Anti-politics and post-truth tendencies are symptoms of alienation from objective discourse. Democracy is premised on people governing themselves through shared learning and collective assessment. On the assumption that people are willing to review ideas in the light of the evidence and arguments in front of them, what the majority of them choose as the most convincing option on any given occasion is taken as a reasonable choice to follow. However, when a substantial part of the population steps back from reasoned deliberations with others, and insists that their own views are unquestionable, then democracy cannot function. In this chapter, we will look at why all claims and assumptions affecting any group must be subject to critical re-examination, what that should not be taken to mean lest it leaves us with no basis for collective discussion, and how a system of critical re-examination can be embedded in the way we govern ourselves.

Why democracy depends on critical re-examination

Unlike other approaches to governance, democracy as a meta-strategy is distinctive in its focus on reviewing options and selecting what the cooperative intelligence of the people deems most likely to lead to improvements. It rejects the notion that any set of commands or policies can be appropriate for all time, and actively seeks to come up with better solutions. Consequently, while non-democratic regimes may hold on to ideas and practices regardless of how well they might have stood up to scrutiny, democratically governed groups are disposed to check for opportunities to revise and improve.

In the post-war years leading up to the 1970s, most developed countries shared a sense of modernity, democratic openness, scientific progress, and a technologically sustained rise in prosperity. But with the emergence of the New Right as a political force, plutocratic policies began to reverse the decline in income inequalities, accelerate the concentration of society's wealth among the rich elite, and leave the rest to become increasingly less secure (Freeland, 2012). By the beginning of the 21st century, for the first time in decades, many people were beginning to wonder if their children would end up worse off than them (Taibbi, 2014).