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A Democracy of Trust
The shrinking of debate to a series of monologues has since been ex tended to encompass e very aspect of pol itical expression, with the same effect of impoverishing democ ratic society. A monologue is a way of speaking that takes no risk and that, b ecause it can never be challenged, lives on without fear of contradiction inside a fortress of pure assertion. It serves to further harden already entrenched positions by enforcing a particular type of discourse to the exclusion of any other, by encour aging citizens to take sides unreflectively rather than helping them to make up their own minds through the examination of facts and the comparison of arguments. Citizens are thus condemned to passivity. To the question of how this cunning form of slow pol itical death might be counteracted, there is no ready juridical or institutional answer. Fortu nately one cannot imagine a law being passed making truthful speech mandatory, except in a totalitarian regime determined to turn it to its own advantage (which is done in various ways, most notably by pun ishing alleged attempts to subvert the institutions of state). But one might well imagine requiring candidates for public office to take notice of the views of civic groups on all relevant topics in order to promote debate in various settings, at every level, from community councils to nation ally televised forums, with the assistance of existing institutions and ones that have yet to be designed. Already a number of broadly repre sentative ad hoc councils and commissions have aided the examination of controversial issues and cleared away obstacles to decision making on sensitive subjects (in France, one thinks of what the Commission on Nationality accomplished regarding citizenship in 1987,53 of the pro gress made in clarifying the principle of secularism by the Stasi Com mission in 2003, and by the ongoing study of the retirement system by the Pensions Advisory Council, to mention only three well-k nown ex amples). The media likewise have a role to play in t hese areas, with much the same objective of causing partisan verbiage to collapse beneath the weight of its own pomposity, of forcing politicians to come out from behind their protective shell, of helping citizens face up to reality by pulling down ideological barriers. Here again, the democ ratic function of journalism becomes increasingly vital.54 A third front in the battle for plain speaking has been opened up by the sudden emergence of a language of intentions. This is a new political development of relatively recent origin. It arose from a general mood of disorientation and powerlessness that, as we have seen, spread in reac
