I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. —C.S. Lewis
What Is Human Nature?: The Anglo-American Perspective
There are two dichotomous views articulated by proponents of democratic government which the aforementioned passage from C.S Lewis’s essay, “Why I Am a Democrat,” succinctly conveys. These two distinct camps have been broken down into many classifications by various authors as early vs. late-Enlightenment or Anglo-American vs. French/Continental. The former classification, advocates for democratic government as a makeshift, necessary evil, or least bad option. It holds and articulates that man is so fallen that no one man--or group of men (i.e. majority)—should possess such absolute power so as to legislate how others are to live their lives. The conservative camp, firmly grounded in the way things actually are, seeks to decentralize power (and production) via many checks and balances because absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton presciently warned. Recognizing men “are not angels,” institutions and government must be varied and decentralized, in a manner where one entity is positioned against another with an opposing institutional interest, in order prevent any one entity from assuming too much power. J.R.R. Tolkien perfectly encapsulated the “constrained” view (to borrow contemporary economist, Thomas Sowell’s terminology) of government that is based on a negative view of human nature that hearkens back to Plato and Aristotle, when he wrote in a letter to a friend: “the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
The French View
In stark contrast to the early-Enlightenment, Anglo-American view of human nature which is firmly grounded in Christianity and owes a great debt to the Medieval Scholastics like St. Thomas Aquinas, is the Continental vision of democratic government that manifested itself most notably during the French Revolution. Without going too far afield, the defining characteristic of this strand of liberalism (spearheaded by Rousseau), is the rejection of the idea that man is fallen by nature that had long been held in the West.
Rousseau famously declared that “man though born free, is everywhere in chains”—he may as well have said “man is born good and is everywhere corrupted.” In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau wrote with impunity,
Allowing that nature intended we should always enjoy good health, I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal. We need only call to mind the good constitution of savages, of those at least of whom we have not destroyed by our strong liquors; we need only reflect, that they are strangers to almost every disease . . . to be in a manner convinced that the history of human diseases might be easily composed by pursuing that of civil societies. [1]
"The July Revolution of 1830," by Eugene Delacroix