In contrast to complacency about the future of (liberal?) democracy - even triumphalism in some quarters - of the 1990s, we are now accustomed to gloom. A large proportion of young people profess to have given up in favour of a dictator with no need for elections. (What they know about living under such regimes is a moot point). Meanwhile, if Roger Boyes (Times, Oct 29) is to be believed, we can expect Ukraine's experiment with (liberal?) democracy to collapse by next spring in face of sheer numbers on the battlefield, plus the EU's failure to pay up for Ukraine's survival.
I suggest the pessimism results naturally from some deep-seated features of current Western societies. In particular, proliferation of groups campaigning on matters ranging from migration to work from home to whatever-you-like. Not the groups or causes themselves, so much as the way campaigning tends to generate a sense of opposing dogmatisms, with no one willing to debate and argue the reasons for their positions (certainly not with people who disagree with them).
In turn, philosophy has not proved helpful. The 'linguistic turn', be it the Anglo-American version focusing on linguistic analysis and logical structure of thought or the German versions of communicative reason through dialogue championed by Jurgen Habermas and Gadamer's interpretative dialogue, have failed to create the support for rationality and open thinking they were intended to do. That apparently superficial complaint about Habermas' 'ideal speech' scenario - that it rarely, if ever, happens - does connect with deeper reality of campaigning from advertising to protest groups to anything politicians are apt to say. If that were not enough, 'postmodernism' gave up even trying for rationality.
If current trends to extreme polarisation in the USA and fragmentation in Europe and the UK continue, Roger Boyes might have reason to anticipate autocracy winning not just in Ukraine, but elsewhere as well. After all, dictators often show skill at both monopolising campaigning, and silencing critics.