The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed as the
history of democracy's struggle against its external enemies: fascism
and communism. This struggle ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the collapse of the Soviet regime. Some people think that democracy now
faces new enemies: Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism and
international terrorism and that this is the struggle that will define
our times. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today is
democracy itself. Its enemies are within: what the ancient Greeks called
'hubris'.
Todorov argues that certain democratic values have been distorted and
pushed to an extreme that serves the interests of dominant states and
powerful individuals. In the name of 'democracy' and 'human rights', the
United States and some European countries have embarked on a crusade to
enlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yet this
mission to 'help' others has led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, to
large-scale destruction and loss of life and to a moral crisis of
growing proportions. The defence of freedom, if unlimited, can lead to
the tyranny of individuals.
Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience of growing up in
a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examples borrowed from the
Western canon: from a dispute between Augustine and Pelagius to the
fierce debates among Enlightenment thinkers to explore the origin of
these perversions of democracy. He argues compellingly that the real
democratic ideal is to be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance
between competing principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress.
When one of these elements breaks free and turns into an over-riding
principle, it becomes dangerous: populism, ultra-liberalism and
messianism, the inner enemies of democracy.
