Philosophy Now Forum

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"

-Imp

Right again.

i found a few interesting things in this video my son was watching today called 'Athens, Dawn of Democracy' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtn-BZH_ ... re=related somewhere in it, it talked about how they had each person of Athens participate in government for a month each and rotate, to prevent corruption, abuse of power, and to truly be a government of the people, etc... and showed how they did this. i never knew this before. apparently they voted on issues, but not for politicians. i thought it was very interesting.

i was thinking about that the other day actually. voting on issues, rather than for politicians.. then i saw this today and again, i thought it was pretty interesting. and a very admiral experiment. perhaps this may be an idea to influence and help our continued and inevitable quest for advancement?

Amusing that I get a message that Channel 4 have blocked the content in my country given that I live in they country they're based in and publicly funded from.

Anyway, the character of Athenian democracy varied with time but generally anyone who was eligible could attend the Assembly with office bearers selected by lot. One big problem is eligibility though because the Athenians were quite happy to tolerate slavery and women had no place in the political process. It would also be wrong to think that individuals didn't have power either because the generals certainly did and if you read Pericles (through Thucydides) waxing lyrical about the virtues of Athenian democracy you might well forget that he was pretty much head honcho and didn't have to rely on a lottery.

I think direct democracy is a dead duck within modern nations.

When I start watching the link, I think how close is this description, programme to what it's describing and I then realise that both are fabrications of each other. The programme tells you what the programme wants you to see and think. It has been made for you.

yes, that is ironic. very ironic. so ironic, you'd almost want to find out why.. if you ever ask about it somewhere, it would be great if you posted it here, because i'd like to know myself.

i only watched part 1 of the 10 parts so far, and what i mentioned previously is what stood out to me. part one of the video did not glaze over too much, (for instance, Bethany Hughes, the narrator of sorts, even tossed a voting artifact into their actual (as far as we know anyway) voting system apparatus, and said something to the effect, that i wouldn't have been able to do this then) and then there is the whole thing with socrates, and it not being able to handle a true challenge unto itself.

i guess you are probably right about 'democracy (being) a dead duck within modern nations', one way or another we'll all remain as toys?

Why John? Given the new communication tools at our disposal I'd have thought it fairly feasible. The problem of course is the age-old one that uneducated people are not the base for a sound democracy.

I'm prepared to accept that the meaning of the term "democracy" has changed from the Athenian ideal of "direct democracy" so I wouldn't like to claim that "democracy" is a dead duck in the modern sense where it is generally understood to operate through representatives. I'm not claiming it's necessarily in good health either but I don't think it's fatally wounded.

I'd agree that technology makes it fairly easy to provide citizens with the information and the ability to register decisions easily but I'm not so sure we could replace the representative system so easily. Not completely anyway.

In 2011 there were about 250 (or so, I haven't done an exact count) ]Bills before Parliament. If we accept the pace of legislation then we need to consider whether it's practical to put that many Bills before the general populace and expect them to research about 5 per week (if we take the summer off it'll be more per week during the rest of the year) and come to a reasoned decision. Personally I don't think it is and we'd run the risk of government by the sort of people who can't resist filling out every opinion poll Facebook throws at them.

How do we decide what actually gets debated anyway? In the Parliamentary year 2009/10 there were 1248 Early Day Motions. EDMs are fairly meaningless but that's with 650 MPs so who's going to decide what's worth debating amongst a population of millions? Even if we debate the issues with the most support, thus accepting that we're operating a populist political system, lots of people are still going to feel as though they have no voice. Maybe I'm just a cynical elitist but I have a deep mistrust of base populism anyway because it is usually highly emotive, manipulative, and thoroughly damaging to minorities.

We also have the problem that some people really just don't have the time to consider every issue that's raised because they're to busy doing the other things nations need to keep them running and I have a concern that putting everything to a plebiscite would unnecessarily distract those people or, as Michael Walzer might have put it, we'd find ourselves under the rule of the people with the most evenings to spare.

I'm not saying the current system is the best we can achieve but I'm just not convinced that direct democracy is the way forward however much it may appeal to our ideals.

thanks John, i see and appreciate what your saying. i still wouldn't put away entirely the thought of smaller localities holding more power over themselves through themselves, instead of what we currently know now.

i saw in another post of yours where you made a very good point about how the reality of the situation(s) pretty much begs for the form of goverment we have now. (i'm sort of paraphrasing you, i hope i haven't misunderstood you, if i have, i'll try to fix that). anyhow... that does make sense in a way, however, that is because, in my opinion, however modern we seem, we are still living in the 'dark ages' so to speak. not in all ways of course, but in many.

Just to be clear I was meaning large diverse populations. I've got no issue with power being devolved to the lowest level that can meaningfully exercise it while also maintaining the coherency of the sovereign body.

If that sounds a bit gibberish I really mean that local decisions should be taken at a local level and I'm not necessarily averse to direct democracy when smaller populations are concerned about specific issues. The concerns of the larger state are too much (and too complex) to be decided by regular plebiscite though in my opinion.



I'm not sure what post that was (shhh..it's Friday night and I've had more than a few drinks so I can't remember ) but I believe there has to be a sense of pragmatism in our form of government and the argument that "it works" is actually quite a valid one. I'll make a confession that I'm an unabashed republican but I find it hard to argue against the (British) monarchy on the basis of the harm they've done to democracy in the UK because for all it's faults our form of democracy tends to work or at least the problems we have can be levelled somewhere else than Buckingham Place.

i think those were very good points, and i understood that you meant large diverse populations, but thank you for clarifying that just incase anyway:) and what you said about things being too complex on a larger scale for the base population, i understand that too. i am having a beer as well, and need another:) i shall continue from thereon.

you said, 'while also maintaining the coherency of the sovereign body.'

the sovereign body is an interesting set of words. and it almost seems inevitable that it shall be looked upon one day just as we now look upon Buckingham Palace.