Thin Democracy and the Hunger For Meaning

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In his book Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies, ethicist David Gushee argues that the liberal democratic tradition, which was pioneered during the Enlightenment and of which we are all beneficiaries, is “thin.” It gives us a negative vision of freedom, providing protections from impositions, but offers no positive, communal vision for the good life.

He writes,

This formative early vision is sometimes described as creating a “thin,” “liberal,” or “libertarian” democratic tradition. Its strength was its realistic recognition of the reality of convictional pluralism and the dangers of government meddling in matters of conscience so important to people that they will fight and die for their beliefs. Its weaknesses, however, were at least twofold. Its social imagination focused on individuals and their personal preferences rather than communities and their shared needs – but it is really communities that build associations and ultimately national governments. Further, its realism did not extend to recognizing that some shared accounts of the good life and the good community, and some way of forming good citizens who can exercise responsible freedom is required to sustain a viable human community – even a political community. Liberal democracy has been described as a “thin” tradition because of these missions.

Go read the founding documents of the United States, urges Gushee, and you will see that “these hugely influential documents offer relatively little by way of a shared communal vision.” These documents, Gushee argues, give lip service to the vague concepts of, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but make no effort to offer a clear definition of these terms.

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This is all as it should be. Our great liberal institutions, from science to democracy, work because they are thin. I believe that liberal democracy is one of the greatest and most radical achievements of our species, generating unprecedented peace, plenty, and equality. I have no patience for romantics who pine for past ages, or revolutionaries who wish to tear it all down. As a sexual minority, now is the best time to be alive in human history, and that is because of the extraordinary rights revolutions made possible by liberal democracy.

But liberal democracy is not enough for a cohesive social order. As Gushee explains,

It is highly doubtful whether human communities can function without any kind of shared values or a vision of what a good life and good community look like. Even the relatively minimalist kinds of goals that are articulated in liberal democratic constitutional documents, like advancing the general welfare, would benefit from a shared understanding of what that might look like. But no such substantive vision is on offer because the individualist-libertarian vision prevails, quite intentionally. There is no collective common good; there is only the aggregation of individual goods as we each pursue our own version of happiness.

The answer to the thinness of liberal democracy is not to tear it down, as many on the Christian far right are currently attempting, but a robust culture of shared values. For many decades, the thinness of democracy served us well because a positive culture of shared values could provide structure and scaffolds for us to live our lives. When early iterations of liberal democracy were first articulated, they were paired with religious cultures that shared rich moral and theological visions of reality.

But what happens when, as I believe to be the case, culture itself begins to mirror thin democracy? Rather than culture providing the yin to thin democracy’s yang, secular culture is becoming as empty and sparse as thin democracy itself.

There is no going back to a previous world when we were all united under a single pontiff, monarch, or God. Nor do I ever want to go back. I am a firm believer in pluralism, if only because we have no choice but to embrace it. I am also a gay atheist and religious minority. People like me flourish because of, not in spite of, ongoing secularism.

But something is going wrong in our culture. I believe that there is a baby in the religious bathwater and that, as secularism progresses and religion becomes more and more relegated to the fringes, culture itself is being made in the image of thin democracy. We have a Hippocratic Oath culture (“first, do no harm”) paired with a Crowleyan culture (“do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”) We seem to only have a cultural vision of what not to do to each other, rather than a shared vision of the good life, together.

By “we”, I mean people like me – educated, secular, usually white, and professional. There are, of course, numerous meaning-making cultures in secular democracies, and I note that members of these communities tend to be much happier and more stable than people like me. My sister, for example, is embedded in a conservative Christian community, and while I have strong disagreements with her politically and theologically, I cannot deny that she exhibits contentment, stability, and happiness that is sorely lacking among restless secularists like me.

The thin culture is advancing, however. As secularization advances, the rich tapestry of a positive life together retreats. Religious people are intensely aware of this and frequently sound the alarm.

A culture modeled on thin democracy will be thin gruel indeed. A culture based on nothing more than the Hippocratic Oath will leave a roaring maw of emptiness in its wake.

Many are content with this state of affairs. They will feel no inkling of the starvation their peers are feeling. They usually meet this starvation with bemusement. I’m delighted that they are impervious to the emptiness.

Others, like me, will be ravaged by this hunger for more than thin culture. Where are our rituals for death and dying? Where are our myths? Where are our guides for men and women to strive for heroism? Where are our rituals and practices for self-transcendence? Where are our ceremonies of initiation? Where are the structures that enable deep, abiding friendship, mentorship, and community? Where are our covenants of kindness, compassion, and care for other conscious creatures?

In his book Why: The Purpose of the Universe philosopher Philip Goff recounts his hunger for religious order despite concluding (and still believing) that God does not exist.

I didn’t have much to do with institutional religion for the next twenty years. However, in my early 30s, as my taste for late night drinking began to lessen—these days I only stay up late drinking at philosophy conferences—I began to feel the absence of the things I took for granted in my Catholic upbringing. In secular life, almost all social encounters happen because of what you can get out of the other person. I don’t mean that in a cynical way; there’s nothing wrong with getting together with someone because you enjoy their conversation, or because you share a passion for playing tiddlywinks. But in the church of my youth, you connected with people just because they were your neighbours. You felt part of a family with people of all ages and all socioeconomic backgrounds. You marked the seasons together. You rejoiced together when someone was baptized or married and wept together when someone died.

Goff was driven by this yearning for a positive vision of the communal life to an Anglican cathedral, where he had a religious experience. After becoming more engaged in Christian theology and practice, he eventually came to the following conclusion:

In other words, the Christian story is understood not as literal fact but as a profound fiction, one that, as part of the Christian spiritual practice, facilitates a deeper connection with ultimate reality. I had found what I was looking for: a way of connecting to my community, my tradition, and to the purpose of existence, consistent with my lack of belief in traditional Christianity.

I ache for the connection Goff has found — a framework that allows me to be integrated with a broader tradition of shared values that doesn’t require that I relinquish my atheism, skepticism, and love of evidence.

What do I have in the place of such a positive, shared community? Video games, YouTube, Instagram, OnlyFans, Netflix. These have become, for large portions of the population, our social ties and our liturgies. Don’t misunderstand me – I happen to love all of them. I’ve spent thousands of hours in video games, I’ve given lots of money to models on OnlyFans, and I’ve binged untold hours on Netflix. I’m neither a Luddite nor a vestal virgin. I think sexual liberation and digital media are awesome, and I’m not interested in pushing all of us back into repression. But if “freedom from” is the only vision we have for reality, and entertainment rushes in to fill the void, we will starve to death.

This dissatisfaction has driven me to other sources of meaning. Meditation and secular Buddhism have utterly transformed my life. I’ve started attending synagogue with my Jewish partner and partaking in his ancient rituals and traditions. There is a richness in Judaism that I have been starved for. I could swim in the waters of Judaism – its vast mysticism, literature, rituals, and wisdom – for a hundred lifetimes and never reach the shore. There is immense relief in that, precisely because I am so small in comparison to that ocean that has existed for thousands of years before me and will go on to exist after I die. There is finally something bigger than me in this world.

This is the terrible burden of living in a thin culture: every individual must discover meaning for themselves and create their own micro-culture of meaning. There is no abdicating the role of personal will; even the giving over of oneself to a particular religious tradition requires self-determination and autonomy. This is exciting and liberating, well suited to individualists like me, but it will prove too great a burden for others who do not have the skills to even begin to build such purpose.

What is the answer to thin culture? Only the bitter pill of individual self-determination. Those of us who are able must create structures and webs of meaning that pass the Three AM Test, so that other people can be caught in that safety net when they, too, confront the dark night of the soul.

But that’s just me. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and I might feature them in an upcoming post. Subscribe if you haven’t already, share this post with friends to rise on the leaderboard, and join the cult … I mean Discord server.