We believe that democracy is the most ideal system humanity has ever invented.
It is a framework where the citizens are the owners, casting their votes so that the collective will of the majority forms the policies and laws of the state—the "public morality." However, if you pull back the curtain on this beautiful scenery just a fraction, a fragile and perilous Achilles’ heel hides right behind it.
"Is the choice of the masses truly an autonomous one?"
To be blunt, democracy all too easily degenerates into a licensed authorization for an agitated majority to legally slaughter a minority. When a majority is seduced by sensationalist populism and agrees to "strip that specific group of their interests and split it among ourselves," that very consensus becomes the justice and public morality of the era. This is the tragedy. History has already witnessed this horrific tyranny multiple times. We don’t even have to look far. Aristides himself—a politician whose inner and outer morality were consistently clean throughout his entire life—was the very first victim of this system.
"Because I’m just sick and tired of hearing his name."
In ancient Athens, there was a system called Ostracism, designed to prevent the rise of a dictator. Citizens would write the name of a dangerous individual on a shard of pottery (an ostrakon) to banish them from the city en masse. The blade of this system, which seemed like the guardian angel of democracy, unexpectedly pointed at the most honest and upright man in Athens—the man whose very moniker was "The Just."
On the day of the vote, an illiterate rural peasant, completely unaware that the man standing before him was Aristides himself, approached and asked if he could write the name "Aristides" on the pottery shard for him. Aristides asked in a quiet voice, "What wrong has that man done to you?" The peasant’s reply was chilling: "No, he hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t even know him. I’m just sick and tired of hearing everyone praise him as ‘The Just’ everywhere I go."
Without a word, Aristides wrote his own name on the shard and was subsequently driven out of the city. This famous anecdote is the most symbolic event illustrating how easily democracy is swayed by public envy, emotional agitation, and populism. Was that decision to "banish" him, reached by a majority consensus, truly an act of public morality? It was merely a legalized act of violence committed by the subjectivity of the masses.
The Brakes Devised by Humanity to Stop the Monster
Humanity learned the painful lesson that the choice of the majority can mutate into a horrific tyranny at any moment. Therefore, modern democracy does not hand over a monopoly of power with the logic of "let the majority do whatever they want." To protect a minority from suffering clear damage at the hands of an agitated majority, we have equipped the system with powerful brakes: constitutionalism and the judiciary.
This is precisely why judges and magistrates are not elected through public voting in modern society. They must remain thoroughly independent of the cheers of the crowd and the agitation of public opinion. Even if a 99-person majority, intoxicated by populism, crafts a law to "legally confiscate the property of that 1 remaining person," the judiciary must be able to declare, "That law violates the human rights of the minority guaranteed by the constitution, and is therefore null and void," without checking which way the political wind blows.
Ultimately, modern politics is a structure where two separate horses—"democracy, driven by the fuel of majority support," and "the rule of law, protecting the rights of the minority"—run on a tightrope, desperately keeping each other in check.
Why Private Conscience Remains Our Final Bastion
Reaching the 21st century, an era ruled by algorithms and social media, the question "Are our choices truly autonomous?" strikes with an even more painful resonance. Fake news and inflammatory identity politics feed and grow on public rage. We believe we are making rational judgments on our own, but in reality, we might merely be dancing in front of the output of cleverly engineered political marketing and agitation.
This is the exact juncture where the final warning of Aristides—to separate private morality from public morality—reaches its completion. The public sphere (democracy, majority rule, national interest) is the most vulnerable place in the world, perpetually liable to be corrupted and stained by the filth of agitation. Thus, when we stand before the titanic verdict of politics, we must never deposit our souls into the collective enthusiasm of the crowd.
The final bastion that keeps democracy from turning into a monster is neither a court of law nor a politician. When the masses gather in the square, enthusiastically shouting for a cause, it is the sturdy private conscience of an individual who knows how to quietly step out of the ranks and ask themselves, "Is this truly right?" As long as these sentinels, who refuse to let go of that lonely thread of common sense, remain alive, the just will no longer be helplessly driven away by a single shard of pottery.
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