5 ms·

"department of legitimacy" sounds like the most dystopian BS I have ever heard of. I always thought legitimacy in democracy came through the support of the peop

"department of legitimacy" sounds like the most dystopian BS I have ever heard of. I always thought legitimacy in democracy came through the support of the people which is gained through serving them and their interests. This new form of "democracy" where the elites have all the answers and knows what is best for everyone is the newest form of authoritarianism, IMO. There is no Legitimation Crisis. That phenomenon is a result of society healing itself from the scourge of all authoritarians.

HideousKojima 3y ago
After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Which stated that the people Had squandered the confidence of the government And could only win it back By redoubled work [quotas]. Would it not in that case Be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
- greenyoda 3y ago
  Reference: > "Die Lösung" ("The Solution") is a famous satirical German poem by Bertolt Brecht about the East German uprising of 1953. Written in mid-1953, it is critical of the government and was not published at the time. It was first published in 1959 in the West German newspaper Die Welt."[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung
PaulHoule 3y ago
You read that Habermas book? On one hand you could make the case that popular votes can't change the laws of physics and the limitations of biology and pretending otherwise is a matter of looking into your children's eyes and thinking about them looking into their children's eyes and, given the ever-increasing stakes, some generation soon is going to die unburied. However, there are many good reasons why the "just trust the experts" answer is not tenable not least the self-serving behavior of experts that is proven, the uncertainty in expert judgement that is inevitable, and the sense that you can get much better conformance from people for a decision that they felt they had input into. Habermas makes it clear there is no easy way to square that circle.
JohnBooty 3y ago
I always thought legitimacy in democracy came through the support of the people which is gained through serving them and their interests I mean, yes, but.... This new form of "democracy" where the elites have all the answers and knows what is best for everyone is the newest form of authoritarianism, IMO. Even a highly educated citizen has about, what, 0.0001% of the specialized domain knowledge required to make the tactical and strategic decisions that go into running a large city, let alone a country. Do you want things like dams, roads, a functional air traffic control system, etc? Do you, personally, know how to do all of those things? Do you think the majority of your fellow citizens do? If you feel that your particular government does a bad job of listening to citizens and empowering experts to actually do the things then hey: that is a 100% valid complaint. But we take it a step too far when we decide that the problem is the very concept of listening to and empowering people who actually know what they are doing.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  One could make the case that the problem of the day (Habermas does) is that we don't know how to make a political system which is democratic enough to be successful as well as competent enough to be successful. Habermas was starting to write this at the time the club of Rome was writing Limits to Growth. As much as people thought Limits to Growth was about the 1970s in the 1970s, Limits to Growth predicted things were likely to go to hell between 2020-2050, maybe 2070 if we maximized our coping strategies.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    I'm going to check that out. It certainly seems like he identified the heck out of our problem. Possibly our biggest problem in a sense, since it affects so many other things (our response to climate change, etc) As much as people thought Limits to Growth was about the 1970s in the 1970s, Limits to Growth predicted things were likely to go to hell between 2020-2050, maybe 2070 if we maximized our coping strategies. I'll be interested to why he feels this is the particular half century where it all goes to hell. It's not as if the problem of "technocrats vs. the will of the people" is exactly a new tension. When is the last time that a single common person could really understand everything required for society-level decision making? Back in days when we lived in small packs of hunter-gatherers, and pretty much everybody in the cave could use a spear and knew which berries were okay to eat? That's not to say I doubt his conclusion.

HideousKojima 3y ago

After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Which stated that the people Had squandered the confidence of the government And could only win it back By redoubled work [quotas]. Would it not in that case Be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?

greenyoda 3y ago
Reference: > "Die Lösung" ("The Solution") is a famous satirical German poem by Bertolt Brecht about the East German uprising of 1953. Written in mid-1953, it is critical of the government and was not published at the time. It was first published in 1959 in the West German newspaper Die Welt."[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung

PaulHoule 3y ago

You read that Habermas book? On one hand you could make the case that popular votes can't change the laws of physics and the limitations of biology and pretending otherwise is a matter of looking into your children's eyes and thinking about them looking into their children's eyes and, given the ever-increasing stakes, some generation soon is going to die unburied. However, there are many good reasons why the "just trust the experts" answer is not tenable not least the self-serving behavior of experts that is proven, the uncertainty in expert judgement that is inevitable, and the sense that you can get much better conformance from people for a decision that they felt they had input into. Habermas makes it clear there is no easy way to square that circle.

JohnBooty 3y ago

I always thought legitimacy in democracy came through the support of the people which is gained through serving them and their interests I mean, yes, but.... This new form of "democracy" where the elites have all the answers and knows what is best for everyone is the newest form of authoritarianism, IMO. Even a highly educated citizen has about, what, 0.0001% of the specialized domain knowledge required to make the tactical and strategic decisions that go into running a large city, let alone a country. Do you want things like dams, roads, a functional air traffic control system, etc? Do you, personally, know how to do all of those things? Do you think the majority of your fellow citizens do? If you feel that your particular government does a bad job of listening to citizens and empowering experts to actually do the things then hey: that is a 100% valid complaint. But we take it a step too far when we decide that the problem is the very concept of listening to and empowering people who actually know what they are doing.

PaulHoule 3y ago
One could make the case that the problem of the day (Habermas does) is that we don't know how to make a political system which is democratic enough to be successful as well as competent enough to be successful. Habermas was starting to write this at the time the club of Rome was writing Limits to Growth. As much as people thought Limits to Growth was about the 1970s in the 1970s, Limits to Growth predicted things were likely to go to hell between 2020-2050, maybe 2070 if we maximized our coping strategies.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  I'm going to check that out. It certainly seems like he identified the heck out of our problem. Possibly our biggest problem in a sense, since it affects so many other things (our response to climate change, etc) As much as people thought Limits to Growth was about the 1970s in the 1970s, Limits to Growth predicted things were likely to go to hell between 2020-2050, maybe 2070 if we maximized our coping strategies. I'll be interested to why he feels this is the particular half century where it all goes to hell. It's not as if the problem of "technocrats vs. the will of the people" is exactly a new tension. When is the last time that a single common person could really understand everything required for society-level decision making? Back in days when we lived in small packs of hunter-gatherers, and pretty much everybody in the cave could use a spear and knew which berries were okay to eat? That's not to say I doubt his conclusion.