Polybius wrote that ochlocracy is the culmination of a society’s progression through different political systems, succeeding democracy. Following Brexit, a lot of liberals now seem to think that we are on the verge of transitioning from the latter to the former.
I agree that our society is beginning to see signs of ochlocracy – but Brexit has nothing to do with it. Brexit was, in fact, decided in accordance with perfectly democratic principles. Elected representatives voted to hold a referendum; the population voted in accordance with established procedures, free from coercion or intimidation; and the government is currently trying to implement the outcome.
Wikipedia doesn’t offer a precise definition of the term, so let me explain quickly what I think it means: ochlocracy in my view refers to mob rule, whereby a group of people impose their will and influence policy through aggression, bypassing the rule of law and established rules, policies & procedures. Ochlocracy does NOT refer to efforts to have direct democracy or policy-making through referenda, nor does it refer to the election of populist leaders.*
But as I said at the beginning, I do see signs of a transition to ochlocracy – and ironically, the “ochlos” I fear is not the majority that voted for Brexit, but the extremely aggressive, oppressive and abusive liberal minority. Let’s look at a few examples:
a) In 2015, Yale students cornered and abused Nicholas Christakis because of his and his wife’s argument that students should not be adverse to being challenged, eventually leading to their resignations.
b) In 2013, a programmer at a conference joked with the person sitting next to him about “forking” and “dongles” (technical terms). A woman sitting close to them overhead and tweeted a picture of him it with the caption “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles. Right behind me”. The tweet went viral, generated controversy, and the programmer was fired. The woman herself was fired a few days later, as her tweet generated backlash too.
c) Again in 2013, Justine Sacco tweeted a joke about how she can’t get AIDS because she’s white just before taking off from Heathrow. By the time she landed in Cape Town, she had received tens of thousands of abusive tweets, which led to her being fired from her job.
d) In 2015, the University of York cancelled a planned “Men’s Day” aiming to highlight issues affecting males (such as higher suicide rates) after a number of students & members of staff penned a letter suggesting that such an event would “amplify existing, structurally imposed, inequalities”.
e) In 2015, the judge presiding over “People v. Turner” handed out a lenient sentence to Brock Turner. The backlash that followed led the judge to refuse to hear more criminal cases.
f) Following the documentary series “Making a Murderer” in late 2015, more than 100,000 people signed a petition to the President to pardon Avery – although thankfully, in this case, this public reaction didn’t have an effect.
Now, to be perfectly clear, I am not making an argument as to the legitimacy of the arguments in each case (though I do have strong views for cases a – d). Nor am I suggesting people shouldn’t be able to protest or argue for their positions. What I am saying is that when people disagree with a particular person, or policy, or action, their protest should aim to have that person, policy or action reviewed and evaluated in accordance to due process; instead, what we see is an angry public demanding that due process be by-passed. In each of the cases above, the people on the opposite side of the protesters were not granted fair evaluation. People lost their jobs or were pressured to change their careers regardless of how good they were at them. The men’s day cancellation was led by 200 people; more than 3,000 launched a counter-petition to reinstate it (unsuccessfully (?!)). And the public requesting Avery’s pardon is so ignorant of the relevant legislation that they did not realise the President does not have the power to pardon him.
I could give so many more examples – accused rapists convicted by the public before their case is even heard, speakers dis-invited and refused platforms, academics fired from their positions or physically attacked for holding controversial views &c. THIS is what ochlocracy means. And it is far more worrying than Brexit.
* I want to be very clear on this – some people have effectively claimed that policy-making through referenda is ochlocracy because people are called on to make decisions which they are not qualified to make, and that true democracy in today’s world is representative democracy. This definition of ochlocracy is flawed in many ways:
a) It’s just begging the question – how come we can claim the average Briton is poorly qualified to vote on the EU, but qualified to vote for a representative, when different representatives advocate for wildly different policies, all very difficult to evaluate? On what criteria are citizens meant to vote for representatives if not based on their policies, which they are not educated enough to understand?
b) The system where the best qualified rule is not democracy, but aristocracy… rebranding aristocracy as democracy because it’s sounds less elitist is disingenuous.
c) Such a definition would qualify Switzerland as an ochlocracy – and given that the term is a pejorative, few people would agree with such a classification.
Finally, saying that the election of a leader unpopular with the elite constitutes ochlocracy is, well, unbelievably elitist and arrogant even for me.
I agree that our society is beginning to see signs of ochlocracy – but Brexit has nothing to do with it. Brexit was, in fact, decided in accordance with perfectly democratic principles. Elected representatives voted to hold a referendum; the population voted in accordance with established procedures, free from coercion or intimidation; and the government is currently trying to implement the outcome.
Wikipedia doesn’t offer a precise definition of the term, so let me explain quickly what I think it means: ochlocracy in my view refers to mob rule, whereby a group of people impose their will and influence policy through aggression, bypassing the rule of law and established rules, policies & procedures. Ochlocracy does NOT refer to efforts to have direct democracy or policy-making through referenda, nor does it refer to the election of populist leaders.*
But as I said at the beginning, I do see signs of a transition to ochlocracy – and ironically, the “ochlos” I fear is not the majority that voted for Brexit, but the extremely aggressive, oppressive and abusive liberal minority. Let’s look at a few examples:
a) In 2015, Yale students cornered and abused Nicholas Christakis because of his and his wife’s argument that students should not be adverse to being challenged, eventually leading to their resignations.
b) In 2013, a programmer at a conference joked with the person sitting next to him about “forking” and “dongles” (technical terms). A woman sitting close to them overhead and tweeted a picture of him it with the caption “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles. Right behind me”. The tweet went viral, generated controversy, and the programmer was fired. The woman herself was fired a few days later, as her tweet generated backlash too.
c) Again in 2013, Justine Sacco tweeted a joke about how she can’t get AIDS because she’s white just before taking off from Heathrow. By the time she landed in Cape Town, she had received tens of thousands of abusive tweets, which led to her being fired from her job.
d) In 2015, the University of York cancelled a planned “Men’s Day” aiming to highlight issues affecting males (such as higher suicide rates) after a number of students & members of staff penned a letter suggesting that such an event would “amplify existing, structurally imposed, inequalities”.
e) In 2015, the judge presiding over “People v. Turner” handed out a lenient sentence to Brock Turner. The backlash that followed led the judge to refuse to hear more criminal cases.
f) Following the documentary series “Making a Murderer” in late 2015, more than 100,000 people signed a petition to the President to pardon Avery – although thankfully, in this case, this public reaction didn’t have an effect.
Now, to be perfectly clear, I am not making an argument as to the legitimacy of the arguments in each case (though I do have strong views for cases a – d). Nor am I suggesting people shouldn’t be able to protest or argue for their positions. What I am saying is that when people disagree with a particular person, or policy, or action, their protest should aim to have that person, policy or action reviewed and evaluated in accordance to due process; instead, what we see is an angry public demanding that due process be by-passed. In each of the cases above, the people on the opposite side of the protesters were not granted fair evaluation. People lost their jobs or were pressured to change their careers regardless of how good they were at them. The men’s day cancellation was led by 200 people; more than 3,000 launched a counter-petition to reinstate it (unsuccessfully (?!)). And the public requesting Avery’s pardon is so ignorant of the relevant legislation that they did not realise the President does not have the power to pardon him.
I could give so many more examples – accused rapists convicted by the public before their case is even heard, speakers dis-invited and refused platforms, academics fired from their positions or physically attacked for holding controversial views &c. THIS is what ochlocracy means. And it is far more worrying than Brexit.
* I want to be very clear on this – some people have effectively claimed that policy-making through referenda is ochlocracy because people are called on to make decisions which they are not qualified to make, and that true democracy in today’s world is representative democracy. This definition of ochlocracy is flawed in many ways:
a) It’s just begging the question – how come we can claim the average Briton is poorly qualified to vote on the EU, but qualified to vote for a representative, when different representatives advocate for wildly different policies, all very difficult to evaluate? On what criteria are citizens meant to vote for representatives if not based on their policies, which they are not educated enough to understand?
b) The system where the best qualified rule is not democracy, but aristocracy… rebranding aristocracy as democracy because it’s sounds less elitist is disingenuous.
c) Such a definition would qualify Switzerland as an ochlocracy – and given that the term is a pejorative, few people would agree with such a classification.
Finally, saying that the election of a leader unpopular with the elite constitutes ochlocracy is, well, unbelievably elitist and arrogant even for me.
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