Cioran on Democracy

Democracy is a festival of mediocrity.

- E. M. Cioran

Democracy transcends time and space; it can never be understood except as a spiritual
force. Majority rule rests on numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that
society is neither a collection of units nor an organism but a network of human relations.
Democracy is the bringing forth of a genuine collective will, one to which every single being
must contribute the whole of his [or her] complex life, as one which every single being must
express the whole of at one point. Thus the essence of democracy is creating. The technique of
democracy is group organization.
Philosophy of existence, Cioran's letters - I mean the book "Letters to Wolfgang Kraus
(1971 1990)," are equally, if not a greater extent, historical philosophy exercises, primarily the
history of twentieth century Europe. To Cioran the future of Europe and America (it's North
America) did not seem at all good. Striking is that his ideas and predictions are now, I'd say most
current (and some even true) than they were in the '70s and '80s, when the 158 letters were
written. It's almost a truism to say that Cioran beyond the paradoxes and the skepticism was / is a
visionary. His comments on the events, which are witness statements, show a deep understanding
of not only them but their effects and an intuitive medium and long term view.
In a letter dated May 5, 1973, he wrote: "Unlimited freedom they enjoy in the West is on
the long term, harmful and even dangerous. Freedom has a positive value only to the extent that
there are prejudices that hinder. But when prejudices are removed, the instinct of preservation is
destroyed and dizziness takes over. And this was in 1973, so two years before the Act of the
Helsinki! And much more before entering the action of political correctness. It is clear that
Cioran saw a dizziness that began to be felt even more acutely in the decades that followed. And
not only in the countries of Western Europe.
One sentence down on paper written by Cioran over 35 years ago seems to have been
inspired by the very reality of Europe, especially today’s Romania: "In times of crisis may very
well be seen the negative sides of democracy." This is particularly troubling since I quoted what
belongs to the great thinker of the twentieth century who lived in the interwar Romanian
simulacrum of democracy, then a large and functional western democracy.
Cioran senses the happening of deep motivation in contemporary phenomena and
sometimes predicts on their evolution. For example, it relates to what Wolfgang Kraus, who,
visiting Bucharest in 1976, was impressed that here the churches were full of believers,
"Churches from Bucharest are full, but more for political than religious reasons. In any case,
Marxism is the last chance of victory for Christianity. The Church must be suppressed; otherwise
it becomes too conventional, too old fashioned. In the West, only one can save the ruthless
tyranny". Moreover, the fate of Christianity in the West and in Europe generally for Cioran is a
reflection of the main themes and concerns, whereas Christianity has been and should remain the
basis and backbone of European civilization. In January 1987, he wrote to Wolfgang Kraus:
"There is no salvation for civilization that no longer believes in itself. Allow me to do a
prophecy? In fifty years, Notre Dame will be a mosque. “After nearly two years, his diagnosis
would be even more severe: "... Christianity is completely hollow."
As for Romania's destiny, he did not hesitate to pronounce his opinions: "Everything in
this country failed. That's the only originality. "(27 October 1990).
"Our epoch, writes Cioran, "will be marked by the romanticism of stateless persons.
Already the picture of the universe is in the making in which nobody will have civic rights."1
Similar to his exiled compatriots Eugene Ionesco, Mircea Eliade, and many others, Cioran came
to realize very early that the sense of existential futility can best by cured by the belief in a
cyclical concept of history, which excludes any notion of the arrival of a new messiah or the
continuation of techno-economic progress.

When one reads Cioran's prose the reader is confronted by an author who imposes a
climate of cold apocalypse that thoroughly contradicts the heritage of progress. Real joy lies in
non-being, says Cioran, that is, in the conviction that each willful act of creation perpetuates
cosmic chaos. There is no purpose in endless deliberations about higher meaning of life. The
1
Emile Cioran, Syllogismes de l'amertume (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), p. 72
entirety of history, be it recorded history or mythical history, is replete with the cacophony of
theological and ideological tautologies. Everything is a historical carousel, with those who are
today on top, ending tomorrow at the bottom.

For Cioran all systems must be rejected for the simple reason that they all glorify man as
an ultimate creature. Only in the praise of non-being, and in the thorough denial of life, argues
Ciroan, does man's existence become bearable. "I cannot excuse myself for being born. It is as if,
when insinuating myself in this world, I profaned some mystery, betrayed some very important
engagement, made a mistake of indescribable gravity. "

The feeling of sublime futility with regard to everything that life entails goes hand in
hand with Cioran's pessimistic attitude towards the rise and fall of states and empires. Although
today the actors are different, the setting remains similar; millions of new barbarians have begun
to pound at the gates of Europe, and will soon take possession of what lies inside:

“Regardless of what the world will look like in the future, Westerners will assume the
role of the Graeculi of the Roman Empire. Needed and despised by new conquerors, they will
not have anything to offer except the jugglery of their intelligence, or the glitter of their past.”2

Today there are no more utopias in stock. Mass democracy has taken its place. Without
democracy life makes little sense; yet democracy has no life of its own. After all, argues Cioran,
had it not been for a young lunatic from the Galilee, the world would be today a very boring
place. "Society is badly organized, writes Cioran, "it does nothing against lunatics who die so
young." Probably all prophets and political soothsayers should immediately be put to death,
"because when the mob accepts a myth--get ready for massacres or better yet for a new religion."

If a society truly wishes to preserve its biological well-being, argues Cioran, its
paramount task is to harness and nurture its "substantial calamity"; it must keep a tally of its own
capacity for destruction. In this area of Europe, which is endlessly marred by political tremors
and real earthquakes, a new history is today in the making--a history which will probably reward
its populace for the past suffering.

2
The temptation to exist, translated by Richard Howard; Seaver Bks., 1986
 “Whatever their past was, and irrespective of their civilization, these countries possess a
biological stock which one cannot find in the West. Maltreated, disinherited, precipitated in the
anonymous martyrdom, torn apart between wretchedness and sedition, they will perhaps know in
the future a reward for so many ordeals, so much humiliation and for so much cowardice.”3

For Cioran, society becomes consolidated in danger and it atrophies in peace: "In those
places where peace, hygiene and leisure ravage, psychoses also multiply... I come from a country
which, while never learning to know the meaning of happiness, has also never produced a single
psychoanalyst."4

If one could reduce the portrayal of Cioran to one short paragraph, then one must depict
him as an author who sees in the modern veneration of the intellect a blueprint for spiritual
gulags and the uglification of the world. Indeed, for Cioran, man's task is to wash himself in the
school of existential futility, for futility is not hopelessness; futility is a reward for those wishing
to rid themselves of the epidemic of life and the virus of hope. Probably, this picture best befits
the man who describes himself as a fanatic without any convictions--a stranded accident in the
cosmos who casts nostalgic looks towards his quick disappearance.

“To be free is to rid oneself forever from the notion of reward; to expect nothing from
people or gods; to renounce not only this world and all worlds, but salvations itself; to break up
even the idea of this chain among chains.”5

3
History and Utopia, trans. by Richard Howard, Seaver Bks., 1987
4
Syllogismes de l'amertume, p. 154.
5
Le mauvais demiurge, p. 88
 Bibliography

• Emil Cioran, Schimbarea la fata a Romaniei, Humanitas,

1990

• Emil Cioran, Silogismele Amaraciunii, Humanitas, 1992

• Emil Cioran, Demiurgul cel rau, Humanitas, 2006

• Oliver Nay, Istoria Ideilor Politice, Polirom, 2008

• http://timisoaralive.com/blog/2010/06/lumea-politicului-
emil-cioran/

• http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/authors/e__m__cio
ran_quotes.html

• http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/DemocracyRightNow!/