object:1.16 - THE ESSENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA
book class:The Future of Man
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
subject class:Science
class:chapter
CHAPTER 16
THE ESSENCE OF THE
DEMOCRATIC IDEA
A Biological Approach to the Problem
democracy is NOT an abstract concept of the
kind that can be set forth geometrically in terms of
pure ratiocination. Like so many of the notions on
which modern ideologies are based — evolution,
progress, feminism and so forth — it was originally,
and to a great extent still is, no more than the ap-
proximate expression of a profound but confused
aspiration striving to see the light and to take
shape. For this reason its elucidation calls for as
much, or more, psychology as logic. Do we not all
spend our lives in seeking to interpret ourselves by
way of actions that often appear contradictory?
How can we hope to understand ourselves without
first possessing some knowledge of our nature, his-
tory and temperament?
It may be that the growth of modern Democ-
racy, and consequently the impulses underlying it,
will become more intelligible if, disregarding the
THE ESSENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA 237
political and juridical aspects, we approach the problem in biolog-
ical terms.
The question asked is, "What is Democracy?" Would it not be
more exact and profitable slightly to modify our phraseology and
to ask: "What exactly is hidden behind the idea of Democracy?"
1. The Present Evolutionary State of Mankind
THE PEOPLE WHO make it their business to study or order hu-
man society (ethnologists, politicians, political economists, etc.) do
so in practice as though Social Man were virgin wax to be molded
into any shape they choose. They do not seem to have noticed that
the living substance they are manipulating is, by reason of its very
formation, characterized by certain narrowly defined lines of
growth; and that these, although they are sufficiently supple to per-
mit the architects of the New Earth to make use of them, are also
strong enough to disrupt any attempted arrangement that does not
respect them.
This being so, of all the structural tendencies inherent in the
human mass the most fundamental (indeed, the one from which all
others are derived) is undoubtedly that which has led Mankind,
under the twofold influence of planetary compression and psychic
interpenetration, to enter upon an irresistible process of unifica-
tion and organization upon itself. But to this a vital condition is at-
tached, namely, that if it is to be viable and stable the resulting
unification must not stifle but on the contrary must exalt the in-
communicable uniqueness of each separate element in the unified
system: something that is proved possible on a small scale by every
successful team or association. In point of fact to the enlightened
observer it is perfectly apparent that we could more easily prevent
238 THE FUTURE OF MAN
the earth from turning than Mankind from progressing, labori-
ously but inexorably, in a twofold conjoined movement toward a
personalizing totalization. This evolutionary situation (arising out
of a very much more generalized movement of "in-folding," cos-
mic in its dimensions) could go unperceived while human social-
ization, still in its initial phase of expansion, was spreading over the
earth's surface. But it becomes increasingly manifest as the second
phase which we have now entered, that of socialization through
compression, takes clearer shape around us. And I believe it is this,
to the extent that it is beginning to penetrate our consciousness,
that is arousing the turmoil of so-called "democratic" aspirations
in all our hearts.
2. Biological Definition and Interpretation
of the Spirit of Democracy
let us assume that the strangely contagious modern obsession
with democratic ideas is nothing else than the feeling and liking
Man has acquired for a process which, by the collective organiza-
tion of the zoological group to which he belongs, is carrying
him toward certain new states of superpersonalization — or, which
comes to the same thing, superreflection. In other words, let us
identify the spirit of Democracy with the "evolutionary sense" or
"the sense of species" — the last signifying, in the case of Man, not
merely the instinct for permanence through propagation, but also
a will to grow through the organized arrangement of the species
upon itself. We need do no more than this, it seems to me, and we
shall find that light is shed on countless points that have hitherto
been obscure, and that many disquieting antinomies have become
(at least in theory) effortlessly reconciled.
THE ESSENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA 239
Let us apply this principle first to the legendary attributes, Lib-
erty Equality Fraternity which are indissolubly associated in our
minds with the idea of any government of the people by the peo-
ple; and then to the conflict, now more acute than ever, which has
always divided Democracy into two factions, liberal and socialist.
a Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. It was in 1789 that this famous slo-
gan electrified the Western world: but as events have shown, its
meaning was far from clear to the minds of those it inspired. Lib-
erty — to do anything? Equality — in all respects? Fraternity — based
on what common bonds? . . . Even today the magical words are
much more felt than understood. But does not their undeniable, if
vague, attraction take on a clearer aspect if we consider them, as I
suggest, from a biological standpoint?
Liberty: that is to say, the chance offered to every man (by re-
moving obstacles and placing the appropriate means at his disposal)
of "transhumanizing" himself by developing his potentialities to
the fullest extent.
Equality: the right of every man to participate, according to
his aptitudes and powers, in the common endeavor to promote,
each by way of the other, the future of the individual and the
species. Indeed, is it not this need and legitimate demand to partic-
ipate in the Human Affair (the need felt by every man to live coex-
tensively with Mankind) which, deeper than any desire for material
gain, is today agitating those classes and races that have hitherto
been left "out of the game"?
Fraternity: as between man and man, in the sense of an or-
ganic interrelation based not merely on our more or less acciden-
tal coexistence on the surface of the earth, or even on our common
origin, but on the fact that we represent, all of us together, the front
line, the crest of an evolutionary wave still in full flood.
240 THE FUTURE OF MAN
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — no longer indeterminate, amor-
phous and inert, but directed, guided, dynamized by the growth of
a fundamental impulse which underlies and sustains them.
Does not everything truly become more clear in the light of
this guiding principle?
b Liberal Democracy and Directed Democracy. The UNESCO ques-
tionnaire refers in passing to the disparity, deplored by de Tocque-
ville, between "democracy" and "socialism." Broadly speaking, the
avowed object of the inquiry is an attempt to resolve, at least theo-
retically, the present tensions in this field between East and West.
But does not the strange and persistent cleavage, so invariably
manifest within so-called democratic movements in the opposed
concepts of liberalism and dirigisme (or individualism and totalitari-
anism) explain itself when we realize that, although they may look
like contradictory social ideals, they are in fact natural components
(personalization and totalization) whose interaction biologically de-
termines the essence and progress of anthropogenesis? On the one
hand we have a system centered on the individual, and on the other
a system centered on the group. Sometimes the first of the two vec-
tors, sometimes the second, breaks away and so dominates the
other as to appear determined to engulf everything. A shift to the
right is followed by a shift to the left. But there is really no funda-
mental contradiction in this. It is simply a matter of disconnection
and disharmony which may even (why not?) be an inevitable and
necessary alternation. Biologically, let me repeat, there can be no
true Democracy without the balanced combination of these two
complementary factors, which in their pure state are expressed, one
by individualist and the other by authoritarian regimes.
But in practical terms how precisely are we to proceed eventu-
ally in order to bring them into harmony?
THE ESSENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA 241
3. The Technique of Democracies
very properly, A large number of UNESCO's questions are
concerned with the study and criticism of the existing forms and
methods of Democracy. Since this is a sphere in which I have no
competence I shall confine myself to the three following remarks,
all from a biological standpoint:
a In the first place, and in the light of what I have said, there
are two general conditions which must at all costs be observed in the
planning of democratic institutions. The first of these is that the
individual must be allowed the widest possible liberty of choice
within which to develop his personal qualities (the one theoretical
restriction being that his choice should be exercised in the direc-
tion of heightened powers of reflection and consciousness). The
second, off-setting the first, is that everything must be done to
promote and foster the currents of convergence (collective orga-
nizations) within which alone, by the laws of anthropogenesis, in-
dividual action can achieve its fulfillment and full consistence. In
short, what is needed is a judicious mixture of laissez-faire and firm-
ness. The problem is one of moderation, tact and "art" for which
no hard-and-fast rules can be laid down, but which, in each par-
ticular case, every nation is perfectly capable of solving in its own
way — provided its instinct of progress and "superhumanization" is
sufficiently developed.
b Secondly, it is only by way of countless experiments and grop-
ings that the Democratic ideal (like Life itself) can hope to achieve
its own formulation and, still more, can materialize. Despite the
compressive and unifying conditions to which we are subject,
Mankind is still made up of terribly heterogeneous parts, un-
242 THE FUTURE OF MAN
equally matured, whose democratization can be effected only with
the use of imagination and suppleness, and in conformity with the
varying circumstances in each portion of the World.
c Finally, it is upon the maintenance and growth in human
consciousness of what I have called the "sense of the Species" that
the realization of a truly democratic world society ultimately de-
pends. Only a powerful polarization of human wills, after each
fragment of humanity has been led to the discovery of his own
particular form of freedom, can ensure the convergence and uni-
fied working of this plurality in a single, coherent planetary system.
Above all, only this polarization, through the unity thus consti-
tuted, can create the atmosphere of noncoercion — unanimity —
which is, when all is said, the rare essence of Democracy.
UNPUBLISHED. PARIS, FEBRUARY 2, 1949.
IN RESPONSE TO A QUESTIONNAIRE FROM UNESCO.
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