WHY VIRTUE IN THE PEOPLE MATTERS?

James Madison, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and often called the Father of the US Constitution, once said: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”(Chimerical means imaginary, unrealistic, or impossible to achieve.) More than two centuries later, his warning remains strikingly relevant and modern.

The historian Stephen Kotkin, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, has drawn attention to the challenge social media poses to democratic self-government. Free societies must find ways to absorb disruptive technologies while preserving the freedoms on which they depend.

Radio and television transformed political communication by allowing messages to reach mass audiences. Social media has added another dimension: people can now find one another, organise, and reinforce their political convictions across thousands of kilometres. This creates opportunities for public debate, but it also allows radical movements and falsehoods to spread with extraordinary speed. Democracies are still learning how to live with this power.

For this reason, I believe that an increasingly educated public is essential to democracy’s survival. This requires more than media literacy or the ability to recognise a misleading headline. People also need to understand what democracy is, how it works, and why its protections matter—even when those protections benefit someone with whom they disagree.

This brings us back to Madison’s warning. Education can help people make informed decisions, but knowledge alone does not guarantee responsible behaviour. Virtue also requires honesty, self-restraint, and a willingness to respect the rights of others. A citizen may recognise a falsehood and still spread it because it serves their political side. Democracy depends on people who are willing to resist that temptation.

Sources worth looking at:

The Papers of James Madison. Edited by William T. Hutchinson 

https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s36.html

Strategic Costs of US Global Success | Stephen Kotkin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6lYTZ7qcyY&t=765s