King thinks democracy is a great idea. Everyone rejects it. King institutes it anyway.
Wait a second...
replies(3):
The real question is how do you protect people from themselves?
> This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state.
It's clearly a good solution from the perspective of that speaker - more people would vote the same way they do, so the "right" people would get elected, "right" policies would happen and so on.
Meh, if this avoiding the "definition of good" is really the problem, then the likes of Putin and Xi and Trump will fix us. They clearly think they know exactly what's good for everyone, and are willing to do most anything to achieve it. Doubtful they will make the world a better place, but who knows. I guess we'll find out.
It certainly is, because society has consequences over the individual.
People cannot be free to damage you: it is not «protect[ing] them from themselves», it is "protecting yourself from them".
IMHO, freedom must contain the freedom to choose "bad", or make mistakes. "Bad" is in quotes because it's only certain to be bad from the perspective of the person considering the problem, you or me in this case. Maybe the people will be well served by "bad" decisions, able to learn from them, or be happy in ignorance, or who knows what else.
I think it's parallel to giving children autonomy. The more you protect them, the more you prevent their growth as a person.
Are you not worried in any way about needing to answer everything with "no"? Is this a discussion or are we here to be told by you what the truth is?
This is for example the justification used to ban books. Certain books, when read, give people incorrect ideas, and we need to protect them from themselves.
That some people may have had a position (and that is also to be shown) that coincidentally overlaps with something that be confused as related to the above changes nothing (of the truthfulness of the idea).
> Are you not worried in any way about needing to answer everything with "no"?
No, I trust you with understanding the sense. (It's not a need, it just works in formulation.)
And your vision is perfect, while everyone else's is flawed? How lucky for you. No need to present arguments, just let us know what you see, and that what you see is the "very hard obvious truth".
Have a little self-awareness man.
Sure, we would rather not see our kids die from all the dangers of the outside world. But they won’t thrive an bloom if we confine them in a padded basement.
it was "Protect[ing people] from themselves[? ... Certainly[], because society has consequences over the individual".
It means, "no, it is not a good idea to let them be liabilities: the consequences fall on you".
You see that the point is not plainly "protecting people from themselves", and the closest cone of interpretations of that, right?
> Be aware they will
An where is the problem? That is duly! Society is based on reciprocal interaction AND correction! Of course everybody is supposed to contribute.
Yes, surely it is a very good position - but it's not just plain luck, it comes from lots of training.
> No need to present arguments
The argument is there, you missed it: "If you do not find X a «hard obvious fact», try arguing for the opposite".
[0]: https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2015/12/04/more-educa...
Because to me it appears that you just give the "ignorant" peoples power to someone else, and if your goal is to keep being a democracy, then this sort of power redistribution is almost certain to screw your system over in the long term.
In general, the biggest problem with any kind of democracy is preventing it from dissolving into a cycle of people voting to, basically, oppress and/or rob their outgroup neighbors for their own benefit (with outgroups themselves created or redefined over time to provide for new targets).
In an education system people are taught to think, and given intellectual keys, and material for thought. The values imparted are the natural ones, consequential (e.g. "work, or no results") - not factioneries.
There is no rational process for deriving values and morality from first principles. Science is about what is, not about what should be. Democracy therefore can't be derived from facts of nature alone. You can only reason from true things to other true things, not from nothing to something. There is no reasoning your way from physics to how a state ought to be run.
Your mention of sharing the same ideas or not was already clear before, and it does not matter, because beliefs are lowly things hence not part of this game. You are talking about arbitrary ideas taken as "values" - no, those were not in topic.
You are clearly taking 'education' with a meaning that is completely different from the one intended.
Repeating: «In an education system people are taught to think, and given intellectual keys, and material for thought». The educated will assess, being enabled to an ability of properly assessing. This also means: there is no "doctrine", the educated has its own judgement. Whatever is doctrinal has no part in education, but for material for dissection.
And yes, there are «process[es] for [in some way] deriving values and morality from first principles». As explicitly mentioned before, students for example will be shown that results come from well spent effort: that "well spent effort" is a value. They may be brought to experience that persistence enables them towards results: that grit is a value. That such quality requires resisting cheap gratification: that control is a value. They will receive the information of ancient wisdom, from Gilgamesh on, through Aesop and on, and on, and on, and they will have the nourishment to form the basis of wisdom. It is very clear in some twisted behaviour that some people never met very basic ideas, that instead in some cultures correctly are told to children very early. You give people facts, they will learn from them - wisdom very much included.
(I will not discuss about Science for brevity, and I do not know why you would bring "Democracy" to the table.)
But anyway, the discussion over values was not original in the discussion, it was proposed. The original point was: people empowered to take decisions can make bad decisions, with catastrophic results. How do you protect people from people: you educate them, so that they can take better decisions through better intellectual qualities, hence better judgement.