131214840-Carl-Schmitt

Page 28
this democratic dialectic. Their leader Lilburne wrote in his Legal Fundamental Principles of
the People of England (1649) that only the ''well-affected" should have voting rights, that the
elected representatives of these "well-affected" people must have legislative power
completely in their hands, and that the constitution must be a contract signed by the "wellaffected."
15
Democracy seems fated then to destroy itself in the problem of the formation of a will. For
radical democrats, democracy as such has its own value without reference to the content of
the politics pursued with the help of democracy. If the danger exists that democracy might be
used in order to defeat democracy, 16 then the radical democrat has to decide whether to
remain a democrat against the majority or to give up his own position. As soon as democracy
takes on the content of a self-sufficient value, then one can no longer remain (in the formal
sense) a democrat at any price. It is a remarkable fact and a necessity, but in no way an
abstract dialectic or sophistical game. 17 It often happens that democrats are in the minority. It
also happens that they decide on the basis of a supposedly democratic principle in favor of
women's suffrage and then have the experience that the majority of women do not vote
democratically. Then the familiar program of "people's education" unfolds: The people can
be brought to recognize and express their own will correctly through the right education. This
means nothing else but that the educator identifies his will at least provisionally with that of
the people, not to mention that the content of the education that the pupil will receive is also
decided by the educator. The consequence of this educational theory is a dictatorship that
suspends democracy in the name of a true democracy that is still to be created. Theoretically,
this does not destroy democracy, but it is important to pay attention to it because it shows
that dictatorship is not antithetical to democracy. Even during a transitional period dominated
by the dictator, a democratic identity can still exist and the will of the people can still be the
exclusive criterion. It is then particularly noticeable that the single practical question affected
is the
Create PDF with PDF4U. If you wish to remove this line, please click here to purchase the full version