oppressed. This vicious cycle of discriminator-becomes-discriminated and vice versa only fosters a system where no one is safe, because as the Greek philosopher Aesop explains, “those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant…must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves”. No society that is founded or conducted based on the flawed notion of absolute conformity can ever prosper, as we must be accepting of people who look, speak, and think differently from us. Not only is this the tolerant way to act, but it is an evolutionary advantage to encourage positive interaction and create goodwill between differing interest groups. As the television series
The X Files comically details in the episode entitled “Arcadia”, the ideal of a seemingly idyllic planned community is flawed because of the benefits of individuality. Furthermore, the blatant autocracy of majority rule frequently effects those subordinate groups which are not given the opportunity to have a real voice in their life, a worrisome situation that Tocqueville first recognized in the 1800s. A disturbingly contemporary demonstration of the horrors of the tyrannical majority occurred fifteen hours before the submission of this paper, as an all-male Republican caucus passed an anti-abortion bill in Georgia which prevents procedures after six weeks. Commentators were sardonically bemused by the photographs of the legislation’s signing, as an oppressive law which will exclusively impact the lives of women, was happily approved by a group of sinisterly-smiling men (Galloway). The tyranny of this faux-moral event should not be lost on the passive spectator, as the minority’s rights have been trampled by an inconsiderate and overeager majority, determined on infringing upon their rights because of simple political conviction. The tyranny of the majority unjustly inflicts hardship and constraint upon minority groups, who often do not have a voice in their treatment, and this oppression harms society as a whole’s wellbeing.
While the obvious counterargument to my claims is that predominance in a population should determine the amount of power held, I would refute this on the basis of fairness, as the minority should be afforded certain basic rights to avoid the threat of paternalism. While uncomplicated to claim absolute power because of majority control in a group, the consideration of a subordinate group’s interests is essential to the governance of a well-ordered society. The shirking of the responsibility to contemplate other’s beliefs and ideals is incredibly dangerous, and creates a cesspool of petty sectarianism, in which squabbling interest groups clamor for supremacy. Additionally, as I mentioned in my first substantive paragraph, the public is often at the risk of quick moral panics which curtail societal freedoms, and then promptly disappear once the fear has lost its popularity. In a succinctly brilliant aphorism from The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes that “the public is despotic in its temper”, with Salem’s trepidation over communal disintegration because of Hester Prynne’s sexual history clearly connected with any paranoia from the past several centuries. The moral tyranny of the majority harms an individual’s freedom and identity, as it is antithetical to the ideals of personal sovereignty that 51% of a populace can impose morality upon the 49%.
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