at Annette's house
Jill's & Mike's topic idea/contribution:
Humans are a strange species. We must cooperate in order to exist yet we spend a huge amount of time and energy fighting each other. Some form of government is essential to keep the fighting down and allow the cooperation. This month we discuss Democracy as a form of government. Here are some questions to consider:
What do we mean by Democracy?
Does representative democracy count as Democracy?
What examples of states using pure democracy are there?
What features of a society are required for Democracy to succeed?
Are political parties beneficial or destructive to Democracy?
If Democracy is not the best form of government, then what is?
Economist article (Aug. 2018) about Alexis de Tocqueville, "The French Exception." We will email you a pdf if you didn't get a print copy at the last banter night. Article link here but requires a subscription for the full https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/09/de-tocqueville-and-the-french-exception
Sabine's contributions:
Systems of government vs. economic systems are things I will likely interchange (like a burr in some of your socks), partially due to a lack of study & insight, partially due to seeing the enmeshed state they co-exist in within groups of people governing or being governed. Capitalism rips at my heart with a ragged, rusty dagger on a daily basis, primarily for its violent impacts on our ecosystems, wildlife, and domesticated animals (food industry, fenced/caged animals, lab animals, etc.). I want the system that governs humans to be less vicious toward ecosystems and animals. I don't pretend to know what that is, but I spend energy desperately wanting it to exist.
Instinctually I know this would equate with massive control to curb our overt and repressed desires for domination and power over each other, over the environment, and over other species. Controlling a populace, even if that were in the hands of the kind, gentle, critically thinking, and good (which it never is) would never work since so much repression of human impulses would lead to a worsening of our natures in the controlled populace (as we can see by the repression the Trumpsters have been dealing with in having to play P.C., non-racist, critically thinking, humane, mannered for all these years when they weren't at all). Obviously unchecked human impulses (our present capitalistic approaches) also don't seem to satiate us, so what is there to do but try for more curbing and control? If the masses and popular vote (if it were even honored) get to be in charge through elected representatives in a democracy, do I really want that? Probably not, because the majority do not seem to hold among their primary concerns that we have intact ecostystems, flourishing wildlife, a less human-centric approach, and reduced human impact. I don't trust a human-centric government or economic system, whether that is democracy, socialist, or the worse options. For this reason, I think we are asking the wrong question here in great part. Is democracy the best system of government? should be replaced with What is the best system of governing the human populace so it doesn't ever trump all the other species vying for space, life, and ease?
I hope to learn through the more schooled people in this banter collective which form of government might even have a chance at addressing that last question. I'll chime in at banter night accordingly with questions and concerns from this standpoint.
I am presently teaching 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, Beloved, and Brave New World via Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, and deconstructionist lenses, so believe me I well know what controlling the populace might result in; utopias for some only seem to create dystopias for the many when humans are involved. On the side, partially related to my threads of concern here, I'm reading The Monkey Wrench Gang and an old book with similar aim, except paired with super-plants that are aggressively taking back the planet at a rate the humans can't deal with, Rumors of Spring. One can hope.
In case you think I've given up on humans, I'm a big fan and a member of the Oxford Union, the very seed which began these banter nights eight years ago. Here are two speakers from different recent debates at the Oxford Union. One is debating that Democracy is For Sale, which speaks to my concerns that democracy ever will be too tied to capitalism for my tastes and sensibilities. The other is debating that Socialism Does Work (the last of eight people arguing that night - please see full debate on YouTube as my primary contribution to this topic; the opposition is superb). This debate over socialism nods at my hopes that a capitalist approach could be undone and that we are capable of being altruistic more often than we currently are, but doesn't address my concerns that humans would still be worrying only about humans in a socialist state, and not the rest of the planet's species' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Andrew Rosindell, MP, the first speaker for the Socialism Does NOT Work side, would call my trains of thoughts here ideological and simply balderdash, and he is probably correct. Theodore Dalrymple, the second speaker for Socialism Does NOT Work, is brilliant, speaking further to the fact that socialism requires us all to be altruistic all of the time (which isn't possible, therefore resulting in the North Koreas, Cubas, etc. of the world trying to force us into altruism), and here too is the flaw with all my ecosystem concerns above. Yet, hope for altruism & ecosystem I will continue to do, even if I did cast my vote to the side I'd rather not in this debate (socialism does not work; they did a better job at the debate). Which brings me to my whimpering, deflated response to our debate/banter question at hand, Is democracy the best system of government? Probably yes, due to our human nature. Though, as Katy Clark, former Labour MP, points out in the third speech for socialism, democratic capitalism offers much less quality of life than democratic socialism to anyone outside of the top 1-10%, which is why when you look around you in the UK or the USA at the humane, decent, diversified circumstances we all enjoy most about our communities, there you find socialist ideals at work, just ask a family with blacklung or research the formerly imprisoned miners of Scotland, what has helped and what has hurt their conditions of life? Surely not democratic capitalism, even if Trump has much of the working class duped for the moment. My hope in signing onto democratic socialism as a model is that once the humans are all treated well enough to care, conditions for animals and conditions of ecosystems they dominate over will further improve, with what we have left at that point that is.
Mitch's Contribution:
I’m looking forward to this discussion. For all the topics we have done, we have never, really, bantered about government or economics.
To my mind, whether a democracy succeeds, or not, depends, largely, on what form of economy it has (and how regulated and representative it is).
I believe that unregulated capitalist democracies are destined to move towards a modern form of feudalism. Greed and corruption eventually funnel the vast majority of the wealth into the hands of a few individuals (and corporations...who are considered ‘people’, now, too). The political and wealthy classes become the nobles and lords and the middle and lower classes become the peasants and serfs. Land ownership is still important but, unlike medieval feudalism, power and prestige come more from owning the means of production or having accumulated wealth (largely, through family inheritance or political kickbacks).
This is only a new idea, to me, I’m sure. I’ve recently read some long form articles and watched many hours of videos and lectures on the topic. They are all too long and complex to share here.
The following video is a biased opinion piece from RT (Russian Television) on the pitfalls of Democratic capitalism. Ha.
Bias aside, it is the best primer that I could find that summarizes the ‘corporate feudalism’ theory in the shortest amount of time. It's pessimistic. but I do believe that, in the future, after we all band together to fight off our sentient robot overlords, and win that war, that the human race will learn to govern itself in a more socially responsible manner.
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Jivan's contribution:
"I think that since humans are part of any government it is flawed. It is just a system made up of rotten parts. Here is the bigger question: Is my own system of psychology in the best operating condition? Each individual needs to understand how their mind operates. Once we label anything we are completely caught by the world of memory reacting automatically to emotions. Political speeches and corporation advertising are geared to trigger us so we vote in a certain way or purchase a product. We are controlled.
The solution. Stay mindfully in direct experience. Don't let go of the label, but don't get attached! The biggest label is "I". We use it so much we think it is real, but it is a fleeting concept. If you ask, "Who am I?" you realize that there is no answer. Stay in not knowing. Blur subject and object. This allows for more empathy. You realize the environment, the deer and the wolf are unknown and beautiful essences. Getting a lot of stuff for our "self" (which is just an impermanent idea) is stupid. It doesn't make us happy."
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Nia's contribution (can't come but will someday):
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Nia's contribution (can't come but will someday):
Thought you might like these two essays on the subject of democracy, to share with the group if you like:
https://aeon.co/ideas/democracy-is-like-fun-you-cant-set-your-mind-to-having-it
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Isaac's contributions:
This seems to do a good job of flushing out the historical differences between Democratic socialism and social democracy, similar names and clickbait headline notwithstanding:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/democratic-socialists-are-conquering-the-left-but-do-they-believe-in-democracy/2018/08/10/5bf58392-9b90-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html
Fun to scroll through this one:
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Isaac's contributions:
This seems to do a good job of flushing out the historical differences between Democratic socialism and social democracy, similar names and clickbait headline notwithstanding:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/democratic-socialists-are-conquering-the-left-but-do-they-believe-in-democracy/2018/08/10/5bf58392-9b90-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html
Fun to scroll through this one:
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Kirk's contribution:
This video is amusing and shows why the founding fathers were very suspicious of
Socrates says that universal suffrage leads to disaster.
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Mike's & Jill's additional thoughts:
Since the first governments appeared about 5000 years ago,
humanity has tried to steer a course between the violence of anarchy and the
violence of tyranny. In the absence of a
government or powerful neighbors tribal
peoples tend to fall into cycles of raiding and feuding with death rates
exceeding those of modern societies, even including their most violent
eras. Early governments pacified the
people they ruled reducing internecine violence, but imposed a reign of terror
that included slavery, harems, human sacrifice, summary executions, and the
torture and mutilation of dissidents and deviants. (The bible has no shortage of examples.)
One can think of democracy as a form of government that
threads the needle, exerting just enough force to prevent people from preying
on each other without preying on the people themselves. A good democratic government allows people to
pursue their lives in safety. Protected from the violence of anarchy, and in
freedom, protected from the violence of tyranny.
Karl Popper argued that democracy should be understood not
as the answer to the question “Who should rule?” (namely “The People”}, but a
solution to the problem of how to dismiss bad leadership without
bloodshed. The political scientist, John
Mueller, suggests that democracy comes about when the people effectively agree
not to use violence to replace the leadership, and the leadership leaves them
free to try to dislodge it by any other means.
The above paragraphs are slightly edited versions of
material from Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now.
Jill and Mike would like to remind people that this topic
was motivated by the article about de Tocqueville’s views on democracy which
was included in Sabine’s announcement of the topic.
