10.31.19
Happy Halloween! Okay, I have a lot of things to comment on and I will try to answer questions I raise.
First of all, on the whole democracy/aristocracy extreme that they had no compromises: I would say an oligarchy is a compromise. Assuming it’s an institute without corruption, then placing power in the hands of people who can discuss issues and rule on them rather than whoever has the most money is a compromise.
Now, here’s where we run into issues. Because I was thinking, really, that’s what we have in America. Sure, there’s AOC and Sanders on the less elite extreme, and Devos on the least democratic end, but for the most part, our government is the HoR and Senate, which is essentially an oligarchy.
According to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_States_Congress (admittedly from 2010), only one senator and 27/435 Reps don’t have a college diploma. In the US, that’s already the beginnings of aristocracy.
(I’m not gonna touch the fact in our current senate 3/4 of senators are men.)
Really, who becomes in politics? With pacs and superpacs, it’s mainly people who have money, and moreso they aren’t the nouveau riche.
Which brings a rather unpleasant reality, which is... we have a tyrant. Trump. Who came to power the same way, best I can tell, other tyrants came to power. Appealing to the demos, and securing allies with other tyrants (I’m not touching that second half either. I’m being very good!)
Now, are we going to see a whiplash in 2020? Will people crave the re-empowerment of the known aristocracy/“swamp”? Or will people want even more influence, now that the veil has been drawn back on the elitism that kept politics as a more abstract concept for the average person rather than something discussed daily?
Also, back to AOC (who couldn’t move to DC til she got her first paycheck or somesuch) 4th century athens did the great thing where they decreased individuals powers by making participating in government cost prohibitive.
Shifting gears slightly, I was thinking about the Athenian shift in structure to prevent persuasive, uneducated people from taking control. I think I have that issue a lot. Especially in Chemistry. I’m really good at convincing people of things are arguing my side, but unfortunately usually I’m not really trying to do that and want them to argue back. But then I convince people. And then we both get it wrong. Whoops. (I mean, sometimes I’m right. But this still happens frequently.)
Of course, the issue with going the other way is there have been indications women get held back because they equivocate too much, whereas men will state their opinion bluntly, and as a fact. I wonder if it’s a difference in socialization because I do think some equivocation is polite (see how I said “I do think” to indicate I don’t view my opinion as uncontested fact?) but you also wind up with women who will NOT state an opinion, even if they have one, which makes it supremely exhausting to figure out if they’re annoyed you start the dishwasher at night so they have to empty it in the morning when you didn’t mean to make more work for them, or they may just not mind but you don’t KNOW because they don’t tell you and then you can’t tell them for the love of GOD don’t empty the dishwasher at 6am when you’re up and I’m aiming for another two hours of sleep because my door is right by the kitchen, but it would be rude to tell them NOT to do housework when they’re so considerate.
