Hello everyone
3rdWavedave wrote:
>
> Dan & All
>
> Great post Dan! As the ratio of drafts to sent keeps growing, Dan's
> "Breakfast with Denny" illuminates a number of points better than any of
> my JUNK drafts, so I'll butt in on the conversation with Denny.
Hi Dave
Thank you! And thank you for your comments.
>
> *****FORMS OF DEMOCRACY*******
>
> DAN
> > I feel democracy here in the US and that form of government called democracy
> > in other parts of the world are not at all the same.
>
> 3WD
> The form of government in any particular place is so integrated with all other
> values that it is difficult to separate their influence and
> interdependency on each other. Another related issue is depth. Not only
> are there , as Rick indicated earlier, three quasi independent branches
> of government, but just like the MoQ there are four distinct levels;
> national, state or provincial, local, and individual . In theory these
> levels are ordered very much like the dominance hierarchy of the MoQ:
>
> Intellectual Level- Individual
> Social Level-Local
> Biological Level-State
> InOrganic Level-National
>
> The highest level of rights and responsibilities, in theory, lie with
> the individual. The ideas of an individual (the minority of one) have the
> right, the moral authority, to try to change or dominant all the lower
> levels as long as this is done peaceably and within the jointly agreed
> upon rules.
Dan:
I think this is a wonderful use of the MOQ to illustrate the value
forces operating in political science. We may extend this further and
say it
is not the levels themselves we are concerned with (National, State,
Local, Individual) so much as the conflicting moral codes underlying the
levels which drive our
respective cultures. Denny's politics deals with only one set of
moral values; what he calls rules. The MOQ allows us to see there are
many sets of moral codes, not just one.
>
> *******THE RULES******
> DAN
> > "So you're saying government is all about following rules..."
> DENNY
> > "Oh no," ..."The rules ARE government. That is what I never realized
> > until I became part of it."
> DAN
> > "Because people come and go but the rules stay."
>
> 3WD
> Herein lies both the strength and weakness of democracy. They start out
> with just a few broad, reasonably understandable, "rules" like "The
> Constitution" and "The Bill of Rights" which set up how the "rules" can
> be made, implemented, changed, and enforced. "Rule makers" are then
> elected at the national, state, and local level to fill in all the day
> to day details. Within a very short period of time, a few hundred years
> at most,
> the number and complexity of "rules" grow to a point that no individual
> or group can "know" them all in any useful sense. By and large the
> "people come and go" and "the rules stay" continually growing ,
> changing, conflicting and confusing.
Dan:
There is a tendency for static quality patterns of value to
spontaneously become more complex over time and democracy is a static
quality pattern of value. Of course no one person could "know" all the
rules and this was true even when our country was first formed, but
everyone who is part of society knows the rules in a useful fashion and
demonstrates that knowledge or they do not remain members of society,
democracy or not.
>
> MARCO
> > The ancient Greeks, inventors of democracy, told that after a certain period
> > it degenerates to demagogy. Is it happening?
>
> 3WD
> Yes. The key to understanding this is the premise of radical empiricism
> that individual "interest" or "attention" is limited commodity.
>
> DENNY
> > "Oh no," Denny snorted, with a small cloud of eggs spraying spraying
> > from his chin. "The rules ARE government. That is what I never realized
> > until I became part of it." .. He dipped his toast in his egg yolk and took a bite. "Rules are
>
> > rules only as long as we respect them and government is what it is only as long as we respect
> > it."
>
> 3WD
> Denny's "attention" flips between eggs and government. His "respect",
> the moral authority, of eating breakfast over-"rules" his conversation.
> Such is
> life. Out of the overwhelming flux of everything the amount of
> "attention" that any individual or group can give to the "rules" and the
> "rule makers" is limited. It is easy to see within this reality why an
> individual or group "who tries to stir people up by appeals to emotion,
> prejudice, etc. in order to win them over quickly and so gain power", a
> demagogue, is effective and inevitable.
Dan:
Marco asks a very good question. The rise of the demagogue would seem to
be celebrity force of value at a social level but it is extremely
difficult to impress men like Denny. That takes an entire lifetime. So I
doubt whether the efforts of the demagogue would bear much fruit there,
despite his table manners.
>
> MARCO
> Is it possible to restore the rule of the dreamers?
>
> 3WD
> The jury is still out. And even if we get a majority verdict, it may not
> be a good one.
Dan:
Looking back on some of the past Presidents in my lifetime, the one I
see most as a dreamer is John F. Kennedy (well, he did send us to the
moon). But he also fits the demagogue
bill as "an
individual or group who tries to stir people up by appeals to emotion,
prejudice, etc. in order to win them over quickly and so gain power".
I think Kennedy appealed emotionally to something bright and innocent
and naive in everyone of the time. And is that necessarily a bad thing?
Are not
these two seemingly opposing points of view of dreamer vs. demagogue
actually interdependent upon one another in a sort of inverse
complementarity celebrity force?
>
> ********THEORY & PRACTICE*********
> DAN
> > "You mean all the stuff you taught in high school..."
> DENNY
> > "Was crap. I simply did not know how government really worked until I
> > became part of it, you see.
>
> 3WD
> Democracy starts out with the "theory" on the left but over time evolves
> towards the "practice" on the right.
>
> Democratic Theory Democratic Practice
> Intellectual Level- Individual Intellectual Level- National
> Social Level-Local Social Level-State
> Biological Level-State Biological Level-Local
> InOrganic Level-National InOrganic Level-Individual
>
> Within a pluralistic empirical reality "interests" or "attentions" guide
> what is gleaned from experience. If individual "interests" give rise to
> the idea of a "needed" change in society this individual must then find
> and convince others this "experience" is real and that the change is
> necessary. If "interest" is to grow the "attention" of a political
> champion or "demagogue" needs to be attracted so the "there oughtta be
> law" process can gain momentum. But at any given time literally tens or
> hundreds of thousands of "interests" like this are emerging and gaining
> momentum. Allies are needed.
Dan:
This is another excellent analogy and use of MOQ principles. Again the
inverse complementarity is very apparent within your diagram
illustrating the operation of value forces which we call evolution.
>
> DENNY
> > "In order to wield power a man has to court favors from powerful allies.
> > Any man, it doesn't matter who. Every great leader has been a great
> > leader because of the powerful allies they had backing them. I'm no
> > different. And when you have powerful allies they have to be placated in
> > some fashion or they can turn on you in an instant."
>
> 3WD
> So my "demagogue" sets up a meeting with your " demagogue" and the
> democratic political process starts in earnest. This is where the dark
> side of a representative democracy rears it's ugly head.
>
> DENNY
> > But when I became part of government I
> > realized idealism does not work because everyone has their own personal
> > ideal they are striving towards. The name of the game in government, in
> > successful government, is to compromise your ideals in such a fashion
> > that they are within reach and yet to embrace the ideals of your peers
> > at the same time, which is to say you want to be everything to everyone.
>
> 3WD
> Our experience and Denny tells us that as our "interest" progresses in
> all likelihood it will be compromised. Not just its own substance, but
> our champion, to gain allies for our "interest", must give his support
> to many "other
> interests" all primarily in secret and many of these "other interests"
> we may not be in our best interest or the interest of society as a
> whole. So in the end , if we are successful, we probably gain one
> compromised "rule" which IS in our interest and several other "rules"
> which PROBABLY ARE NOT.
Dan:
Life is compromise.
>
> DAN
> > "And they were not the will of the majority, either."
>
> DENNY
> > "The will of the majority is a farce. Democracy has nothing to do with
> > that. .... That is the biggest misconception I think Europeans and other foreigners have of
> > American democracy. It is not now, nor has it ever been, concerned with the will of the
> > majority. ..... Listen. When we discuss legislation in Congress, I have yet to hear a
> > congressman say it is in the interest of the majority. No. It is the minorities that get
> > preferential treatment, if anything."
>
> 3WD
> James Madison, in Federalist No. 10, clarified the dilemma of the majority
> as the greatest threat to its own political system. Later Tocqueville
> observed and described the threat of majority tyranny outside of the
> political system. The protections integrated into the American
> Constitution have proved over time that these threats of the majority
> can be mitigated. What was not adequately addressed and that which is
> currently threatening all democracies, mature and new, is the "Tyranny of
> the Minorities."
>
> And the problem of minorities is not only or even primarily a racial
> one. Any group of values around which people can conjoin; religion,
> economics, environment, nationalism, globalism, business interests,
> education, abortion, capital punishment, or barking dogs will do. The
> role of politics in this environment becomes organizing fragile
> coalitions of diverse, often irreconcilable, minority interests into a
> pseudo-majority, a majority that can wrestle the power away from the
> sitting government based on promises made to a number of narrowly
> focused minorities. Then starts the "pay backs are hell" process. While
> in power this pseudo-majority, if successful, enacts a series of
> narrowly focused "rules" which appeal primarily, and often only, to one
> of the minority blocks. Most often this in done with little or no
> regard for the good of the whole. If this is not done the fragile
> coalition falls apart, little or nothing is accomplished, and a rolling
> series of governments are empowered as has been case most recently in
> Israel and India.
Dan:
The House of Representatives is of course devoted to serving local
minorities.
Each Representative brings the needs and wants at a local level to
national level attention, and using your diagram above we see this is
only done through social level politics which involves conflicting moral
codes of biology / social (rules defining actions and crimes) as well as
social / intellectual (a not so subtle form of networking [good old
boyism] which locks out and/or extorts higher prices of non network
members) plus undefined Dynamic influences tending to come about
spontaneously.
The "rolling series of governments" Dave mentions are democratically
elected by majority vote which in theory represents the good of the
whole. However, success in such an electoral process demands fragile
coalitions between minorities in order to form a majority.
>
> DENNY
> > ... But soon we begin to see the reason for the rules that are in place... and rules cannot be
> > broken without the entire system crumbling.
>
> 3WD
> But Denny. "Remember the rules being, the rules only as long as we
> respect them and government is what it is only as long as we respect it
> ?"
>
> "Would you not agree that the shear number and increasingly narrow,
> minority focus of the rules might be pushing a majority to disrespect them?"
Dan:
I cannot answer for Denny but personally I would say not necessarily and
that such a point of view may lack a sense of Dynamic vision. In a sense
it's like
the middle 1800's study done that predicted New York City would be
buried beneath hundreds of feet of horse excrement in the next 100
years. Fodder. Yeah. That's what Denny would say all right.
>
> " If there is no way any individual could or can know, except in the
> most nebulous of ways, all the "rules" that currently apply to one's
> existence, let alone "attend" to them, Is this not at least a partial
> cause for disbelief or despair ?
Dan:
It depends upon how dark and lonely the night happens to be...
>
> "And you know getting a 'rule' enacted is just the start. It must
> implemented and enforced. Forced on the "attention" of the populace.
> The amount of will, power, and money needed to enact a 'rule' is tiny
> compared to what is needed to implement and enforce it."
>
> "What does the ever wandering "attention" of governments in these areas
> do for respect ?"
Dan:
Denny looks at rules as government and respect as a needed precondition
for high value government to flourish. Enacting rules was not really
touched upon during our conversation other than a passing reference to
preferential treatment of minorities. However as a former school teacher
it would seem Denny might understand what you are saying... it's not
just building new schools that costs money, but staffing them, keeping
them up to date, etc.
>
> "Sorry Denny, I'd like to fill you in on all the answers but, nature calls."
>
> "It's been virtual, stop back by when you need real food."
>
> 3WD
Thank you for your comments, Dave.
Dan
------- End of forwarded message -------
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