Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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hope precedes nihilism. Nihilism can only be a response to failed hope,<br />
to actions which did not succeed. As such, nihilism can never be completely<br />
overcome. Misfortune and despair are always just around the<br />
corner. Being nihilistic means being paralyzed by the unavoidability<br />
of failure. Since democracy reveals and recognizes the public failures<br />
of state officials, government, presidents and more, it will always be<br />
vulnerable to nihilism. And yet, besides this vulnerability to nihilism,<br />
it is also the only regime in which citizens have so many possibilities<br />
to undertake political action. Political hope lives through this action,<br />
and nihilism can only be cured by undertaking action again. So, if<br />
democracy seeks to be a political regime of hope, it will have to be able<br />
to create and stimulate discourses by which people are encouraged to<br />
take action. But which discourse and which action?<br />
Let me begin with action. By this emphasis on action, we come<br />
close to what some republicanists claim. [30] Yet we have to be careful<br />
about embracing republicanism fully. Often, although not always,<br />
republicanism is about undertaking political action in order to uphold<br />
a regime, certain rights or benefits. <strong>Democracy</strong> has to be more radical<br />
than this, in my view. It should not only stimulate those actions that<br />
benefit the existing regime, but also ones that radically challenge the<br />
regime. As such, there should be room for public contestations, extraparliamentary<br />
action, civil disobedience, manifestations, deviant art<br />
and the more. This goes further than republicanism.<br />
But this raises an important question concerning the discourse of<br />
hope. If hope is necessary for a democracy to survive, then which kind<br />
of hopeful discourses can be conciliated with democracy? Which hope<br />
is democratic? This is a question for further research. But it should be<br />
clear by everything said so far that it should be a kind of open-ended<br />
hope, a hope in which a kind of contingency, a recognition of its own<br />
hegemonic nature and final impossibility, are recognized. Otherwise, we<br />
would become like Orpheus and make every kind of hope impossible<br />
by seeking a direct representation of what we are longing for. There<br />
will thus always be something tragic about democratic hope because<br />
105<br />
DEMOCRACY, HOPE<br />
AND NIHILISM<br />
Thomas Decreus<br />
30<br />
Pettit says “…people must be willing to go along with one another in associations and<br />
movements that are essential for republican success but that inevitably require patterns<br />
of mutual reliance and personal trust.” Pettit (1997) 266.