h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

First off, let me say: I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, because I think this is an important topic but, almost by definition, the people who read and respond to this will all go the one the subject. The same way as I'd go, obviously, but I'm putting that to one side in order to try to have some sort of discussion.

Secondly, let me be clear I'm talking about private discussions here between voting members of the public who aren't part of the system, pretty much of the type we've got here; not electioneering. Although that, I think, will hold some relevance for arguments against this post.

My point is this: should people really discuss politics very much? Surely not, as it is supposed to be each person's private, personal decision on who to vote for and why. Discussions tend to lead to people revealing who they support and why; something that our system is, at least supposedly, and quite largely successfully, very much against pressurising people to do.

Moreover, there are a lot of people out there who are easily swayed by strong speakers, even if the speakers do not have many valid points. By having discussions on politics, people can be pushed into believing in, or maybe only believing they believe in, some particualr candidate or party, even if they are not the best for that person or the country. Look at Hitler for an example: listening to his speeches you can hear there is no real substance or logic to them, yet partially because of his power as a speaker, many people supported him...although that was electioneering, which I said I wasn't talking about. However, people who get involved in private discussions may still follow this style, and persuade others into doing what they don't really want to do. Is it right to not only allow this, but support it? Does this not remove the pathway to a truly free vote?

The problem as I see it is where you draw the line between informing people and electioneering.


For an intelligent person to make an intelligent choice of who to vote for they need to be in possession of the relevant facts - the manifestos of the various alternatives.
However, even if the only information a voter was given was a printed copy of the various manifestos the problem of 'form over content' would still be present - it'd still be possible to hide something in a manifesto, omit something or present a document in such a way, using a type of language, which is aimed at influencing people...

So, a manifesto alone wouldn't be enough, you need to be able to ask questions - and as that's not practically possible you need someone to ask politicians questions for you - hence the media - and then you're on a slippery slope down towards personality-based politics, whether you like it or not.

Should we be discussing politics here ourselves? Why not - I'd suspect that if you were to take a poll after the election of just how many people changed their vote because of what was said on this site you'd be able to count them on one hand. However, its nice to be able to see other points of view - find new sources of information and address issues you may not have thought of without external prompting. And its also nice to understand just why someone votes the way they do and not just think 'you must be mad for voting for .......'.

(I might still consider them mad for voting that way - but at least I know why they thought they should have acted that way!)

Afternoon LQ

A fascinating piece of advocacy if I may say so.

Predictably though ,you will get opposing views {as you expected} and here is mine.

Democracy cannot be confined to those who are privy to ALL THE FACTS as it were. It only works because all citizens have a voice, or in this case a vote, on what is to be done on their behalf, and in their name.

Since we individually cannot KNOW all the facts we have to form an opinion from discussion and possibly speeches, even from a free press.
To suggest that we should not talk about the topics in case we change our mind is to suggest that a new set of information must not be allowed to 'contaminate' our ideas.

Hitler may have been a brilliant orator,, but his rise to power was as much to do with the good people who buried theitr heads in the sand , and did nothing. I have posted before the quotation " It needs only a few good men to do nothing for evil to triumph", and in this sense the fullest possible discussion / argument, or exposure can only lead to a more balanced judgement.

In the end we all come to our own view and all put the X where we want to. Because we live in an open democracy no one stands outside the voting booth with a gun, or accompanies you in!

Argument, discussion and debate are the life bloodd of any society's atempts to creat fair , just ,and honest government. Without it we may as well move to certain Middle Eastern or African countries and live under the yoke of force or intolerance.

Novo

J.S. Mill's 'On Liberty' says quite a lot about the value of free and open discussion; there are several online copies if anyone wants to check the text. Mill advances the sort of Popperian-style argument that's being reflected here, about the importance of testing arguments & assertions by holding them up for potential falsification and therefore having assurance that the arguments and assertions you have have survived all the trials to which they could be subjected. There's also an argument to the effect that even a valid argument or a complete truth (and Mill points out that very often a given position represents _part_ of the truth) will be held as a dead dogma if it isn't available for free and open discussion.

As for the 'personal decision' -- is it more important for a decision to be one's own or for it to be right? Is it best to cast your own vote, to take responsibility as a democratic citizen, even if you later come to think you made the wrong decision? Or would you prefer a Philosopher-King, even if that led to your being, to put it provocatively, infantalised? (I'm assuming for the sake of the argument that you could get a reliably competent and non-corrupt Philosopher-King. And that whatever enthusiasm you might have isn't tempered by knowing as many philosophers as I do.)

Even if it's most important for it to be one's own, it doesn't follow that it must be egoistic; Mill thought the elector should vote for the good of all rather than his or her personal benefit. And while one has first-person privilege in finding out what one desires (though whether that's the same as what's best for one is still another matter), we don't have innate knowledge of anyone else's needs.

As for the forceful and charismatic orator -- is such a person necessarily any worse (or better) than a dominant custom that nobody thinks to question? The Hitler example is a striking one, yes (though I imagine you're aware that a lot of historians would reject that kind of Great Men historiography), but keeping people silent doesn't entail keeping them virtuous.

I'm of the view that the best reason for not speaking out when one doesn't have to risk one's livelihood to do so is when one has good reason to think it would be a complete waste of time. (I've just been reading yet another thread on <./>Askh2g2</.> that's become devoted to one of Hootoo's longest running flame wars.) So I don't think that democracy confers a responsibility on everyone to speak, always; I do think it confers a responsibility to think and be ready to learn.

Well, those are mostly the arguments I would probably have used, but all the same I shall rebut them (I'm part of my school's debating society, this is good practice at arguing against what I believe in - always a useful ability.)

I'm not overly keen on the phrase Devil's Advocate, actually, as it's often an extremely useful and important role. Talking of which, I've only just noticed there's a typo in the subject line of this thread. Oops.

Firstly, the points about how the voters come by their information - as I said, I'm not talking about electioneering, or about how the politicians present themselves, or for that matter how they are presented by the media. Obviously they need to put forwards their proposals, and the media (or at least, the unbiased, decent quality media...) have a responsibility to act for the people in order to get the extra answers, the things the candidates don't necessarily want to let on. What I'm suggesting is that people should not hold casual discussions amongst themselves, as it can lead to peer pressure, bullying, targeting, and all sorts of other problems.

On the other hand, if people don't change their votes as a result of the discussions, what's the point of the discussions in the first place? Seeing other points of view is a nice luxury, but is it one we should aim for against the risk of people being pressurised from their actual decisions? And anyway, half the time you try to understand the way someone else is voting (if against your own leanings), you think they're even more mad, and quite possibly lose respect for them. What a way to lose friends. I mean, why do you think so many internet message boards have chosen to ban discussion of politics?

And onto RFJS_...I thought I may see you around this area at some point......

I'm sorry to say I haven't read that text, and am too tired to seek it out and even skim bits of it now. The argument about how even valid arguments/actual truths will be held as dead dogma if left unquestioned - well, what about religion? For example, Christianity. How much was that questioned over the thousand years or so where it was basically accepted by the country as a whole? And yet it survived, and survives. In fact, if anything, it is now that it is being questioned it is weakening.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "Philosopher-King". The only way I can currently see to interpret it seems to be the exact grounds for my arguing against debate of politics - namely that we run the risk of someone coming to a position where they effectively tell everyone how to vote.

It's all very well to argue that you should vote with everyone in mind rather than just yourself, but unfortunately that doesn't always work. Indeed, the more cunning orators will be able to manipulate their own aims to make it sound like what is actually best for them sounds like it is best for everyone, and hence if people debate politics and listen to this, they may be convinced to follow a path that benefits neither themselves nor everybody.

I never requested that there was an unquestioned dominant regime. There should still be democracy, elections and a choice, but I am arguing that people should, when possible, avoid discussing it.

I'm afraid I again don't understand what you mean by "Great Men historiography" - from what I can find, though, you're basically saying many historians would disagree with the reason I put down for Hitler getting power. If so, yes, there were many other reasons, and possibly completely different interpretations which don't involve personalities at all. However, he was an example, and regardless of how many 'good people did nothing', he had a large amount of support, which must have been generated somehow.

And as for your final point - well, that's half the point I'm making: that much of the time discussion is pointless. Much of the rest of the time it's dangerous, or at least potentially, in encouraging powerful speakers to overcome logical ones. Democracy may not confer a responsibility to speak, but it does confer a large pressure to do so. Look at the 'I don't do politics advert'. Try to back out of a conversation about politics, you'll get that thrown at you, even if you do actually vote.

I used to be in my secondary school's debating society, but we tended towards things like 'This house believes that romance is dead' and 'This house believes that the future is bleak'. (It turns out there's a type of fish called a bleak...) This sort of topic I now think of as somewhere between the Durham Union Society (which probably means someone ought to propose that the minutes be read in the style of a cunning orator) and the Durham University Philosophical Society (which means there ought to be drinks). Anyway...

'what about religion?'

I think you're arguing that religion is a 'living' dogma that dies under scrutiny; correct me if I'm wrong.

That being the case, I suspect I haven't adequately conveyed what I mean by 'dead' in this context. I don't mean 'not believed in'; one can't believe something that isn't believed in. I mean something more like 'taken for granted', unthinkingly parroted without real understanding.

I'm not sure how well I'm conveying this, but let me try to give a concete example. You are, of course, fairly familiar with the rules and conventions of current British political debate -- not just the official 'Mr. Speaker, my Right Honourable friend and I...' of parliamentary rules, but also that elaborate performance in which all families are hardworking, 'the poor' have restabilised as 'the poorest' (following their stints as 'the underprivileged' and 'the disadvantaged'), 'the gap between rich and poor' is the 'in' measure of progress (something we'll get to in a minute) and everyone with the moral equivalent of a photogenic smile has a 'social justice agenda' (as opposed to all the people you see shouting 'Give us more social injustice!')

I don't know how much of this performance you actually buy, and I'm not actually claiming there's no truth in it whatsoever. On the contrary, my point is that, where such a view _is_ in any way true, one doesn't receive any adequate _impression_ of its truth simply by repeating the words like some sort of robot. I don't mean that the difference between 'Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!' and 'And now for the weather' is just some rot of excitement level; a slogan _is_ 'just' a slogan _unless_ one has a living sense of what it _means_ to be, say, free, equal and brotherly.

Watch political discourse at the moment and every so often you'll hear exciting stuff about Progress (remember the Progressive Consensus?), in the rough sense of being not only materially but morally better than previous generations. There are other examples I could cite -- human rights, for example, or 'relevance', or 'modernisation' -- but let's suppose for the sake of this argument that you have a complacent, unchallenged belief in general human moral improvement. Okay, now read John Gray's 'Heresies', Part 1: The Illusion of Progress, which sets out to debunk the 'myth' that humanity progresses in such a fashion. I defy you to hold the same dead dogma afterwards. You may have been convinced by Gray, in which case you have a more developed understanding of the human condition, ready to be modified -- or overthrown in its turn -- by further challenges to it. Or you may have investigated his arguments and found them wanting, in which case you will have been obliged to examine your own beliefs about progress, compare them to his and analyse the differences. Either way, whereas before you were some hypnotised cultist chanting a slogan that you yourself failed to invest with any actual meaning, _now_ you hold beliefs invested with genuine meaning and significance by virtue of a lively understanding.

[Philosophicaal diclaimer: nothing in this post constitutes an endorsement of German Idealism.]

To round off, a story from Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling'. This links to your points about Christianity, because Kierkegaard thought that the orthodox Lutherans living around him didn't really get it; they went through the motions perfectly, but without any living sense of religion. He tells a story about a man who listens to a pastor saying how great Abraham was, who was ready to kill his son, the best thing he had, for God. The man in the audience, suffering from 'insomnia', promptly goes home and kills his son. The pastor, seething with righteous indignation, is deflated when told: 'It was what you yourself preached on Sunday.' (Kierkegaard spends the entire book agonising over exactly what made Abraham great, and, again, I defy anyone to study it without having his or her understanding of the Abraham & Isaac story cangeded. However, having had enough trouble studying the book while being lectured on it, I don't recommend that you rush out and buy it, unless you really want to.)

Okay. Now think about what motives I might have had for creating the Handy Political Opinion Generator (besides pure mockery).

'I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "Philosopher-King".'

Sorry; it's such a famous part of Plato I sometimes forget that not everyone's heard of it. Very roughly, philosophers tend to think highly of philosophy, and Plato argued in the Republic that in a pefectly just city-state the rulers would be philosophers, because only through philosophy can one come to know the Just, the Beautiful and ultimately the Good in themselves, as opposed to partial examples of them. I'll spare you a lecture on how Plato conceived of abstract universals, anyway, since current philosophy tends in rather different directions. In general the term 'Philosopher-King' is used loosely to signify the rule of the wise (or at least the lovers of wisdom).

What I was trying to ask was whether you think it better to be a political agent (in the literal sense of 'one who acts') oneself, even if in one's folly one votes in a way one comes to regret, or to accept the judgment of a wise, rational entity -- think of the Deus Ex endings... -- even if one becomes merely a rubber-stamping conduit, an intellectual infant who delegates all responsibility and has no real agency of one's own. I'm removing the conflicting variables to bring this down to a straightforward dilemma: is it more important for a decision to be right, or to be one's own? Or on a sliding scale, how disastrous do the results of one's foolish but authentic decisions have to get before wise but infantilising rule becomes preferable?

(N.B. I'm incorporating shades of the existentialists' use of 'authenticity' here, in which it means something like 'own-ness'.)

If you think all that matters is expressing one's own opinion in voting, one's 'private, personal decision on who to vote for and why' as you put it, then so be it -- political discussion is worthless, even inimical to authenticity; and you can look gladly around as your decisions lead to death, pestilence, war and famine, and say proudly: 'I did that.'

If, on the other hand, you think that of all the options you might choose some might be better than others, I suggest that you cannot consistently deny any interest in finding out which would be wiser.

'the more cunning orators will be able to manipulate their own aims to make it sound like what is actually best for them sounds like it is best for everyone'

You can replace 'everyone' with 'you', so this argument has equal strength against egoism, and hence cancels itself out. Cunning orators are just dashed persuasive (and don't forget the little orators inside your head); thank goodness for a range of views and the free and open discussion thereof.

'I'm afraid I again don't understand what you mean by "Great Men historiography" - from what I can find, though, you're basically saying many historians would disagree with the reason I put down for Hitler getting power.'

More than that: some historians would deny that Hitler as an individual was that important compared to the social and economic trends of the era. Otto von Bismarck, the first Reich Chancellor, called himself 'the helpless child of time', and insisted that individuals can't fight against the current of history, but can only steer, can only listen for God's footsteps and try to catch the hem of His garment -- and that's coming from the diplomatic genius behind the unification of the German Empire.

The direct relevance is that I'm using the debate in historiography to challenge your emphasis on 'strong speakers'. The Nazis didn't invent anti-Semitism; read 'Wittgenstein's Poker' for, among many other interesting things, an account of Jews' social position in Vienna from the latter days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the war years. Hitler had a keen grasp of a principle that you, as a debater, will no doubt appreciate: 'tell people what they want to hear'. He played on the dire economic situation, on the humiliation of the Reich at Versailles, on an anti-Semitism that had existed since time immemorial, on the chequered history of German Nationalism... I suggest that far from hypnotising the German public into acting against their will he merely eased the birth-pangs into daylight of his listeners' more unpleasant (but previously more suppressed) characteristics at a time when middle-of-the-road politics appeared to have failed.

And restricting free and open discussion just made it easier for people to swallow the stories and fall into line.

'that's half the point I'm making: that much of the time discussion is pointless'

Since you were claiming that discussion was not merely pointless, but WRONG, it's, ahem, interesting to see you claim that half your point is what appears to me to be somethig else entirely. ('Torturing babies for fun is wrong' appears to me to lose rather more than half its force if 'wrong' is replaced with 'pointless'. Actually, it becomes plain bizarre.) Having re-read your first post, it's not the impression I get of your argument then. What other pointless things would you claim we shouldn't do?

'Democracy may not confer a responsibility to speak, but it does confer a large pressure to do so.'

Just democracy? I'm sure I don't need to quote the 'First they came...' in full. Isn't that a moral responsibility, rather than a merely civic one?

This 'huge pressure', however appears to be being ably resisted by a great many people choosing to remain silent on the subject. One can only hope that they have not entirely stopped up their ears.

No ... still listening

Mol