Liberties There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence

Democratic theory, like democracy itself, comes in various shapes and sizes. There are today two leading theories of democratic legitimacy. Realist theorists such as Joseph Schumpeter and Robert Dahl focus on actual political institutions such as voting, competitive elections, and party elites. These are regarded as not only the necessary but also the sufficient conditions for democratic societies. Idealist theories of democracy typically draw inspiration from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who focused on ways of enhancing citizen participation in deliberation and decision-making. A fully engaged citizenry, Rousseau believed, was a requirement for any theory of democratic legitimacy.  Each of these theories captures only a part of the truth. Realist theories of democracy correctly draw on the actual practices of democratic societies, but they are often indifferent to the ways that these societies are maintained and preserved. Institutions are not self-sustaining. Democratic institutions require democratic citizens who are trained and educated in democratic practices if those practices are to be sustainable. Without the proper inculcation of democratic values — tolerance, fair-play, a willingness to compromise, open-mindedness, a concern for truth — democracies are prone to degeneration and decay over time. Moreover, we have seen in places such as Turkey and Hungary how the rise of “illiberal democracies” are able to maintain the progressive patina of embracing competitive elections and political parties but have in fact tilted the playing field in such a way that the outcomes are generally predetermined. Idealist theories are prone to the opposite deficiency. Drawing on experiments in preference aggregation, such theories display a naive faith in the “wisdom of the crowd” as a means of arriving at the common good. They treat politics as if it were a debate society or a college seminar in which the “force of the unforced argument” — in Jurgen Habermas’ phrase — is