Broken Toys

I didn’t really tackle the question of democracy in my first post, though you could see what I was aiming at: “Joe Sixpack” as powerless and maintained in a general state of inferiority by the academic elites (not to mention the rest).

I was going through an article on the “Great Books” project of the Encyclopedia Britannica in the fifties, and keeping on reading, discovered that one of the people involved with it had first been encouraged to read Plato (at age fourteen or so) out of shame, when he learned that John Stuart Mill had done the same at the age of five.

I suppose that’s an easy thing to read Plato at five when your own father happens to be a respected thinker in a position to Jeremy Bentham as your tutor. Mill’s training is quite a story in itself, but it was rooted in the excessive approach to parenting (from Wikipedia: “His father, a follower of Bentham and an adherent of associationism, had as his explicit aim to create a genius intellect that would carry on the cause of utilitarianism and its implementation after he and Bentham were dead.”) Perhaps that went over well in the nineteenth century, but I wonder if it could rank as child abuse; at any rate, it would be borderline indoctrination. I suspect that if a child were subjected to this nowadays, if he doesn’t go bonkers, would spend the rest of his life trying to disprove his father and any enlisted Benthams.

But does “Joe Sixpack”, or his children, have an opportunity like that? Can you be a musical wunderkind if your parents don’t own a piano, let alone read music? Probably not. So it’s largely a case of inequality at birth; in which case, I wish we could be spared the cliche “everybody is a winner” strawman when aiming for some sort of social justice. No, not everyone is a winner. I remember discussing the case of a swim meet some time ago, either here or on MMORPG.com. Not everyone wins the race, so yeah, no equality of outcome. But it becomes a problem when not everyone starts the race at the same time. Pit the J.S. Mill of swimming against your average Joe Sixpack, and see who wins.

That is Joe Sixpack’s predicament. The perennial loser, the object of scorn and derision. His only strength, like it or not, is in numbers. And here is where I step forward to defend democracy – the idea of it. No, it’s not perfect, far from it. Someone mentioned that Churchill quote about it being “the worst form of government except for all the others”, and there is another Churchill quote to go with it, “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter.”

My reason for supporting democracy is, I suspect, the same as Churchill’s: it’s a safety valve. It’s a way to control society by giving the people some meaningless amount of power. For academics weaned on Plato, it’s probably too much, but get rid of democracy, and it might get worse. The state loses its legitimacy; the lack of a legal recourse means people will look beyond the law to obtain satisfaction (and some of the most compelling cases of tyranny of the majority in a democratic system never had the imprimatur of the government).

I’m all for having an informed citizenry, but as I said, I think the problem begins at the top, with the intellectual elites, instead of the bottom. First, because they behave as elitists who are content with their status but have forgotten all of their duties and obligations as the elites they so eagerly want to be. Second, because they have taken to peddling agendas and settling inconsequential accounts among themselves.

That reminds me of an article I read a while ago, by a person in charge of a think-tank that advocated returning to the teachings of the Athenians. And he brought up several of the points discussed in this thread, wondering why we endorsed celebrities as candidates and shunned university professors. I’ll quote a key paragraph here: “Although this anti-intellectual bias is less predominant in Canada, both American and Canadian voters are very vulnerable to mediatic factors such as body language, winking at the audience, ability to tell jokes and being folksy and cute. This media-enhanced trivialization started in the first television debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and it’s been said that JFK won the televised debate because of Mr. Nixon’s sweaty face while Mr. Nixon won the radio debate because of his arguments. Today, the spin doctors and image makers try to appeal to the lowest common denominator. We are very far from Plato’s philosopher king.”

It would be a very convincing reasoning if not for those two little words: “Richard Nixon”. As it turned out, the guy with the more convincing arguments proved to be a paranoid and vindictive freak whose downfall, ironically, seemed to prove to a generation of Americans that their political system worked. Or is that acceptable behavior among philosopher kings?

What is fascinating about this article, which began with a discussion of Sarah Palin, is that it was published in March of this year, and not before the US election. It’s even more puzzling when you get to read such gems as “The U.S. voter from the Midwest or Deep South must realize his or her decision has global implications and act accordingly.” Which evidently applies only to regions of the US where Republicans happen to be popular. Only they must be reminded of American obligations on the world stage; I wonder why.

That’s perhaps what annoyed me most about the last US election — this idea that there is a date with history that must not be missed. I might despise Republicans, but one should have had the option of voting for them without being labeled an idiot, or worse, a racist. Apparently it’s fine for a black Obama supporter to say that blacks must rally around him; I wonder if “Whites! Vote McCain!” would have gone over just as well. Ultimately, it’s just the usual pressure that takes away from the democratic nature of the exercise. If you want to vote Republican, you should have the right to do so without having to wear a brown paper bag (and please, no “don’t you usually wear those pointy white hoods anyway?”).

@Geldonyetich
Part of the difference between 2004 and 2008 is also down to the quality of the Democrat candidate. You maight have doubts about substance, but Barack Obama undeniably gives a good speech and can inspire devotion. John Kerry lacked both the folksiness of George W Bush and the charisma of Barack Obama, and couldn’t even substitute for them with an impressive towering intellect like the (fictional) Jed Bartlet (of the West Wing). It was a struggle to see any reason to vote FOR Kerry beyond voting AGAINST Bush. Obama, on the other hand, stands up pretty well on his own merits.

Not that I agree with it, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate your rants Vetarnias. In an era of tl;dr, it is nice to find something that was too long but worth the read.