Education, education, education. So many problems would be solved/avoided if people were better educated. And not just on matters that will bring them money. Educate people on arts, living a healthy life, think for themselves.
100% - this is the solution to most of these problems but in places that are quite polarized - this is quite challenging. E.g. in the US, people with different political leanings want different parts of the countries history to be taught or emphasized so it gets really challenging to do
True and difficulty increases with the size of the country. In the US that you mention, different states will have different budget and curriculum.
That is why I mentioned that education should not only be on matters that bring money. In Japan the students learn how to make a meal and clean after themselves. Teaching empathy, kidness, responsibility, are hopefully values that will later on in life help not think only of ourselves, but also of others.
Hi. Modern propaganda cannot work without ‘education’… thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda. Then, one must question first, what education and by who?
I think we don't really have a choice on this - we can't not educate to immunize ourselves against modern propaganda. I think the answer starts with teaching critical thinking skills so everyone is better able to 'do their own research' for lack of a better term!
Beyond the things we talked about with regards to civic education - I think its about teaching critical thinking. Learning to asking questions like: Who has shared this opinion, is it backed up with facts, what is their motivation? Which will help to deal with misinformation and false logical arguments shared by extremes on the left or right. Do you have thoughts on how to do this?
Yes this is good. The extremes of both left and the right present challenges to democracy and they are both be simplistic and oppressive. Simplistic in that they think the answers are obvious, and oppressive because they do not tolerate the notion that they could be wrong. I have written about this myself and have a few other things in the works so I am wary of being repetitive or making statements that I don't have the space to qualify. Additionally I don't want to lead you too far down a rabbit hole. You mention 'equality' in the context of right and left but I would suggest that on the left you need to now substitute 'equity'. This is unrealistic concept to suppose we can retrospectively account for unfairness or even determine what unfairness means, particularly in an historic context.
As I pointed out in my 'Noise Cancellation' piece, anyone who owns an electronic device is in some way party to modern slavery. I believe we can do something about that but it will take some unpacking - part of the issue is that perspectives on this are simplistic. It is not enough to say we want to end (for example) child slavery if we do not bother to understand the dynamics that allow it in 2024 - we are part of that dynamic. If those on the right say that it is not our problem and that if our own particular nation is benefiting that is all we have to worry about - they would also be missing the point. If you are concerned about jobs at home slavery is not the antidote and similarly if you begrudge foreign aid, then at least recognise that giving people in the likes of DRC, CAR a better model for their extraction industry is key to solving that. What we are guilty of in the West is allowing the 'third world' to cash the cheques that we write. We offer no alternative to the Chinese exploitation in Africa and in other countries because they are laundering our governance, our guilt and our responsibility. They are the biggest processor of raw materials and dominant producer of renewable technology. Devaluing raw materials and labour does not help any industry in any part of the world. Democracy is being out-manoeuvred because we assume it can withstand these new economic forces. We ignore that at our peril. So I do agree that most of the damage is being done internally, but only because it prevents us from understanding how vulnerable we are, to those external forces.
I think it goes far beyond not offering an alternative - there has been directly benefitting from corruption in other parts of the world: https://spiderswebfilm.com/ is worth a watch!
I am familiar having spent a lot of time in various locations in Africa for example. I could give you many examples of how it was impossible to work in those regions without encountering it. That is because of a hierarchy of corruption but at the bottom of that are people who are just trying to survive. The alternative I am talking about is something that could work in Africa or South America but it involves us in opting out of this race to the bottom. I read an article in the NYT perhaps a year ago where they were saying that cobalt was over-priced, yet in the same piece there were pictures of children climbing down holes with no protective equipment clawing it out the ground. We have to make the connection. Sure there is corruption in these places and sure big corporations work with it - but there has to be a different way. I was once asked by an industry organisation to relay any experiences I had of corruption - I did so. Soon after I was contacted by a legal team who warned me that my comments would be subject to FOI requests. I told them to go ahead and they were. We have to get away from holding two sets of ledgers. Corruption will arguably always exist somewhere but we don't have to partake in the conditions that make it thrive. I will look at your link so thank you for that.
Hi Cymposium... Can you define this ' liberal democracy ' ? And then, place one nation next to it. The point of the exercise being, that there is no such thing called liberal democracy in reality. For in reality, America is a police state.
Hey, I stole this from Wikipedia but as good a definition as I could find: Elections between or among multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all citizens.
It would be hard to put a country to this - I think it is a set of ideals that many countries aspire to be - all falling short to varying degrees. The point i'm trying to make is that the ideals that were long agreed are under attack.
Hi Cymposium.. Excellent answer. The ideals are all in place. Yet as you said "many countries aspire to be..." That remains to be seen, still on the horizon. However, we must not make the same mistakes done by those who set all such characteristics of a given "open society". A society of how many and for what purpose? I believe, all that you mentioned (human rights, civil rights, law, yada yada) is possible only to a scale (limit). Beyond that it only works either by violence, coercion or the given laws which are framed by the few, for the many. Like well meaning people abolished slavery and racism, can we do the same about private wealth and infinite economic growth?
This is a nice summary, as ever, thank you! Is liberal democracy worth saving?, you ask. I’d argue that if anything from human history is worth saving, it’s that. The big threat I see - & this does come from both left & right - is far too many citizens who honestly believe that it’s not worth saving. ‘Education, education, education’, as one if your correspondents writes above, is clearly the solution, but the obstacle is that education is never value-free. Someone writes the textbook, someone else designs the curriculum, someone else teaches it. Every step involves a choice over what to teach & how. The values of the ‘someone’ will show through at every stage, &, unfortunately, those values are often misaligned with liberal democratic ones.
Great article. There definitely needs to be some major government reform. Term limits, trading restrictions, lobbyist reform, rank choice voting, new general election structure. I believe these would help restore some faith in the system.
As we stand now we have both parties digging in and moving further from the center.
Yeah - instead of doubling down on underlying principles where we might agree - there has been a divergence towards the extremes. I think technology and the creation of bubbles has allowed this to fester
Who is actually controlling our politics, and by extension, our daily life? It is definitely not the politicians, especially in the “democratic” developed nations.
I think there is a strong argument that large tech companies now have more power than a number of nation states - thinking of Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. Who do you think is wielding more power than the government?
Education, education, education. So many problems would be solved/avoided if people were better educated. And not just on matters that will bring them money. Educate people on arts, living a healthy life, think for themselves.
Thanks for the nice post :)
100% - this is the solution to most of these problems but in places that are quite polarized - this is quite challenging. E.g. in the US, people with different political leanings want different parts of the countries history to be taught or emphasized so it gets really challenging to do
True and difficulty increases with the size of the country. In the US that you mention, different states will have different budget and curriculum.
That is why I mentioned that education should not only be on matters that bring money. In Japan the students learn how to make a meal and clean after themselves. Teaching empathy, kidness, responsibility, are hopefully values that will later on in life help not think only of ourselves, but also of others.
Hi. Modern propaganda cannot work without ‘education’… thus reverses the widespread notion that education is the best prophylactic against propaganda. Then, one must question first, what education and by who?
I think we don't really have a choice on this - we can't not educate to immunize ourselves against modern propaganda. I think the answer starts with teaching critical thinking skills so everyone is better able to 'do their own research' for lack of a better term!
What would be your suggestion? I mean how would you make that a reality?
Beyond the things we talked about with regards to civic education - I think its about teaching critical thinking. Learning to asking questions like: Who has shared this opinion, is it backed up with facts, what is their motivation? Which will help to deal with misinformation and false logical arguments shared by extremes on the left or right. Do you have thoughts on how to do this?
Yes this is good. The extremes of both left and the right present challenges to democracy and they are both be simplistic and oppressive. Simplistic in that they think the answers are obvious, and oppressive because they do not tolerate the notion that they could be wrong. I have written about this myself and have a few other things in the works so I am wary of being repetitive or making statements that I don't have the space to qualify. Additionally I don't want to lead you too far down a rabbit hole. You mention 'equality' in the context of right and left but I would suggest that on the left you need to now substitute 'equity'. This is unrealistic concept to suppose we can retrospectively account for unfairness or even determine what unfairness means, particularly in an historic context.
As I pointed out in my 'Noise Cancellation' piece, anyone who owns an electronic device is in some way party to modern slavery. I believe we can do something about that but it will take some unpacking - part of the issue is that perspectives on this are simplistic. It is not enough to say we want to end (for example) child slavery if we do not bother to understand the dynamics that allow it in 2024 - we are part of that dynamic. If those on the right say that it is not our problem and that if our own particular nation is benefiting that is all we have to worry about - they would also be missing the point. If you are concerned about jobs at home slavery is not the antidote and similarly if you begrudge foreign aid, then at least recognise that giving people in the likes of DRC, CAR a better model for their extraction industry is key to solving that. What we are guilty of in the West is allowing the 'third world' to cash the cheques that we write. We offer no alternative to the Chinese exploitation in Africa and in other countries because they are laundering our governance, our guilt and our responsibility. They are the biggest processor of raw materials and dominant producer of renewable technology. Devaluing raw materials and labour does not help any industry in any part of the world. Democracy is being out-manoeuvred because we assume it can withstand these new economic forces. We ignore that at our peril. So I do agree that most of the damage is being done internally, but only because it prevents us from understanding how vulnerable we are, to those external forces.
I think it goes far beyond not offering an alternative - there has been directly benefitting from corruption in other parts of the world: https://spiderswebfilm.com/ is worth a watch!
I am familiar having spent a lot of time in various locations in Africa for example. I could give you many examples of how it was impossible to work in those regions without encountering it. That is because of a hierarchy of corruption but at the bottom of that are people who are just trying to survive. The alternative I am talking about is something that could work in Africa or South America but it involves us in opting out of this race to the bottom. I read an article in the NYT perhaps a year ago where they were saying that cobalt was over-priced, yet in the same piece there were pictures of children climbing down holes with no protective equipment clawing it out the ground. We have to make the connection. Sure there is corruption in these places and sure big corporations work with it - but there has to be a different way. I was once asked by an industry organisation to relay any experiences I had of corruption - I did so. Soon after I was contacted by a legal team who warned me that my comments would be subject to FOI requests. I told them to go ahead and they were. We have to get away from holding two sets of ledgers. Corruption will arguably always exist somewhere but we don't have to partake in the conditions that make it thrive. I will look at your link so thank you for that.
Hi Cymposium... Can you define this ' liberal democracy ' ? And then, place one nation next to it. The point of the exercise being, that there is no such thing called liberal democracy in reality. For in reality, America is a police state.
Hey, I stole this from Wikipedia but as good a definition as I could find: Elections between or among multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all citizens.
It would be hard to put a country to this - I think it is a set of ideals that many countries aspire to be - all falling short to varying degrees. The point i'm trying to make is that the ideals that were long agreed are under attack.
Hi Cymposium.. Excellent answer. The ideals are all in place. Yet as you said "many countries aspire to be..." That remains to be seen, still on the horizon. However, we must not make the same mistakes done by those who set all such characteristics of a given "open society". A society of how many and for what purpose? I believe, all that you mentioned (human rights, civil rights, law, yada yada) is possible only to a scale (limit). Beyond that it only works either by violence, coercion or the given laws which are framed by the few, for the many. Like well meaning people abolished slavery and racism, can we do the same about private wealth and infinite economic growth?
This is a nice summary, as ever, thank you! Is liberal democracy worth saving?, you ask. I’d argue that if anything from human history is worth saving, it’s that. The big threat I see - & this does come from both left & right - is far too many citizens who honestly believe that it’s not worth saving. ‘Education, education, education’, as one if your correspondents writes above, is clearly the solution, but the obstacle is that education is never value-free. Someone writes the textbook, someone else designs the curriculum, someone else teaches it. Every step involves a choice over what to teach & how. The values of the ‘someone’ will show through at every stage, &, unfortunately, those values are often misaligned with liberal democratic ones.
I couldn't agree more!
Great article. There definitely needs to be some major government reform. Term limits, trading restrictions, lobbyist reform, rank choice voting, new general election structure. I believe these would help restore some faith in the system.
As we stand now we have both parties digging in and moving further from the center.
Yeah - instead of doubling down on underlying principles where we might agree - there has been a divergence towards the extremes. I think technology and the creation of bubbles has allowed this to fester
Who is actually controlling our politics, and by extension, our daily life? It is definitely not the politicians, especially in the “democratic” developed nations.
I think there is a strong argument that large tech companies now have more power than a number of nation states - thinking of Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. Who do you think is wielding more power than the government?
protect personal freedom and free press. reduce consumption.
A strongman unafraid of stepping on international toes:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ee8x221lno