Majoritarianism - Reform and Backlash

Reform and Backlash

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TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. ... In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. —Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume I, Chapter XV (1835)

In recent times—especially beginning in the 1960s—some forms of majoritarianism have been countered by liberal reformers in many countries: in the 1963 case Abington School District v. Schempp, the United States Supreme Court declared that school-led prayer in the nation's public schools was unconstitutional, and since then many localities have sought to limit, or even prohibit, religious displays on public property. The movement toward greater consideration for the rights of minorities within a society is often referred to as pluralism.

This has provoked a backlash from some advocates of majoritarianism, who lament the Balkanization of society they claim has resulted from the gains made by the multicultural agenda; these concerns were articulated in a 1972 book, The Dispossessed Majority, written by Wilmot Robertson. Multiculturalists, in turn, have accused majoritarians of racism and/or xenophobia.