hen you get in a room with leaders across the world and across disciplines, you don’t expect much agreement. But this time, we found a major agreement.
- The place: The Future of Democracy Forum at the historic Patterson Mansion in Washington, D.C.
- The time: The eve of the NATO Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., 8 July 2024.
- The people: Co–hosted by Diplomatic Courier and the Community of Democracies with a wide diversity of 50–60 carefully selected leaders and experts from NATO, military, government, academia, NGOs, international orgs, corporations, and technology.
After some background presentations, we broke into eight groups to identify the top threats to democracies around the world, and prioritize them with an eye towards the ones that are the most likely to happen.
Each of the eight groups listed as a top concern, if not the top concern, the social breakdown of our democratic societies internally.
It was not the risk of military action or economic peril or hunger or want or disease or other very real threats. We were all extremely concerned with the breakdown of democratic societies. Not everyone described it the same way, but it all boiled down to that.
Within democracies worldwide, the divisions have gotten so intense that we are losing our ability to work with or tolerate each other. It is not that we disagree, but that I think you are evil because we disagree politically and I won’t work with you even when we agree. The technical name for this is affective polarization.
Sometimes this breakdown comes internally, either by bad actors or misguided true believers (often from opposing parties). Sometimes it happens by accident, like how our technologies have been used in ways that make us more tribal, less rational, and pit us against each other. Sometimes it is driven by external bad actors—that kind of attack is less risky and potentially more effective than direct military action.
When democracies are weak, dangerous authoritarian groups are free to do what they please. It makes it easier to attack through military action or dishonest diplomacy. Human rights abuses go unopposed. Regimes that cause great suffering more easily profit and grow.
Technology, in its current state (which can be changed), is the latest driver of this. We now communicate and interact in ways that put us into filter bubbles of like–minded people and ideas, training us to be more extreme and suspicious of others. Those people are not just wrong but evil, and we must stop at nothing to stop them.
This is exacerbated by the business models of today’s social media, search engines, news media, and now AI that make more money if you like them, agree with them and click more, driving ad revenue and subscriptions. Politicians use the same formula, often called identity politics, to get contributions and votes.
Pessimists will say that human nature is to be tribal, emotionally reactive and distrustful of other groups. We are wired that way, and these new technologies have become so good at manipulating us that there is not much we can do about it.
Optimists will note that technologies can be used for good or for bad. While humans are wired to be tribal, we are also wired to connect, and technology can be used to increase connection, not reduce it or replace it. Humans yearn for real connection.
Optimists will also point out that education and community have long raised humanity above our most base desires. Healthy democratic communities are not driven by hate, fear, and ignorance, but by concern for each other and hope for a better future.
The current status quo is depriving us of some core human needs. Everyone is feeling this pain. People are pushing back.
This gives us the opportunity to change course.
Regular, average people want connection and a more stable society, and they are realizing that the way to get there is to get out of hate–inducing filter bubbles.
This is where democracies win. In democratic societies, people are the ultimate authority. For democratic societies to flourish, they are well informed and appreciative of each other, each other’s rights, and each other’s humanity. They have the freedom and opportunity to converse, disagree, get angry, and feel affection for each other.
It’s not always pretty. As Winston Churchill cited (but did not originate), “democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Faced with the worldwide decline in freedom and the suffering, violence, and death that are generated by authoritarian regimes, our path is clear. Peace, safety and wellbeing require democratic systems, and democratic systems require healthy, vibrant democratic societies. A top priority must be to reinvigorate democratic societies everywhere.
"When democracies are weak, dangerous authoritarian groups are free to do what they please."
"When democracies are weak, dangerous authoritarian groups are free to do what they please."
a global affairs media network
Misinformation and hyper division, democracy’s biggest threat and opportunity
Photo by Dean Oliver from Unsplash.
August 8, 2024
At the Future of Democracy Forum, a diverse group of leaders reached a key point of consensus—social breakdown is a far bigger threat to our democracies than we’re acknowledging. We must meet this division with understanding and connection to reinvigorate democratic society, writes John Gable.
W
hen you get in a room with leaders across the world and across disciplines, you don’t expect much agreement. But this time, we found a major agreement.
- The place: The Future of Democracy Forum at the historic Patterson Mansion in Washington, D.C.
- The time: The eve of the NATO Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., 8 July 2024.
- The people: Co–hosted by Diplomatic Courier and the Community of Democracies with a wide diversity of 50–60 carefully selected leaders and experts from NATO, military, government, academia, NGOs, international orgs, corporations, and technology.
After some background presentations, we broke into eight groups to identify the top threats to democracies around the world, and prioritize them with an eye towards the ones that are the most likely to happen.
Each of the eight groups listed as a top concern, if not the top concern, the social breakdown of our democratic societies internally.
It was not the risk of military action or economic peril or hunger or want or disease or other very real threats. We were all extremely concerned with the breakdown of democratic societies. Not everyone described it the same way, but it all boiled down to that.
Within democracies worldwide, the divisions have gotten so intense that we are losing our ability to work with or tolerate each other. It is not that we disagree, but that I think you are evil because we disagree politically and I won’t work with you even when we agree. The technical name for this is affective polarization.
Sometimes this breakdown comes internally, either by bad actors or misguided true believers (often from opposing parties). Sometimes it happens by accident, like how our technologies have been used in ways that make us more tribal, less rational, and pit us against each other. Sometimes it is driven by external bad actors—that kind of attack is less risky and potentially more effective than direct military action.
When democracies are weak, dangerous authoritarian groups are free to do what they please. It makes it easier to attack through military action or dishonest diplomacy. Human rights abuses go unopposed. Regimes that cause great suffering more easily profit and grow.
Technology, in its current state (which can be changed), is the latest driver of this. We now communicate and interact in ways that put us into filter bubbles of like–minded people and ideas, training us to be more extreme and suspicious of others. Those people are not just wrong but evil, and we must stop at nothing to stop them.
This is exacerbated by the business models of today’s social media, search engines, news media, and now AI that make more money if you like them, agree with them and click more, driving ad revenue and subscriptions. Politicians use the same formula, often called identity politics, to get contributions and votes.
Pessimists will say that human nature is to be tribal, emotionally reactive and distrustful of other groups. We are wired that way, and these new technologies have become so good at manipulating us that there is not much we can do about it.
Optimists will note that technologies can be used for good or for bad. While humans are wired to be tribal, we are also wired to connect, and technology can be used to increase connection, not reduce it or replace it. Humans yearn for real connection.
Optimists will also point out that education and community have long raised humanity above our most base desires. Healthy democratic communities are not driven by hate, fear, and ignorance, but by concern for each other and hope for a better future.
The current status quo is depriving us of some core human needs. Everyone is feeling this pain. People are pushing back.
This gives us the opportunity to change course.
Regular, average people want connection and a more stable society, and they are realizing that the way to get there is to get out of hate–inducing filter bubbles.
This is where democracies win. In democratic societies, people are the ultimate authority. For democratic societies to flourish, they are well informed and appreciative of each other, each other’s rights, and each other’s humanity. They have the freedom and opportunity to converse, disagree, get angry, and feel affection for each other.
It’s not always pretty. As Winston Churchill cited (but did not originate), “democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Faced with the worldwide decline in freedom and the suffering, violence, and death that are generated by authoritarian regimes, our path is clear. Peace, safety and wellbeing require democratic systems, and democratic systems require healthy, vibrant democratic societies. A top priority must be to reinvigorate democratic societies everywhere.
