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Except part of the point of a democratic society is to leave the hard decisions of state to a small group of people who are ideally best equipped to handle it.
by rqebmm 11y ago
Except part of the point of a democratic society is to leave the hard decisions of state to a small group of people who are ideally best equipped to handle it. The intent is precisely for the public at large to NOT have to assess every minute, gory detail, as then they would have no time left to contribute to the society.
Now, that model also relies on the ability to trust that those chosen to make the hard decisions are doing so competently and in the best interests of the society at large. It also bakes in the assumption that everyone will have to make compromises.
In the immortal words of Calvin and Hobbes "A good compromise leaves everyone mad".
- fandb 11y ago>> Except part of the point of a democratic society is to leave the hard decisions of state to a small group of people who are ideally best equipped to handle it. In a representative democracy like America yes, (a democratic republic actually) yet a pure democracy seeks majority compromise.
- rqebmm 11y agoTrue. I was using democratic as shorthand for democratic republic, but that does lose a bit of clarity.
- grandalf 11y agoRepresentative democracy is not worthwhile for its own sake, it is something that is earned. The basic idea of democracy has no room for an intermediate "council of elders".
- rqebmm 11y agoNothing is worthwhile for its own sake, but empirically speaking representative democratic societies have been the most successful in recent history, which makes it a reasonable default. What would you argue is better and more importantly, what evidence do you have that it would be more effective?
- coldtea 11y ago>Except part of the point of a democratic society is to leave the hard decisions of state to a small group of people who are ideally best equipped to handle it. Actually that's not "part of the point" at all. The point of a democratic society is to elect representatives to act on the majority's will, not to take "decisions on your behalf" and not because they are "ideally best equipped to handle it".
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Except part of the point of a democratic society is to leave the hard decisions of state to a small group of people who are ideally best equipped to handle it. No, that's the point of representative government (which can be part of democratic society -- hence, representative democracy -- but is not essential to it.) The point of democratic society is that society -- and government in particular -- should be responsive to the will of the people. One of the things the people frequently want, however, is not to spend all of their time dealing with issues of governance, so they often choose representative democracy as a mechanism for achieving that goal.