Democracy and Crisis Response

This summer was an eventful one in the laboratories of democracy. With the unrest that continues to flare up in cities and the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had passenger’s views of a governmental train wreck. A sense of mortality, and of the harsh reality of radically disruptive change and chaos, tend to be elusive to us as Americans, to varying degrees depending on such factors as class and our degree of engagement with mainstream culture. But it is always good to be shaken from your slumber, no matter how unpleasant the experience. Now is the time to be real about our political systems and their functionality.

For the past four years or so, we have all been subjected to a lot of talk about “democracy in crisis.” Most of this talk from mainstream, academic, and institutional voices has boiled down to what might be called “securocratic” pearl-clutching about an apparent general decline of institutional authority and privilege. If we want to see things more clearly, we ought to get concrete.

An odd situation arose over the summer when district attorneys in Portland and Seattle pledged to not prosecute any protesters arrested for nonviolent and nondestructive offenses. In those cities, hundreds of people were released without bail, in the midst of violence and unrest which had been paralyzing these cities for weeks. These decisions came with rationalizations about the courts being months behind schedule due to the pandemic. But it seems clear that political pressure from the community and the ideological views of these officials were much of the reason. It is also likely that hundreds of rioters, who were arrested for clashing with police, blocking highways and intersections, and accosting pedestrians and motorists, were released -- which continued to make these cities unsafe and put law enforcement resources under even more duress. 

Without getting too far into the political weeds, what does this mean? That elected city governments, partly due to their ideological and political priorities, undermined an essential, life-preserving function of government. Intersections and highways must be clear and safe. Police should be available, and able, to respond to emergencies and conduct investigations. Pedestrians and motorists should be able to go about their city safely without being accosted by a mob. The police could not provide an effective deterrent against, or punishment for, behavior which has resulted in loss of life and serious injury in cities all across the country. Faced with an explosion of criminality and disorder, elected officials looked at the situation and decided it was best to let the rabid dogs run loose. It is hard to say what the calculation was. Was this an attempt to buy votes by allowing agitated, until-recently quarantined constituents a sort of catharsis carnival? Was it an attempt to curry the favor of an organized, predatory mob? The implications are the same either way: politics before public safety.

As we have seen this year, one possible outcome in a democracy is that those in power may opt not to use, or even to cripple, society’s mechanisms for responding to an ongoing crisis because that is considered the politically advantageous or ideologically“right” thing to do. The term “anarcho-tyranny” – referring generally to a condition wherein the government infringes upon the rights of citizens while failing to put down violence and chaos – has been thrown around to describe the situation across the country. It is a compelling concept, but likely premature and not entirely accurate.  It seems more accurate to say that the relationship between public opinion, or accountability to the public, and good government may be weaker than we would like to assume. That voters understand what good and bad situations look like, that they recognize a major mistake or failure by government, and that they know which political forces or officials to blame, all seem like questionable assumptions in an age of exploding complexity and an exploding volume of contradictory media. We should think seriously about the troubling possibility that the democratic process can cannibalize government by allowing, for example, many voters’ perceived sympathy for violence to override even the most basic public safety obligations when that seems politically advantageous to elected officials. The sense that greater crises lie just ahead is widespread. And this intuition seems to come without any of the self-aggrandizing or opportunism that should arouse our suspicion.  

The Elegant Economy of Michel Houellebecq’s "The Elementary Particles"

Michel Houellebecq, the preeminent author and literary celebrity from France, has a myriad of things said about him. Some feel it appropriate to call him the greatest author alive. Others call him a hack. The Elementary Particles, the novel that established Houellebecq’s preeminence, is the subject of a lot of commentary as well. But what seems to be generally unaddressed is the novel’s sheer efficiency. In 262 pages of characteristically unflinching confidence, Houellebecq manages to address the destabilization of materialist philosophy by contemporary particle physics, the cultural legacy of the Sixties, the legacy of the postmodernists, sex positivity, pluralism, academic politics, the future of marriage, reproduction, death, the beauty of life, a latent desire in Western civilization for annihilation, the human predicament, and what seem like a thousand other things. The novel also manages to tell at least two entire life stories, concisely capturing the essential dynamics of these lives with only a modest amount of detail or “data.” The three main elements that I think have enabled its incredible thematic density are the quality of Houellebecq’s prose, the retrospective narration by his characters, and the qualities of the main characters.

Houellebecq’s prose is not florid, nor is it so austere as to be comparable to Hemingway. Houellebecq favors quality over quantity. This can be understood with reference to a hysterical realist, like David Foster Wallace, for whom quantity is itself a quality which can be used to produce some sort of effect upon the reader. In Houellebecq’s work, a sentence is written economically, with only the necessary words. In order to reduce the need for clarification, he avoids specificity that verges on the esoteric. Houellebecq does not write postmodern novels, and The Elementary Particles is accordingly a straightforward read. What enables him to make effective use of these strategies is the fact that his prose is simply fantastic, and evidences a writer of immense natural talent. Houellebecq’s writing is brutal and coldly efficient. Paragraphs cut aggressively, and the pages bleed with subtext. In an excruciatingly indifferent deadpan voice, Houellebecq delivers profound anguish, builds towering monuments of potential redemption for characters, and then decimates them without hesitation.

The efficiency of The Elementary Particles is greatly contingent on the reader’s ability to truly understand lengthy narrative arcs with only a few points of reference. Many events in the main characters’ lives are related at a point in time which affects their views of them in important ways, with some retrospective commentary. This mode of story-telling connects things across time and space, making possible an extrapolation of a character’s development over time. From recollections of only a few events, the principal dynamics that define a character’s life can be deduced. A full human being can be understood, down to their fundamental volitions, by an examination of these very few things--many of which don’t seem at all like significant landmarks in a life.

The dense intellectual dialogues in The Elementary Particles explore topics including quantum physics, molecular biology, the mechanics and ethics of reproduction, morality, metaphysics, scientific validity, literary studies, and many other things. In presenting these dialogues, Houellebecq uses his two main characters, half-brothers Michel and Bruno. Both are highly intelligent and well educated. Michel is a molecular biologist, very well-versed in philosophy, with origins in physics. Bruno studied literature and the other humanities, with a focus on the existentialists. The two brothers have very interesting intellectual lives on their own. However, when they occasionally meet and have these conversations, the dialectic between them is precisely what the narrative requires. They spar as two sides of the same miserable coin. One is confined to the murkiness, uncertainty, and multiplicity of the obsessive study of a few cultural moments, while the other scurries with a horrible diligence across the cold, gray plains of pure empiricism.

There is a lot to be said about a book that seems to say a lot of things, some of which the author may not even believe in. And my intention was never to dissect Houellebecq’s novel. My aim is to point to an underappreciated characteristic that allows the novel to succeed and to reach so many people. My second wish is that you will read it.