Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.
Interpretation
Democracy attempts to balance society's extremes, minimizing violence while preventing anarchy and tyranny.
Steven Pinker highlights democracy's inherent imperfections, portraying it as a system that navigates between the dangers of anarchy—where chaos reigns unchecked—and tyranny, where oppressive rule prevails. He suggests that while democracy isn't flawless, it strives to minimize violence, presenting it as the most humane way to structure governance, keeping the peace without resorting to forceful extremes.
In practice
This quote could be used in a political debate to emphasize the value of democratic systems.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
I will defend Europe; it is our civilisation which is at stake... I will work to rebuild ties between Europe and its citizens.
Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.
If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.
Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.
People talk about the Patriot Act that was passed immediately in the wake of September 11. What the Patriot Act did was break down the walls between the various agencies.
The dangers of unexamined and unregulated monopoly power, particularly in the state executive, are hardly news. The right reaction is not passive acquiescence.
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