A Short History of Monumental Human Error (part 1)
This is going to be a short series of posts cataloguing human error, but not just obvious human error, like war and genocide. Instead, I want to look at error that has somehow masqueraded as truth in society. It is there for one reason only, human beings really are remarkably stupid.
Part 1 - I’ve touched on this already in my post about Obama’s election - is going to be Democracy.
We are democratic minds, raised in context with a 4000 year history of European democracy. It is this that has utterly decimated society’s ability to question the notion of democracy (although irate cynics can still grumble a bit on little-read blogs). And yet democracy is pap. Some Americans - who are so keen on democracy they are evangelical about it to other nations, and evangelists with guns if those nations are in the Middle East - would read what I have just written and get angry. “The only reason you can even question democracy is because you live in one.”
Bollocks. I seem to recall Stalin did it quite regularly. But more to the point I began making (away from genocidal dictators) since when did “freedom” and “democracy” somehow become interchangable terms? On the surface democracy seems fair and balanced, espousing these sorts of notions - “Everyone should have the right to influence how they are governed” but you can quite easily demonstrate this is very imbalanced.
Should a man with an IQ of 72 have the same amount of influence in decision-making process as a man with an IQ of 158? Really, so a genius and a retard are equally capable of making informed, well-balanced and reasonable choices? Even worse than those very small counterexamples are the very flawed assumptions that democracy makes.
That all opinions are valid. That people know what is best for them. These are not true.
The fact is that come May of this year, my sister may exert her right to choose between candidates and their manifestos which will contribute to determining the economic, political and social climate for the next 4 years. She can barely decide which chocolate bar to get when she goes to the shops. She’ll stand for 8-10 minutes mumbling about “Bounties or Mars?” And to be fair, I’m exactly the same. How many people are actually capable of making independently-researched, fully informed decisions during the hustings. Even if they can, who actually does??
1 year ago • 1 note
