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The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#141

Post by TheCoelacanth »

harimau777 wrote: post #132
buzzkillington wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the British empire was as evil as the Nazis there would be no Indians left.

I don't think that's necessarily accurate. The Nazi's conquered many countries without exterminating their population. As I understand it they only attempted to exterminate Jewish people, homosexuals, and the disabled. Granted even that is deeply evil, but it doesn't mean that they would wipe out any given people group that they conquered.

They also planned on wiping out 100% of Latgallians, 85% of Poles, 85% of Lithuanians, 75% of Belarusians and large portions of most of the rest of Eastern Europe[1]. The groups you listed were some of their top priorities, but by no means where they intended to stop.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#142

Post by [deleted] »

Iv wrote: post #5

I'll restate something that's often misunderstood about democracy. The use of elections is not to find the "best" leader (for any definition of "best" that you have) but to prevent civil unrest. It offers an alternative to pushing for opinions violently in order to be heard. For this it needs to offer a credible and legitimate path towards political changes.

[deleted]

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#143

Post by DubiousPusher »

corford wrote: post #104
DubiousPusher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I neither believe or disbelieve in this hypothesis. Given an absence of evidence upon the issue I see no reason to believe either way.

Perhaps consider leveraging Occam's razor while you accumulate more evidence to satisfy a firm position. Or do you adopt a similarly ambivalent approach to everything you encounter if it lacks immediately presented evidence?

Yes. Basically I avoid having a firm opinion on lots of things.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#144

Post by gwright »

harimau777 wrote: post #130
Iv wrote: post #5

I'll restate something that's often misunderstood about democracy. The use of elections is not to find the "best" leader (for any definition of "best" that you have) but to prevent civil unrest. It offers an alternative to pushing for opinions violently in order to be heard. For this it needs to offer a credible and legitimate path towards political changes.

That's a really good point. I hadn't thought about it in those terms before. An issue that I see is what to do with groups who are two small to achieve their aims via democracy but large enough that they can cause unrest. The textbook answer would be that the constitution places limits on democracy in order to protect the rights of the minority. However, looking at current American culture it seems like that hasn't w…

What do you mean by "punish minority views"? An important component of the classical notion of "state" power is that the government has a monopoly on the use of force. When coupled with the limits to the power of the majority (i.e. individual rights and limited government), holders of minority views should be protected from "punishment" that involves any use of force related to their protected rights.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#145

Post by Iv »

sovietcattle wrote: post #129
Iv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. I think they are bollocks. Have you read and understood them and are ready to defend steps and axioms of this thesis or are you just enamored with his conclusions? Specifically, I think this is nonsensical: "Second, it must be noted that argumentation does not consist of free-floating propositions but is a form of action requiring the employment of scarce means; and that the means which a person demonstrates…

"I think this is nonsensical" ... "Actually I have a hard time charitably following his reasoning". Let me help you a bit by over-simplyfing the logic: - If I state an argument to you, it can either be true, false or indeterminate. No matter what argument you make to me in that regard, you'd end up agreeing with that argument, which means that specific argument is "a priori". Moreover, you can only reach a conclusion…

Yes, we are in agreement to what this so-called reasoning is. So let's criticize it then. I'll refer to your proposal by numbers if you don't mind.

1. is actually two propositions, the first one unnecessary to the discussion. But useful to frame the second part as as self-evident as the first one.

2. is simply false. We could agree to a relation of dominance. Several non-violent ways of doing that through cultural, religious, familial, societal means have existed in the past. Luckily for you, 2. is also totally useless to the argument being made.

3. Yes, if you define private property as the act of eating and drinking, then it is consubstantiated with our human condition. That's not the definition generally admitted though. My son (who is 5 yo) does not own anything, yet he eats food I own, is sheltered at our place, receives water we pay for. Does it make him incapable of reasoning? He frequently argues, occasionally reasonably.

Actually this jump from scarce to private property is the main problem of the argumentation. Scarce things don't have to be owned. That's the whole subject of the debate, you can't just assume it is true to prove it is true.

4. follows from 3 so I consider it invalidated. I'll just ask this: is a slave unable to produce arguments? Or do you consider a slave owns their body, food, water, shelter?

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#146

Post by Iv »

afarrell wrote: post #109
DubiousPusher wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably a clusterfuck Why do you believes this? I'm not an advocate of direct democracy but I have no idea why this valuation is so ubiquitous.

The way I arrived at this opinion was sitting in 5-hour-long-meetings as a student.

Direct democracy just means you get a vote on the final decision. It does not mean you have to listen to all the debates.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#147

Post by DubiousPusher »

afarrell wrote: post #109
DubiousPusher wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably a clusterfuck Why do you believes this? I'm not an advocate of direct democracy but I have no idea why this valuation is so ubiquitous.

The way I arrived at this opinion was sitting in 5-hour-long-meetings as a student.

You could use that same argument to say a representative democracy would never work.

As obvious as some of the problems are with DD so is it obvious the system would need some guard rails. Just as modern republics looked at the failings of historical ones and added features to protect themselves.

I have no idea whether it could work or not but it seems to me there's little empirical evidence to validate the commonly held strong opinion that it would necessarily be a disaster.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#148

Post by drjesusphd »

pdonis wrote: post #29
ajna91 wrote: post #7

"If we substitute the word indifference for the word liberty, we shall come much closer to the real intention that lies behind the classic argument. Liberty is to be permitted where differences are of no great moment. It is this definition which has generally guided practice. In times when men feel themselves secure, heresy is cultivated as the spice of life. During a war liberty disappears as the as the community fe…

The key thing to remember about Lippmann, though, is that when he says these "lucid" things, he is not actually complaining; he's describing what he and people like him intend to do to "manufacture consent". Lippmann actually had no problem telling the people lies if he thought it was in a good cause. His objection to the lies others told was not that they were lies, but that they were not in what he considered to be…

Care to provide references that support this?

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#149

Post by 0x445442 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #14
Iv wrote: post #5

I'll restate something that's often misunderstood about democracy. The use of elections is not to find the "best" leader (for any definition of "best" that you have) but to prevent civil unrest. It offers an alternative to pushing for opinions violently in order to be heard. For this it needs to offer a credible and legitimate path towards political changes.

It also optimizes for leaders who will maintain a middle class. I thought CGPGrey laid this out very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Nice; a sufficient high school civics curriculum in 18 minutes.

Re: The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)

#150

Post by DubiousPusher »

mistermann wrote: post #115
corford wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps consider leveraging Occam's razor while you accumulate more evidence to satisfy a firm position. Or do you adopt a similarly ambivalent approach to everything you encounter if it lacks immediately presented evidence?

A potential problem I see in this approach is that many people seem to mistake Occam's Razor conclusions, aka intuition as far as the common man is concerned, as the truth. I would argue that widespread adoption of explicit acknowledgement that in fact , many (if not most) of the the current Top 100 Disputes in the public sphere actually have an answer of UNKNOWN (as opposed to what 95% of politicians, intellectuals,…

Knowing things for certain is hard. People are uncomfortable when an answer is unknown. They are usually even less happy when told something can't be known.

But I agree. My hope is that the frailty of human reason and the limits of human knowledge can become wider spread and that can help people stop holding such confident and unwaivering views.

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