Democracy and postmodernism

[bwv 1080]

Yes, and Mao also liked to mess around with really young girls.

Young Asian girls at that

[Ephemerid]

The standard of measurement isn't one of 'intellect' or 'knowledge' but insight, which is related to levels of awareness in some way. I do have some philosophy on this, perhaps for another thread. If it was a matter of knowledge you could program computers with it and get them to give you answers, but they're not alive.

How would you measure "insight"?  How can you distinguish one with insight and one without?  What is your criteria for determining who belongs in whatever strata?  There has to be a way of verifying this, correct?  What is it?

Certainly I think the world would be better with me in charge- there's so much I'd want to do.

Wow.

[M forever]

Young Asian girls at that

Well, yes, OK, but he didn't travel half way around the world to get them. He just had them right there.

[Sean]

Well as Plato said, the Philosopher Kings do need the best training they can get, all as debates in parliaments help to bring out the facts in a case. But making the right decision on the basis of those is a fairly uncommon skill- or we'd just be able to ask computers as I say.

Many thinkers have been horrified by The Republic, this profoundly undemocratic work by one of the greatest of minds- they've even tried to say Plato was writing tongue in cheek and didn't mean the whole thing. They've said that if you accept that if you need overlords then indeed you do, but that really people can think politically and with free will. But that's where they're wrong and where they overestimate most of humanity- most people can't think critically and widely enough to make good prime-mover decisions, and Plato was right that Kings are needed.

What would I do? Give much more guidance to people, slot them into roles that suit them; I'd begin with the education system, which I'd radically alter, particularly in what is taught and how it's taught. Education (at least in UK) should be much more vocational, and all classroom based teaching must stop and be replaced with workstation private study.

I can go on from there...

[Daidalos]

[...] Education (at least in UK) should be much more vocational, and all classroom based teaching must stop and be replaced with workstation private study.

I can go on from there...

Please don't.

[Ephemerid]

I still want to know what your objective criteria is in measuring how much "insight" one has so you can determine which "slot" to put them (members of The Horde^TM) into...

[Operahaven]

What would I do?

Give much more guidance to people, slot them into roles that suit them; I'd begin with the education system, which I'd radically alter, particularly in what is taught and how it's taught... Education (at least in UK) should be much more vocational, and all classroom based teaching must stop and be replaced with workstation private study.

Hi Sean,

I could not agree with you more on this specific issue.

The educator Arthur Levine said it best in a 2002 commentary in the  International Herald Tribune  titled "Education Made To Measure": 


"Our school system was created for an industrial society and resembles an assembly line. Students are educated by age, in batches of 25 to 30. They study for common periods of time, and after completing a specified number of courses, they are awarded diplomas. It is a notion of education dictated by seat time. Teaching is the activity that occurs during the time when students are in their chairs. The expectation is that the typical child at any age can master the material taught in the traditional 180-day school year. Those who are capable of mastering the material more quickly or more deeply are classified as gifted. Those who are unable to learn it as speedily or in the same fashion as their classmates are said to have learning disabilities. In this sense, special education, except for the gifted, is regarded as a deficiency on the part of a child. In an information society, this model of education works far less well than it once did. Indeed, in the years to come, the educational system may become, by necessity,  increasingly individualized.

First, our children are diverse in their abilities, so we need a more varied curriculum. Second, through advances in brain research, we are discovering how individuals actually learn, and this will allow us to develop the educational program each child needs. Third, new technologies that provide different pedagogies and learning materials are burgeoning.   We are heading to an era in which schooling will change profoundly. The teacher will not be the talking head at the front of the classroom, but the expert on students'  learning styles, the educational equivalent of a medical doctor. Children will no longer be grouped by age. Each student will advance  at his or her own pace  in each subject area through individualized tutorials, student-centered group learning and a cornucopia of new technology and software. Research has long documented a variety of learning styles, but as we continue to discover more about the brain, a growing proportion of students are likely to be diagnosed as learning disabled. Eventually, the nomenclature will change, and we will recognize so-called disabilities for what they really are -- differences in how people learn. Rather than call them learning disabilities, we will call them learning differences.

At the moment, the old education system is dying and a new system is being born. For those of us living through the change, it is easier to see what we are losing than what is emerging -- a system of customized education for each of our children. We must make the transition as short and as painless as possible. The largest mistake we can make is to cling unquestioningly to the existing model of schooling. We need a new vision of education -- one that recognizes the unique way every student learns"

******

[Sean]

Hi Opera

At the moment, the old education system is dying and a new system is being born.

This is a subject I know something about. Unfortunately most of the changes, perhaps all, are only superficial- whether there's real thinking going on I'm not sure. The problem is that people do not see serious alternatives beyond the paradigm they're in. If there was a button on the options panel here to write that in blood I'd use it.

People sense there are problems but are basically ill-equipped on a personal level to see them- the problem is that almost nobody can look at basic questions here- which are what should be taught and how should we teach it. I know from my own experience working in schools and thinking things over that these questions are complex. But nobody even addresses them- they just don't: it's a massive bureaucratic sluggish monstrous useless mess and hasn't changed for decades and decades. Even the children's unbelieveable behaviour and disregard for the system doesn't tell the authorities anything. What's needed is a leader with absolute power to impose a new system- which will then immediately get everyone's approval.

[Sean]

By the way one result of the ridiculous 'child protection' trash, giving pupils the power to accuse teachers of whatever rubbish, and letting them effectively run the school with absolute impunity, and waste their time and underachieving- is keeping the class system in position. The more children's rights rubbish there is, the worse standards are and the more the advantage the pampered classes know their children will have.

[Florestan]

What's needed is a leader with absolute power to impose a new system- which will then immediately get everyone's approval.

And everybody who opposes the new system is to be arrested on the spot and deported to reeducation camps!

[val]

Sean


What's needed is a leader with absolute power to impose a new system- which will then immediately get everyone's approval.

But why would that leader be wiser? Because people are forced to agree with him? Indoctrinated to assume his own perspectives?

I agree with most of you said about democracy. But the problem is that any other form of government suffers from the same problems. Do you really think that dictators have a critical way of reasoning?

Regarding Plato and the Republic, I think you are forgetting one important thing. The Republic he describes only makes sense if you accept his theory of the Forms. And Plato's disgust for democracy had to do with the Direct Democracy of his time in Athens. Todays democracy is not direct and in fact people has not the same power that Athens citizens had.

Democracy will always suffer from an inner paradox: why give voice to those who don't know what to say?
On the other hand, there is always the question: but who decides, and with what bases, the knowledge required for an acceptable statement?

[paulb]

If many of the wise founding fathers could speak toady.
"you bunch of idiot, greedy, self seeking, war monger morons...you went and killed our best friends, the indians, you cut down all our forests, you polluted all our rivers and lakes, air, you have given our grandchlidren a  multi trillion $ medical debt to pay off, a  multi trillion $ war debt to pay off, a  multi trillion $ social programs debt to pay off, IOW you have rendered a    $1 bill, original value, now in 2008 is worth LESS THAN 1 cent of that original $ we issued, and totally rendered the land as ugly as sin itself. Get thee out of OUR country, NOW GO"

These are some of the things many of the founding fathers would say to us.
call all sorts of names and insults, a  24 hour marathon ofa  scolding , which these current leaders richly deserve

[Sean]

val, a dictator may be good or may not be. But a democracy is always mediocre because most people have poor judgement.

[Florestan]

a dictator may be good.

Examples, please.

[paulb]

val, a dictator may be good or may not be. But a democracy is always mediocre because most people have poor judgement.

"most people" yeah like 99 %
"poor judgement"  , man is that a understatement of the century.
which Al qaeda is taking full advantage of.
We trained al qaeda to fly planes.
We then basically gave al qaeda the keys to 4 planes to do as they will.

[Hector]

The minority in the US is represented in the Congress in proportion to their numbers.  The rules of the House and Senate give the minority tools for interfering with the passage of legislation (i.e., at various points more than a simple majority is needed to proceed). There is a balance between giving minorities a voice and preventing the minority from paralyzing the government.  I don't see that parliamentary democracies have any particular advantage in this respect.  The rights granted to individuals protect the minority since the minority is composed of individuals.
 

The US is a two-Party state.

It would be very difficult for a third party or an independent to gain any political ground because the First-past-the-post system will prevent it.

Most of Western Europe operate a form of proportional representation that gives the political minorituies a voice in the legislature at both National and local levels.

[Hector]

val, a dictator may be good or may not be. But a democracy is always mediocre because most people have poor judgement.

If people have poor judgement it is either because they are ill-informed, are prejudiced to a particular point of view or simply could not care less.

In a democracy it is the right of these individuals to elect the mediocre.

As I have stated previously, you cannot get rid of a dictator but you can if he/she was democratically elected under a protective constitution and the rule of law.

[Ephemerid]

If many of the wise founding fathers could speak toady.
"you bunch of idiot, greedy, self seeking, war monger morons...you went and killed our best friends, the indians,

[emphasis mine]

You might want to brush up on your American history on that one...

~~~~~

Sean, I still want that standard to measure "enlightenment" in order to distinguish you & your elite from The Horde^TM

[head-case]

The US is a two-Party state.

It would be very difficult for a third party or an independent to gain any political ground because the First-past-the-post system will prevent it.

Most of Western Europe operate a form of proportional representation that gives the political minorituies a voice in the legislature at both National and local levels.

To say the US is a two-party state is a gross simplification.  The major parties themselves are in essence coalitions, encompassing groups that have widely variant views.  At each election cycle there is a debate as to what "planks" will be included in the "party platforms" as the two parties vie for "independent" or "center" votes. 

[Sean]

Ephemeral

Sean, I still want that standard to measure "enlightenment" in order to distinguish you & your elite from The Horde^TM

It's the degree of consciousness. Consciousness simply knows: intuitive insight depends on this; computers process information but have no meaning, no awareness of the sense of anything they do- and people are like this to a greater or lesser extent.