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Do they? Can you really establish a rational need for democracy, or are you just running on cultural reflex? If you take this question as me saying we shouldn'

by beat 8y ago

Do they? Can you really establish a rational need for democracy, or are you just running on cultural reflex? If you take this question as me saying we shouldn't have democracy, maybe it's reflex. It's an interesting question. Democracy isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. What is that end (or those ends)? How else can those ends be achieved?

cocacola1 8y ago
Does there even need to be an end at all? I prefer the notion that there's never an end and it's just all one long journey. Death may be the end of a person, but the journey continues for everyone & everything else.
Tade0 8y ago
The end is a robust system that minimises corruption and this can only be achieved when the people in power can be held accountable and are easy to replace.
- beat 8y ago
  Ok, so why is corruption the problem? I can easily imagine a government that is not corrupt at all that terrifies me (such as a theocratic state), and I can imagine governments that are quite corrupt that are just fine for most purposes.
bopbop 8y ago
A rational need for democracy for you would be so that I don't govern you according to my wishes. A rational need for democracy for me would be that you don't govern me according to your wishes. A rational need for democracy for the uyghurs would be that Xi Jumping doesn't govern them according to his wishes. I've always understood this to be what is meant by democracy is the worst form of governance, apart from all the others.
- gknoy 8y ago
  But ... we currently (in the US) have a direct example of the rulers in power governing the populace in a way which is "not according to the wishes" of roughly half the population. (I think this is a direct result of our 2 party system, as compared to Britain's multiple parties, but I've no idea how to fix it.) Any time you vote on the losing side of an election (whether it's for who to elect, or approve a tax, or legalize (or ban) certain acts, you end up being governed by _every one else's_ wishes. On the bright side, at least in a democracy I mostly have the trust that such changes CAN happen, over time, if enough people come to believe similarly as I do about things.
  - liberte82 8y ago
    I was always taught that representative democracy is the rule of the majority, with respect for minority rights. This is where a rational court system comes into play, and why not all questions of rights are left to a referendum. It's what distinguishes it from populism, which is also a rule of the majority, but is a tyranny in that it scapegoats the losing side rather than tries to establish a peaceful way of life for everyone.
  - chongli 8y ago
    I think the US is a good example of democracy being undermined, not an inherent failure of democracy. We can have a law against murder but that's not enough: there will still be murder. It takes a whole society working with the shared value that murder is wrong in order to uphold the institution of the law.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- beat 8y ago
  Government, democracy or not, generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes. It's not an on-off switch, it's a continuum of compromise. Treating it like an on-off switch, my way or the highway on everything, led to much of the weirdness of the 2016 elections in the US.
_bxg1 8y ago
Those with an intellectual and/or engineering bent (myself included) often make the mistake of assuming people can be purely rational. If people were purely rational, you might be able to make a case for this type of benevolent authoritarianism. But every human is always flawed, power corrupts, etc. Despite all its problems, some form of democracy is the only (known) way to truly hold those in charge accountable when they inevitably become corrupt.
- quacked 8y ago
  I think you could achieve it with a slightly less intense qualifier than "purely rational", actually- if people were more in tune with coordination problems and more willing to make a personal sacrifice on behalf of cooperation, democracy could work. This has implications all over the place- like someone deciding not to throw a tantrum at an airport counter because they didn't understand what "standby" tickets are, or someone deciding not to commit financial fraud because it makes the system a little more unfair and wasteful (instead of not committing financial fraud because they're worried about getting caught).
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    "more willing to make a personal sacrifice on behalf of cooperation" The problem is that a lack of checks and balances means a single bad egg is all it takes. It doesn't just take some people being good people - or even most - it takes everyone being a good person to make that work. Humans as a species just aren't like that.
    - quacked 8y ago
      Right. As soon as one person can gain an advantage by sacrificing a common value, that becomes the new default, and anyone that doesn't try to get in on it gets outcompeted.
chongli 8y ago
There isn't some fixed end, there is only a debate between entrenched interests. Democracy's purpose is to balance those interests rather than letting one dominate the other. Barring the birth of some Platonic philosopher king, authoritarian societies will never achieve this. The authoritarian power will inevitably come to represent some particular interest to the exclusion of all others.

by beat 8y ago

cocacola1 8y ago

Does there even need to be an end at all? I prefer the notion that there's never an end and it's just all one long journey. Death may be the end of a person, but the journey continues for everyone & everything else.

Tade0 8y ago

The end is a robust system that minimises corruption and this can only be achieved when the people in power can be held accountable and are easy to replace.

beat 8y ago
Ok, so why is corruption the problem? I can easily imagine a government that is not corrupt at all that terrifies me (such as a theocratic state), and I can imagine governments that are quite corrupt that are just fine for most purposes.

bopbop 8y ago

A rational need for democracy for you would be so that I don't govern you according to my wishes. A rational need for democracy for me would be that you don't govern me according to your wishes. A rational need for democracy for the uyghurs would be that Xi Jumping doesn't govern them according to his wishes. I've always understood this to be what is meant by democracy is the worst form of governance, apart from all the others.

gknoy 8y ago
But ... we currently (in the US) have a direct example of the rulers in power governing the populace in a way which is "not according to the wishes" of roughly half the population. (I think this is a direct result of our 2 party system, as compared to Britain's multiple parties, but I've no idea how to fix it.) Any time you vote on the losing side of an election (whether it's for who to elect, or approve a tax, or legalize (or ban) certain acts, you end up being governed by _every one else's_ wishes. On the bright side, at least in a democracy I mostly have the trust that such changes CAN happen, over time, if enough people come to believe similarly as I do about things.
- liberte82 8y ago
  I was always taught that representative democracy is the rule of the majority, with respect for minority rights. This is where a rational court system comes into play, and why not all questions of rights are left to a referendum. It's what distinguishes it from populism, which is also a rule of the majority, but is a tyranny in that it scapegoats the losing side rather than tries to establish a peaceful way of life for everyone.
- chongli 8y ago
  I think the US is a good example of democracy being undermined, not an inherent failure of democracy. We can have a law against murder but that's not enough: there will still be murder. It takes a whole society working with the shared value that murder is wrong in order to uphold the institution of the law.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
beat 8y ago
Government, democracy or not, generally means I am being governed according to some, but not all of my wishes. It's not an on-off switch, it's a continuum of compromise. Treating it like an on-off switch, my way or the highway on everything, led to much of the weirdness of the 2016 elections in the US.

_bxg1 8y ago

Those with an intellectual and/or engineering bent (myself included) often make the mistake of assuming people can be purely rational. If people were purely rational, you might be able to make a case for this type of benevolent authoritarianism. But every human is always flawed, power corrupts, etc. Despite all its problems, some form of democracy is the only (known) way to truly hold those in charge accountable when they inevitably become corrupt.

quacked 8y ago
I think you could achieve it with a slightly less intense qualifier than "purely rational", actually- if people were more in tune with coordination problems and more willing to make a personal sacrifice on behalf of cooperation, democracy could work. This has implications all over the place- like someone deciding not to throw a tantrum at an airport counter because they didn't understand what "standby" tickets are, or someone deciding not to commit financial fraud because it makes the system a little more unfair and wasteful (instead of not committing financial fraud because they're worried about getting caught).
- _bxg1 8y ago
  "more willing to make a personal sacrifice on behalf of cooperation" The problem is that a lack of checks and balances means a single bad egg is all it takes. It doesn't just take some people being good people - or even most - it takes everyone being a good person to make that work. Humans as a species just aren't like that.
  - quacked 8y ago
    Right. As soon as one person can gain an advantage by sacrificing a common value, that becomes the new default, and anyone that doesn't try to get in on it gets outcompeted.

chongli 8y ago

There isn't some fixed end, there is only a debate between entrenched interests. Democracy's purpose is to balance those interests rather than letting one dominate the other. Barring the birth of some Platonic philosopher king, authoritarian societies will never achieve this. The authoritarian power will inevitably come to represent some particular interest to the exclusion of all others.