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Anyone else tired of this Machiavellian approach that gives up on trying to persuade through rational and informed discussion?

lizardking 3y ago
Late-stage democracy
- gwright 3y ago
  I'll bite. Explain why you think Machiavellian tendencies is something that is particularly associated with "democracy" as opposed to other systems of government. (I'm ignoring the fact that the US is a constitutional republic and not a democracy.)
  - trealira 3y ago
    They're saying it's a symptom of a dying democracy, not that democracy is associated with Machiavellianism. Edit: Also, a republic is a type of democracy.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      The same can be said of any system. Look at the Internet itself, marriage, every online game, every company. Once people stop respecting something they coexist with, they start looking for ways to exploit it.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
throwanem 3y ago
Where in 2024 are you expecting to find an agora?
John23832 3y ago
I agree, but the BS was poured out of the bottle and onto the floor during the previous two administrations. It's hard/impossible to put it back in now. Blame McConnell's "power for power's sake" approach to the Senate.
- gwright 3y ago
  It is definitely impossible if we all give up on that principle. I'm not willing to give up.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Anyone else tired of this Machiavellian approach that gives up on trying to persuade through rational and informed discussion? I'm tired of a system which structurally rewards a party if they are the party most willing to do this, and I'm also tired of the party with the worst policy positions also disproportionately setting policy because it is the most willing to do this. You can't structurally reform your way out of the broken incentives without effectively using power within the system as it is, or replacing it from outside (the latter of which means violent overthrow, in practice). As inelegant as power politics within the system is, its a whole lot better than either rolling over and giving up, or than getting to structural reform by any other available means.
aschearer 3y ago
Difficult to have "rational and informed discussion" when one side's guy says he'll be "dictator for a day" and gets a pass. Hard to imagine that there's a middle ground waiting to be uncovered by open-minded investigation. I'm reminded of that quote by Satre.
jfengel 3y ago
Yeah, I also miss the mid-80s. But they're not coming back. We haven't had anything even faintly resembling "rational and informed discussion" in decades. The thing with Machiavellianism is that it works. The anti-Machiavellians are welcome to discourse with each other all day. But they'll take orders from those who manipulated the rules to get more rules passed. It has never been about who's right; it's about who wins.
- trealira 3y ago
  Public trust in government has been declining since the 1960s[1]. There's a book called Congress and the Decline of Public Trust, published in 1999, which talks about this trend[2]. You can borrow it hourly on archive.org. There's a paper from 1983 called The Decline of Confidence in American Institutions which discusses this as well[3]. People already knew about it during the mid 80s. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-government-1958-2015/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-g... [2]: https://archive.org/details/congressdeclineo0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/congressdeclineo0000unse/page/n5... [3]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2150494?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2150494?seq=1

lizardking 3y ago

Late-stage democracy

gwright 3y ago
I'll bite. Explain why you think Machiavellian tendencies is something that is particularly associated with "democracy" as opposed to other systems of government. (I'm ignoring the fact that the US is a constitutional republic and not a democracy.)
- trealira 3y ago
  They're saying it's a symptom of a dying democracy, not that democracy is associated with Machiavellianism. Edit: Also, a republic is a type of democracy.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    The same can be said of any system. Look at the Internet itself, marriage, every online game, every company. Once people stop respecting something they coexist with, they start looking for ways to exploit it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

throwanem 3y ago

Where in 2024 are you expecting to find an agora?

John23832 3y ago

I agree, but the BS was poured out of the bottle and onto the floor during the previous two administrations. It's hard/impossible to put it back in now. Blame McConnell's "power for power's sake" approach to the Senate.

gwright 3y ago
It is definitely impossible if we all give up on that principle. I'm not willing to give up.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Anyone else tired of this Machiavellian approach that gives up on trying to persuade through rational and informed discussion? I'm tired of a system which structurally rewards a party if they are the party most willing to do this, and I'm also tired of the party with the worst policy positions also disproportionately setting policy because it is the most willing to do this. You can't structurally reform your way out of the broken incentives without effectively using power within the system as it is, or replacing it from outside (the latter of which means violent overthrow, in practice). As inelegant as power politics within the system is, its a whole lot better than either rolling over and giving up, or than getting to structural reform by any other available means.

aschearer 3y ago

Difficult to have "rational and informed discussion" when one side's guy says he'll be "dictator for a day" and gets a pass. Hard to imagine that there's a middle ground waiting to be uncovered by open-minded investigation. I'm reminded of that quote by Satre.

jfengel 3y ago

Yeah, I also miss the mid-80s. But they're not coming back. We haven't had anything even faintly resembling "rational and informed discussion" in decades. The thing with Machiavellianism is that it works. The anti-Machiavellians are welcome to discourse with each other all day. But they'll take orders from those who manipulated the rules to get more rules passed. It has never been about who's right; it's about who wins.

trealira 3y ago
Public trust in government has been declining since the 1960s[1]. There's a book called Congress and the Decline of Public Trust, published in 1999, which talks about this trend[2]. You can borrow it hourly on archive.org. There's a paper from 1983 called The Decline of Confidence in American Institutions which discusses this as well[3]. People already knew about it during the mid 80s. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-government-1958-2015/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-g... [2]: https://archive.org/details/congressdeclineo0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/congressdeclineo0000unse/page/n5... [3]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2150494?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2150494?seq=1