Importance of subject
Democracy is a term most people would not only recognize but also use in daily life. Throughout recent centuries, when societies perceived not to have a Democracy, crowds of people have been willing to give their lives -through political revolutions- for attempting to acquire it. In societies where a Democracy is already perceived to exist, people become sensibly agitated when they believe their Democracy is being diminished or affected. The comprehension of the term “Democracy” may impact on people’s behavior and, thus, foster profound changes in societies. Nevertheless, as most terms from the social sciences which have permeated to the general public, it may not be fully understood by people who use it in a daily basis. After all, it is a technical term which comprises multiple concepts. We will try to give a new hint on what the essence of Democracy is. Something the common citizen could see in his daily life.

Today, one of Democracy’s main perils may arise from within, its own degeneration and decay: demagogy. Demagogy is believed to be growing rapidly in western democracies today. But demagogues are not isolated events within a system of government. We think their coming to power is the result of a profound change in values, mindset and behavior of the common citizen.

Understanding the essence of what Democracy truly is may be paramount for taking appropriate steps for strengthening and saving Democracy. Modern Democracy is, after all, just a recent political experiment which surged two-and-a-half centuries ago, when the first modern democratic republic came to exist in America.

Democracy Definition
Democracy is a term that usually refers to Modern Democracy, which is a Constitutional Democracy, a democracy which incorporates checks and balances of power by one hand dividing government into three parts (executive, legislative and judicial branch), and, by the other hand, generating new institutions of stable bureaucracy within the State for controlling the government. This generates a new division of power between the government and the State. The modern democracy is also a representative democracy, where the citizens select others to represent them at the government. In a Democracy there is a set of civil rights that protect the citizen, as well as guaranteed liberties and certain required obligations.

Dahl shows five criteria(1) for defining whether a political order is democratic. 1) Effective participation: Citizens must have appropriate and equal opportunities to form their preference and place questions and incorporate on the public agenda and express reasons for one outcome over the other. 2) Voting equality at the decisive stage: Each citizen must be assured his or her judgments will be counted as equal in weights to the judgments of others. 3) Enlightened understanding: Citizens must enjoy broad and equal opportunities for discovering and affirming what choice would best fulfill their interests. 4) Control of the agenda: Citizens must have the opportunity to decide what political matters actually are and what should be brought up for deliberation, and what should be carried out by themselves. 5) Inclusiveness: Equality must extend to all citizens within the state. Everyone has legitimate stake within the political process.

Dahl also provides seven characteristics(2) which are distinctive of a Democracy(3): 1) Elected Officials: Control over governmental decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials. 2) Free Elections: Elected officials are chosen and peacefully removed in relatively frequent, fair and free elections in which coercion is quite limited. 3) Inclusive Suffrage: Practically all adults have the right to vote in these elections. 4) Right to occupy public offices: Most adults also have the right to run for the public offices for which candidates run in these elections. 5) Freedom of Speech: Citizens have an effectively enforced right to freedom of speech, particularly political expression, including criticism of the officials, the conduct of the government, the prevailing political, economic, and social system, and the dominant ideology. 6) Variety of Information Sources: Citizens also have access to alternative sources of information that are not monopolized by the government or any other single group. 7) Associative Autonomy: Citizens have an effectively enforced right to form and join autonomous associations, including political associations, such as political parties and interest groups, that attempt to influence the government by competing in elections and by other peaceful means.

But we think Dahl’s requirements are not enough for gaining a deeper comprehension on the essence of democracy. His perspective is a starting point. Similarly to what Dewey(4) said, we would like to view Democracy as a way of living.

By trying to see beyond formalities, we will be able to grasp part of the essence of what Democracy truly is(5). We will build our argument starting from a formal definition of Democracy -based on Dahl’s perspective. But while doing that, we hope to be generating a more essential perspective. A way of living which has been chosen by the citizens(6), and which they are willing to protect and improve. We need not only analyze formal institutions, but we also need to analyze the actions of common citizens.

Of course, there are those who could argue that Democracy is wanted by many because they see it as a possibility of acquiring power -when they did not hold it before-. In such a perspective, it is a power struggle amongst millions of individuals who are searching to gain or retain power. We argue that they are not really pursuing a Democracy, but they are just struggling for power as they would also try to do in any other political system. They only use the existing dynamics for acquiring power. And they use the word Democracy just as an excuse to their own objectives.

Nevertheless, we can also acknowledge part of the struggle for power through another perspective. This perspective -which is broader than just focusing on an egotistical power struggle- is what we will call a Pragmatic Justification of Democracy. From this perspective, Democracy is a pacific way to solve social and political conflicts. It aids in the generation of wide agreements throughout society. We think this is one of the main fundaments for Democracy. Such a fundament generates legitimacy, which will support the system in the long term.

1st) Why Dialogue?
We will focus on two of Dahl’s five criteria(7) for a Democratic order: Control of the Agenda and Effective Participation in order to show Dialogue is needed for the existence of Democracy. We will also resort to what we have called a Pragmatic Justification for Democracy.

As we showed before, one of the five criteria for a democratic order, according to Dahl, is Control of the Agenda. If there is no Control of the Agenda, then Democracy would cease to exist. The same thing happens with Effective Participation: if there is no Effective Participation, then Democracy would cease to exist.

We think the citizen of a Democracy acts guided by the willingness of building a political system by the side of his fellow citizens, who he respects and tolerates. We could go even further and say this citizen actually feels empathy for his fellow citizens. He desires they will improve in their life and wellbeing.

Democracy’s dynamics are forged through the search of broad agreements in society. There is a symmetry of power amongst its citizens, who try to peacefully solve their political conflicts.

 

In order to achieve an appropriate Control of Agenda and an Effective Participation firstly there is a need to define common objectives and secondly, there needs to be certain control of the final outcomes -so as to check whether the original objective has been met or not-, and whether new objectives need to be planned.

For both situations, a similar procedure should be used. For a society to define objectives as a community, agreements need to be reached. And in order to analyze the final outcomes, there needs to be an analysis on the process that led to them. And, first, there should be an analysis of the process that led to the agreement of such outcomes as the desired ones. This is, how such an agreement was reached.

Our first question should be whether it is possible to reach an agreement through a non-rational exchange of ideas. The first answer is that it is possible to do such a thing. Actually, we hold the belief Human Beings are not fully rational beings, and that great part of their decision making is based not on a logical analysis, but in perceptions and intuitions.

Even though specific non-rational debates might, even, reach to true conclusions, when analyzed in large quantities it is most likely they will not systematically reach true conclusions. A process to ensure high likeness to systematically reach true conclusions needs to be put in place. Therefore, a rational analysis will help -in large quantities of debates- to reach to true conclusions.

We argue that systematically reaching true conclusions is important in a political order because such conclusions are related to social, political and economic issues. They refer to people. And, even if we set aside the ideal that life should be improved for all citizens, we can still hold to what we call the pragmatic justification of democracy: if the issues that trouble people in a Democracy are not suitably solved, then social tensions will arise, which could ultimately lead to a loss in legitimacy due to an incapability of peacefully solving political conflicts. Systematically reaching true conclusions should improve a peaceful process of political conflict resolution. Rational analysis is needed to ensure that.

Moreover, in the long term it is likely that rational debate will help agreements, promises and decisions be sustainable, as they have been thought, analyzed and internalized. We argue that it is Dialogue the most appropriate way to achieve social agreements -which will be able to remain in the long term-.

Now, returning to the second issue regarding control of the process that led to reach an agreement on the desired outcomes, in order to achieve a proper control of such a process there should be an explicit procedure -not implicit, hindered or obscure-, so that people who have not participated can access both the information and the analysis method. That procedure should also be a rational analysis -so as to be understood and analyzed by people who have not participated in such a process-. As we are referring to a representative democracy, most of the citizens will not have participated directly from such process, but they still have to be able to control it (control of agenda).

Before reaching a conclusion within such a process of decision-making, it is reasonable to think that in most situations there would be varying degrees of divergent ideas amongst the participants. Such ideas should be contrasted one with the other in order to define the most appropriate one. To achieve this in the best possible way, there should be a rational debate. Nevertheless, supposing human beings are not entirely rational beings, their debates would not be entirely rational either. Moreover, as human beings cannot access the essence of things in a direct way, their knowledge is limited. Limitations in human knowledge are varied. Consequently, as a way to improve the imperfect rational debates human beings hold, we think their debates need to introduce other characteristics for restraining their own limitations. Empathy, Intellectual Humility and Need for Cognition need to be introduced into the dynamics of their debate. We will call Dialogue such a rational debate that includes empathy, intellectual humility and need for cognition(8).

So, we can provisionally accept that to generate a proper Control of the Agenda, there needs to be Dialogue amongst decision makers. Without control of the agenda there would not be Democracy. Without Dialogue amongst decision makers there would not be a Democracy.

In plural societies there is healthy dissent. Part of such dissent is related to the existence of multiple frameworks of thinking. As Karl Popper says, the differences that come from such different frameworks can be bridged -to some extent- and there can be prolific debates and agreements. As Daniel Yankelovich says in the Magic of Dialogue(9), when the same framework is not shared, people need to be self-conscious about making dialogue. Mallory and Thomas(10) define Dialogue as being intergroup and interpersonal conversations in which there is a symmetry of opportunities amongst all participants, when everyone is granted enough time to question and deliberate. Participants consciously move away from the win-lose model of debate, entering an open space that fosters problem-solving communication. First, they attempt to achieve a diagnosis of a situation to deal with. They explore multiple reasons that may have caused it. They attempt to find out how different people understand those reasons and the current diagnosis. They try to reach to agreements on what their future common goals should be.

As we mentioned before, we think empathy should be included within the concept of dialogue. A possible approach for understanding the argument of incorporating such use of empathy could be the following. The human being is a being with limited understanding of the world -and the Universe- he lives in, and he cannot access the essence of things through a direct way, as he mainly acquires knowledge through hints and inferences. Moreover, the Human Being does not have a pure objectivity, but, at most, he may reach inter-subjectivity. We think that in order to expand his subjectivity into an inter-subjectivity he needs to be more permeable to other’s ideas. Furthermore, he needs to attempt to feel what other people do for being able to understand the motivation behind other people’s arguments. The reason for this is that those arguments brought by other people may not be accurate, or refined, or adequate. But that does not hinder their original motivation, which may be true and valid. We need to understand people may not always -just like us- express their ideas in the most suitable way. When confronted to an argument which is not properly organized, we may be inclined to believe it is not rational and, as such, discard it. Nevertheless, that should not impede us from seeing the truthful and valid motivations that fostered them to express their views. Their views need to be considered -specially in a Democracy-. In a way, this should be the common practice by the law-maker: trying to extract from people their inner motivations and the essence of what they want or need and, then, try to find out what is the most suitable mechanism to make that happen. As the common citizen may become a law-maker in a Democracy, he needs to be ready to make the same kind of mental process. We think it is empathy what helps people improve their understanding of other people’s inner motivations and needs. We think that helps a limited cognitive being, such as the Human Being to expand his subjectivity into an inter-subjectivity.

Expanding the common citizen’s subjective and egotistical point of view into a broader understanding should help conflict resolution and reaching agreements within a political system. In a way, we think empathy sustains the Pragmatic Justification for Democracy. As said before, without the pragmatic justification for democracy the legitimacy amongst the common citizens could cease to exist and, so, the political unit could cease to exist in the long term. Empathy is needed to keep a Democratic order in place.

This circumstance we are describing is intertwined with Intellectual Humility. As explained by Church and Barret(11), the current view on Intellectual Humility is mainly shaped by the ideas of Roberts and Wood. They suggest an intellectually humble person is unconcerned with a possible social status that could be gained through “winning” a debate and, thus, they only pursue ‘epistemic goods’-they pursue nothing else but knowledge-.

For achieving intellectual humility there should be a need for cognition -as opposed to a need for cognitive closure -. Altogether with Empathy, we think a Need for Cognition helps the individual to seek to find a truth that exceeds his original way of thinking. As Church and Barret say, intellectual humility fosters people to consider the possibility their political, religious or moral beliefs might be mistaken. Intellectual humility fosters people to be properly sensitive to the reasons which are for and against their beliefs(12).

This is very much related to what Karl Popper says in the Myth of the Framework(13) where he suggests people should un-learn what we seem to have been taught in debate: to win. Popper says we need to go beyond that, and pursue knowledge, for, as he says, a debate won where no new comprehension has been added, is futile.

Church and Barret add a new perspective when defining Intellectual Humility. They say intellectual humility goes beyond being unconcerned with the ‘social status’. They avoid the false opposition of intellectual humility against intellectual arrogance, as there could also be intellectual self-deprecation or diffidence -something which was not originally taken into account in the definition given by Roberts and Wood-. So, in this perspective, there is a continuum where in one extreme there is intellectual arrogance and in the other there is intellectual self-deprecation. Its virtuous means would be intellectual humility.

Church and Barret call their view the Doxastic Account of Intellectual Humility. From their perspective, the intellectually humble people value their beliefs and intellectual abilities as they ought -neither over-value nor under-value them-(14). Intellectually diffident people would be those who do not hold on enough to their views or values and change them on a frequent basis, whenever there is a test. They fail to generate an adequate contrast and, thus, they assign a higher value to whichever argument is given by another person, while diminishing the value given by themselves. They hold a bias against themselves.

Intellectual Humility is necessary for Democracy.
As we have seen, Intellectual Humility would be the appropriate means between intellectual arrogance and an intellectual self-deprecating behavior.

People who are intellectually arrogant will -ultimately- strive to impose their truth, their beliefs, no matter if they are wrong. Actually, they will neglect the possibility of learning in the process as they are very little permeable to diverging ideas. They have a need for cognitive closure. Such a low permeability towards diverging ideas is likely to generate a self-reinforcing loop, where data that could hamper their ideas is discarded.
In this situation, people end up having fixed ideas, being unable to change them and gradually becoming, to a certain extent, disconnected from the real world. In a way, they would be holding their own absolute truth.

If every citizen thinks and behaves this way -as if they would hold absolute truths- there would not be real chances for attaining broad agreements -where other people’s ideas and perceptions need to be considered and accepted-. It is highly likely that an intellectually arrogant person has few stimuli for compromising -and reaching deals where his/her views are not completely accepted-. Conflict resolution would be very unlikely to happen in a peaceful way. This situation is contrary to the pragmatic justification of Democracy. Without it, the legitimacy of Democracy would be imperiled and, in the long term, it could cease to exist.

On the other hand, in case large quantities of people in a society would be self-deprecating regarding their ideas, then it is likely they would welcome others to impose their views upon them. This would be the basis of accepting an authoritarian rule. Both the arrogant and the self-deprecating approaches are contrary to attaining agreements of symmetrical power. This is contrary to the existence of Democracy. If large quantities of people do not -or cannot- exert control of the agenda, then Democracy has ceased to exist. If most of the people are intellectually self-deprecating, then there is not a real Control of the Agenda and, thus, Democracy has ceased to exist.

With large quantities of citizens holding intellectual arrogance, the legitimacy of Democracy would be imperiled by the lack of the pragmatic justification of Democracy. At the same time, with large quantities of citizens holding intellectual self-deprecation, there would not be a real control of the Agenda and, thus, there would not be a democracy. Consequently, Intellectual Humility -as a virtuous means between intellectual arrogance and intellectual self-deprecation- is needed for the existence of Democracy(15).

In order to take into account other people’s views, those who are temporarily elected for making decisions need to expand their originally limited, subjective and egotistical point of views. We have seen Dialogue -as we have defined it- can help overcome such original barriers through empathy and intellectual humility. This helps for a peaceful process of political conflict resolution thus sustaining the pragmatic justification of democracy and, hence, democracy’s legitimacy.

Moreover, in order to achieve a true and valid conclusion to the questions and problems that upsurge in society, a rational analysis and debate needs to be put in place. Then again, as we have defined Dialogue includes rational debate, Dialogue is needed for systematically reaching true and valid conclusions for social/ political problems. This will help a peaceful process of political conflict resolution thus sustaining pragmatic justification of democracy and, hence, democracy’s legitimacy.

Dialogue is needed for the existence of Democracy.
A question that may arise is, who should hold these dialogues and how often? We will try to answer to this in the following sections.
2nd) Why the common citizen?
We define the common citizen as an individual within a democracy who is a citizen -he has the right to vote, has civil rights and obligations, he can be elected to political jobs, he can be hired to a job inside the State bureaucracy, etc.- and possesses a culture and a way of thinking which is similar to most people within his society. His condition is not related to his wealth or social situation. Such a citizen is not an outlier regarding values, ways of thinking or behavior.

We will analyze the action of the common citizen from two approaches. First the need for his action within the public affairs. We will see that there needs to be some sort of vita activa in the public realm exercised by the common citizen. And we will then see that the common citizen behavior has an impact on the system of government. Second, we will analyze the impact of the common citizen in both the government and within the State’s bureaucracy -formal institutions for exercising checks and balances of power-.

Common Citizens’ Impact on System of Government:
Citizens’ action in public life is fundamental for the existence of Democracy. Amongst other activities, Dahl says citizens need to generate an effective control of the public agenda. The concept of Vita Activa in the public realm is closely related to this. In ancient democracies, the will to participate in public matters was so strong that led citizens to occupy most of their time on the assembly, on public issues and preparing for them(16).

Due to multiple reasons, the common citizen of our modern time has receded in that area, only accepting to devote a minimum time of his daily life to public matters. It is argued that the expansion of the small ancient polis into the massive Nation-State, where the enormous quantity of citizens dispersed in huge geographical areas make extremely difficult for the citizen to commit to the same kind of political life. This fostered citizens to achieve a specialization where some of them are chosen to be representatives of the others, thus committing their life fully to the public matters, while the rest may continue focusing in their private matters.

Despite of that, we think the real question is to define what is the minimum level the modern citizen should commit towards vita activa in the public realm(17).

Nevertheless, whichever the inferior limit, we argue that such a limit cannot be zero. A certain level of vita activa in the public realm cannot cease to exist. It cannot be just assisting to voting venues each two years’ time or so. It cannot be a blind selection, but a deliberate choice made upon a thorough analysis of the candidates(18).

It is possible to see the necessity of a Vita Activa on the public realm by analyzing the impact its inexistence would have on democracy. Let’s suppose that the common citizen does not interact in the political life -which could happen for multiple reasons, such as the loss of trust on democratic institutions or because he supposes the system will continue to keep working even though he might not comply with his civic duties, becoming a free-rider, etc-.

a. In a first situation, when the citizen assumes Democracy has stopped working appropriately, and he therefore stops having a will to interact in public life. As he decides not to have a vita activa in the public realm, he is excluding himself from the Democracy. If a great number of citizens excludes themselves from the Democracy, then the system ceases to be a Democracy -as most of the people should be included in the system for thus being a true Democracy-. This is a Self-Fulfilling Prophesy.

b. In the second situation, there could be a belief that, when the system is in equilibrium, when it is stable and working properly, the individual could go unnoticed if he did not perform his duties. Such individual would then become what is called a ‘free-rider’: he is reaping the benefits of a system without paying for it, without contributing or exercising his obligations. However, the problem is that if everybody is a free-rider, the system collapses.
 

In both previous examples the citizen is excluding himself from the Democracy. In the first case it happens because, as the citizen stops thinking the democratic process works appropriately, he decides not to participate. In the second case, the citizen decides not to fulfill his obligations towards the system in order to help it continue to work properly. If in any of both cases the quantity of people represents a large percentage, then Democracy starts to die.

Moreover, in any of the cases before, as there would not be a great quantity of people represented in formal channels of political conflict resolution, their possibilities to solve them will be reduced. Democracy could cease to be an effective peaceful method of political conflict resolution. This is, the pragmatic justification for the Democracy ceases to exist.

The vita activa in the public realm of the common citizen is necessary for the existence of the Democracy. It is a matter of debate how much of vita activa is necessary to keep and improve the Democracy. But whatever it is, it is not zero. So, there needs to be some sort of involvement by the common citizen into public matters in a regular basis.

Another conclusion is that the behavior of the common citizen affects the political system of government.

Institutions evolve altogether with the common citizen.

Within a Democracy, every citizen is eligible to be selected to be part of the State bureaucracy. Due to the great majority of common citizens within a Democracy, in the long term the institutions will be mostly constituted by common citizens. So, their general way of thinking and acting, as well as their core values will shape the actions of the institutions they are part of. The way such institutions work will be continually re-interpreted -whether consciously or unconsciously- by the common citizen(19).

In a way, we are assuming there is a spill of values, mindset and behavior from the society towards the inside of the organization. We think organizations have permeable frontiers. Even though someone could argue that the entrance of the common citizen to the organization does not necessarily mean that he will act outside in the same way as in the inside, we argue that a disassociation of behavior between outside and inside the organization is not sustainable in the long term. Moreover, the employees that constitute the organizations change and they are replaced in time. Due to one issue or another, the culture within organizations evolve through time.

Then, what is important is the common citizen’s mindset and their behavior within such institutions. We argue that in the long term such mindset and behavior will tend to be the same -within the organization and outside of it-. So, in the long term, the basic assumptions and behavior will tend to be equalized inside and outside of the institutions, as the basic assumptions and behavior that applies to the common citizen will also apply to the people who run the institutional checks and balances of power.

Why is this of relevance? Because if the common citizen does not have a rational way to solve conflicts, to debate and to reach agreements, then that will not happen inside those organizations or amongst organizations. The fragile stability amongst institutions which was originally devised for keeping checks and balances of power will be eroded.

This is a great peril for Democracy. Modern Democracy exists because, as most citizens are not fully actively involved in political life and, thus, delegate part of their power, they rely on a grid of State’s institutions that generates checks and balances to power. Such grids of institutions to limit political power were put in place in order to avoid one of the greatest fears of Madison, Hamilton and Jay -intellectual forefathers of modern constitutional democracies-: the tyranny of the majority20. The tyranny of the majority is when a majority can override the constitutional limits to power and can crush any powerless minority. This is a non-democratic way of dealing with dissent. This becomes a tyranny.

We argue this overriding of constitutional limits will ultimately happen depending on how the common citizen acts. More specifically, if the common citizen has a non-Democratic approach to life. Specifically in our topic, this will happen if the common citizen does not uphold strong values of mutual respect, of tolerance, if he does not pursue to broaden his views into wider inter-subjective views, if he does not hold empathy and intellectual humility, if he does not practice rational debate, in sum, if he does not practice dialogue.

Consequently, when the common citizen enters the institution designed to protect Democracy, he will erode Democracy with his non-democratic mindset and behavior, transforming the original objective of the institution he works for. As he positively values his non-democratic actions -supported by his mindset, he will end up feeling compelled towards allowing temporary majorities to override constitutional limits and crush powerless minorities. This is the end of a Democracy in two perspectives: 1) formal institutions cease to exist in an essential way, 2) the pragmatic justification for democracy will also cease to exist.
A way to prevent the permeability of such institutions would be to reduce the amount of people who are eligible to be elected as politicians or to be part of the State bureaucracy. But, should that happen, the government system would cease to be a Democracy(21) as the base of citizens is sensibly restricted.

Whether we are unable or unwilling to practice Dialogue on politics, sooner or later we may lose the Democracy we live in.

3rd) Why on a frequent basis?
Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics explains that virtues are ways of being through which the man becomes good and by trying to improve and by practicing it in a frequent basis, he becomes excellent. These ethical virtues can be learned and they are a way to act and behave in the world. It is not a pretended value one claims to have. It is something that effectively happens in the world and that is expressed through our behavior. Moreover, Aristotle said that an architect is made by building houses. Likewise, the just is made by practicing justice or the moderate is made by practicing moderation. What we argue here is that the democratic citizen is made by practicing democracy. And that needs to be done on a frequent basis, aiming to be excellent at it. And one of its most important aspects is dialogue. So, Dialogue needs to be practice in a frequent basis, and the citizen should try to excel at it.

A democratic society is not a society that once limited the despotic power, but a society which continually limits despotic intents. It must be a way of behaving.

Let us see how the common citizen’s mindset and behavior affects the government (and why he needs to excel in his democratic behavior)

a) When there are elections, it is the common citizen who accounts for most of the votes.
b) That in the long term the common citizen will be occupying most of the elective public jobs in government.
c) That in the long term the common citizen will be occupying most of the jobs within the State bureaucracy.

So, in situation b) and c), if the common citizen does not practice civic virtues in a regular basis, he will most likely not practice them when being part of the government or when being part of the State bureaucracy.

And in situation a), if they do not practice civic virtues in a regular basis, they will most likely not know how to recognize them, nor will they positively value such characteristics if seen in another citizen that is trying to be elected -nor will they reject someone who does not possess such civic virtues-.

In the long term, if humble Dialogue needs to be held amongst politicians -both indoors as well as in public-, then it is the common citizen who needs to practice it(22). Let us review this issue once more. In the long term, the politicians are elected from the closed group of citizens, where the common citizen constitutes the broad majority. If we are expecting those politicians who are trying to be elected to hold dialogues in the way we have defined them, they should have been exercising their practice, they should have excelled at them. In order to achieve excellence, constant practice is needed. The common citizen should practice dialogue in a regular basis.

We think such a practice should start long before they even plan to be elected politicians, because we cannot foresee what children will attempt to be politicians when becoming older. And this is a practice that takes years to master. It is not just an isolated piece of information to be remembered. It is a way of thinking and behaving. It could take a lifetime to -truly- excel at it. Once again, dialogue-making should be a regular practice from childhood.

Aristotle says that the way of behaving should be acquired as soon as possible from childhood.

As Julio Pallí Bonet(23) reminds us in his analysis of Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle, in the same way as Plato, insists several times on the importance of education towards acquiring good customs and behaviors.

Dialogue should be a regular practice since childhood and throughout the whole life of a common citizen.

Coming back to the perspective of the short term, if public debates made by politicians should be unselfish, without a will to win the debate, without being concerned on social status and only looking towards achieving a higher comprehension(24) then the common citizen -who is viewing such debates- should be able to positively value such an action -instead of viewing it as a weakness for not ‘standing his ground’-. We think this is related to the common citizen’s views, perceptions and, ultimately, his behavior. If he forges a repetitive behavior which stimulates dialogue, he will earn a positive value towards those who can achieve it -the fact that someone is already trying to excel in a given area, such as, in this case, dialogue-making, confers him a positive attitude and a positive value towards such an activity-.

Let us review the impact on Democracy of the absence of a humble dialogue in public debate.
When electors are unable to positively value dialogue, politicians will perceive it and react towards it. If the citizen does not positively value humble dialogue, then politicians, willing to be elected, will avoid it. They will adopt practices of higher impact -but with a lesser use of logic and real data-. That will be the time for the demagogues to step in. In time, when that practice is spread to the rest of the politicians -due to isomorphism(25)- there will be no more open, sincere, intellectually humble dialogue and, ultimately, there would no longer be real access to truthful, accurate and relevant information. In this way, the control of the agenda (a characteristic required by Dahl for the existence of Democracy), would no longer be enforceable by the citizen.

The lack of dialogue will preclude the death of the Democracy.
The common citizen needs to practice dialogue on a regular basis. As a teleologic objective, a citizen within a Modern democracy should be an excellent dialogue maker(26). And that will keep Democracy alive.

Down-to-Earth Checking Tool
As dialogue needs to be exercised by the common citizen on a regular basis, we can generate a simple tool for analyzing Democracy which can be used by the common citizen in his daily life. We should try to analyze the dialogues we are carrying out with our fellow citizens in our everyday life(27). What are the topics and the structure of the dialogues we hold with our friends, or our family? How regularly do we hold political dialogues such as the one we have described throughout our essay -intellectually humble, with need for cognition, willing to get rid of our own political beliefs, trying to have empathy for other’s motivations, using a rational analysis and debate, and disregarding a futile win in the debate, having made proper research, and focused on social and political issues-? How often do we search for new possibilities to discuss issues of the political agenda with other fellow citizens that either belong, or not to our closer circle of acquaintances? What do we prefer to do in our spare time? Do we prefer to use our spare time in expanding and improving our democracy? Or do we just succumb into a negative otium?

We think this would be -very likely- the minimum degree of vita activa Modern Democracies could resist before collapsing in the long run. This is also the minimum appropriate environment for starting to stimulate broad agreements throughout society.

We think the most likely scenario is that the tester will perceive the kind of dialogue described in this essay is not the kind of dialogue that he carries out in his everyday life, nor does it happen in his acquaintances’ lives. In such a case, then, according to the analysis throughout this essay, we could say the Democracy being analyzed is going through a process of decay. And, consequently, it may, sooner or later -maybe within a few generations’ time- cease to exist.

Conclusion
Throughout this essay we have tried to show our hypothesis that Dialogue is necessary for the existence of Democracy. Even though we have not provided a complete definition, we have incorporated into the term ‘dialogue’ certain elements such as rational debate, intellectual humility, need for cognition, empathy. We have tried to show that this kind of dialogue needs to be carried our by the common citizen in a daily basis. By building upon Dahl’s democratic theory, and our proposed pragmatic justification of democracy, we think to have successfully shown that Democracy could not exist without our suggested type of dialogues. For without them, there would not be an appropriate control of the agenda nor an effective participation -amongst other issues-, destroying the very existence of Democracy -according to Dahl.

We have finally made a simple tool for checking how a specific Democracy is working. And this is a tool any common citizen can use at any time. He only needs to ask himself whether he is holding this type of dialogues -regarding politics or social issues- in a regular basis. We think his answer would be negative. What this situation would show us, is that western democracies are on decay. We might be entering a new time of demagogy, which could even be similar to the demagogy Europe went through during 1920’s. We all know the perils such a situation could entail. That is what shows the need to reinvigorate western democracies. And such reinvigoration -we argue- should start by the common citizen itself, being the excellency at dialogue making a key point. After all, in a democracy, it is the common citizen who ends up shaping the political order in the long term.

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References:

1 Dahl, Robert A. La Democracia y sus críticos, Barcelona: Paidós, 2002

2 Dahl calls them institutions of the polyarchy. At this moment, we will set aside that terminology in order to prevent confusion with what we will call formal institutions of a democratic order, which we will refer to the control of checks and balances of power.

3 Actually, Dahl refers at this moment to a Poliarchy, making thus a difference between Democracy and Poliarchy. In a way, a Poliarchy would be the closest political order we could attain to a complete Democracy, turning a Democracy into almost an ideal impossible to attain. But we will set aside this considerations for the objective of this essay.

4 Dewey, John Democracy and Education. The Floating Press, 2009

5 Once again, by trying to achieve this we will be trying to defend it against its natural decay: Demagogy.

6 Our perception is the following: In a Democracy, the citizen is able to: first, understand and, second, transform the world he lives in. He is willing to take responsibility and be empowered, disregarding possible obstacles which he will attempt to overcome. This willingness to act is the reason why he is willing to reign not only in his own life but also in the political system he lives in. He has avoided other systems of government in which he could have let others make decisions in his name.

7 Dahl, Robert A. La Democracia y sus críticos, Barcelona: Paidós, 2002

8 We will also add ‘Action-Oriented-Conversations’ into our definition of Dialogue.

9 Yankelovich, Daniel, The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Cooperation, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Quoted in Mallory, Bruce L. and Thomas, Nancy L. When the Medium is the Message: Promoting Ethical Action through Democratic Dialogue. Change Magazine. September/October 2003

10 Mallory, Bruce L. and Thomas, Nancy L. When the Medium is the Message: Promoting Ethical Action through Democratic Dialogue. Change Magazine. September/October 2003

11 Church, Ian M. and Justin L. Barrett , "Intellectual Humility" , in Handbook of Humility ed. Everett L. Worthington , Don E. Davis and Joshua N. Hook . (Abingdon: Routledge, 02 Dec 2016 ), accessed 31 May 2017 , Routledge Handbooks Online.

12 Church, Ian M. and Justin L. Barrett , "Intellectual Humility" , in Handbook of Humility ed. Everett L. Worthington , Don E. Davis and Joshua N. Hook . (Abingdon: Routledge, 02 Dec 2016 ), accessed 31 May 2017 , Routledge Handbooks Online.
13 Popper, Karl R. El Mito del marco común. Barcelona: Paidós, 2005
14 They define it as accurately tracking the positive epistemic status of one’s own beliefs or, at least, what one cannot culpably take to be the positive epistemic status of one’s own beliefs, so as to avoid being labelled as having intellectual arrogance when one has been inadvertently fooled or deceived.

15 Adding to that, from an intuitive approach, we cannot accept the frequent imposition is democratic. We can sense there would be something wrong if there is a systematic imposition when making collective decisions. That is more related to authoritarianism rather than democracy.

16 Arendt, Hannah La Condición Humana. Barcelona: Paidós, 2005 ; Berlin, Isaiah Four Essays on Liberty. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971; Kitto, H.D.F. The Greeks. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1950
17 Of course, connected issues that should be further analyzed are the citizen’s education, his ethics and values.

18 Of course, here there are two sides of the same coin. Not only do the common citizen need to go through a conscious and deliberate analysis of the candidates, but also the candidates need to represent real different options. If they are just ‘black boxes’ where no real and essential analysis can be made -be it because they are sophists or demagogues, or because there is a lack of information-, then there is no real capacity to go through an analysis.
19 We hold an underlying idea that institutions, as well as organization in general, can be understood as living entities which evolve and mutate through time. An interesting essay comparing organization to living organisms, and then analyzing them as populations and then the evolution in such populations is: Hannan, Michael T. and Freeman, John. Organizational Ecology. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993
20 Madison, James. Federalist Papers: Letter 51. New York: New American Library, 1961

21 Apart from that, it is also dubious whether a change in who are selected as citizens could allow to keep a restricted Democracy to continue working in the long term. As the same vices will continue to spread amongst such “reduced” quantity of citizens.

22 As we said before, politicians are selected within the closed conjunct of citizens, and being the common citizens who account for most part of it, then it is the common citizen who needs to practice dialogue.
23 Aristóteles. Ética a Nicómaco. Barcelona: Del Nuevo Extremo, 2008. (Introductory essay to Nichomachean Ethics by Julio Pallí Bonnet)
24 If you think this is not happening in your Democracy, then it might be imperiled from lasting in the long term.
25 The concept of isomorphism derives from two words: Iso=same, Morphos=form. It intends to show the process in which Human Beings copy other people’s attitudes or behaviors because they believe them to be successful -to whichever purpose they are aiming to-. In this case, the success would be to be elected and to retain political power.

26 This is a civic virtue that every citizen of a modern democracy should have. We shall explore more civic virtues in future essays.
27 Not only within the boundaries of the University. Actually, what truly matters is what happens outside university walls.

 

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