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I apologize for the harshness and sarcasm of my previous reply. I should have taken some more time to find a way to explain my personal gripes that were trigge
by smokel 3y ago
I apologize for the harshness and sarcasm of my previous reply. I should have taken some more time to find a way to explain my personal gripes that were triggered by your remark. Please allow me a second chance:
I am often a bit disappointed that in common language, it is very easy to suggest that one can change the world for the better, but in reality it is not an option for nearly everyone.
I think that the problem leading to this is that most people believe that a group of people has similar traits as a single individual. A lot of reasoning goes awry by mixing the two. In my personal opinion, the way an individual makes up their mind is completely different from how a group of people makes up their collective minds. The first can be attributed to freedom of choice, agency, gut feeling, rational thought, etc. The latter lives in the realm of sociology, group think, religion, politics, marketing and communication.
Another example of where I think this goes wrong is in the idea that we can rescue the climate by starting with ourselves. This is simply not true, unless nearly all people do this. Another one is the idea of contemporary voting in democracies. It simply does not help at all to put out just one vote.
Change requires the opinions of many people to align. Sometimes, only sometimes, does a change by one person incur change in others. Most often, if you are not a leading figure, your change does not do anything at all. Ignoring this results in falsehoods and make-belief. I find this counterproductive in discussions.
It may well be that I made up the strawmans, but I tend to believe that they're already there.
But perhaps, and given your response, this is probably not at all the direction you'd want the discussion to go.
- Jensson 3y agoYeah, I don't think individuals can fix society by themselves. USA is a special case since the poorer 50% somehow failed to organize politically and form a party to represent them like they did in basically every other democracy. I think they still can organize, but there has to be massive barriers that are hard to overcome or they would already have done so.
- kubanczyk 3y agoNotably, getting out of the bipartisan stalemate is step one. Coming from a country where 3-4 parties make it to the parliament, you probably wouldn't believe how much of the dysfunction originates in a two-party politics. It seems to be fixable with changes to the electoral law.
- em-bee 3y agoi don't feel like this makes much of a difference, if any. the primary hindrance to any change and progress is NIMBY, as far as i can see in the US and in germany (and probably elsewhere, but those two i am most familiar with). multiple parties don't help there at all. multiple parties enable coalitions, but all that does is force parties to compromise on their goals. in the end they all just fight each other anyways without being able to progress much. for real progress a complete overhaul of the electoral process is needed. i'd abolish the concept of parties wholesale. instead each representative is elected individually, and there is no party association that limits any of them on which issues to support. think of it as each representative being their own individual party.
- kubanczyk 3y ago> for real progress a complete overhaul of the electoral process is needed. Does not look like an achievable first step.
- em-bee 3y agofair point. it should be a goal though. and to be realistic, i am thinking in decades or even centuries to achieve that. it takes a large scale rethinking of democracy. the current state leaves the majority of the population unrepresented (because they feel that none of the existing parties are able to represent their interest) and drives the resentment and lack of interest in becoming politically active. in short, we all feel helpless because the politicians only do what gives them votes, and not what we really need.
- kubanczyk 3y agoYeah, this. There are a hundred absurdly impractical comments for every half-practical when it comes to US politics (or global politics which US could/should lead). I habitually scroll over ideas so brilliantly revolutionary that they wouldn't even qualify for bad sci-fi literature.
- em-bee 3y agoas individuals our power to change is small, but it is not zero. what it takes is to live with conviction that change is possible, and slowly get others to follow your example. the problem is not that change isn't possible. the problem is that many have given up trying. change is possible, but it takes time and effort. which means patience. and it requires picking your battles. you can't fight all the problems at once by yourself. you have to pick a few issues that matter to you the most, and focus on those. and then instead of trying to make a visible change focus on a few people and try to win them over.