gmf@uvacs.UUCP (08/07/84)
> I want a world where people are as free as possible to do what they want, > as opposed to what others want them to do. This doesn't contribute to > hate, alienation, etc, does it? > <mike Alas, it may do so. Cf. the doctrine of original sin. I'm not suggesting that an opinion that hate, alienation, etc, may arise from letting people do what they want need be based on religious doctrine, only that the doctrine of original sin (non-theological versions of which are, I think, possible) contains the idea that people may do bad things when simply left free. Plato had the idea that if we know the good we can't help doing it. That suggests a problem that concerned Plato -- if people are free to do what they want, they should *know* what is best to do, so they should be educated. Education seems to require some coercion. Hence Plato's Republic and Laws . Hence Popper's accusation (in The Open Society and Its Enemies ) that Plato was the father of totalitarianism. So we have restriction of freedom growing out of a desire to protect freedom. In any case, the project runs afoul of the fact that people are unequally educable (pace John Locke and U.S. educational theories promulgated in the name of democracy). Personally, quite aside from the ability of educators to transmit "the good", I don't think people who know what is good always do it -- e.g., people under the influence of controlled substances or clever propaganda, or someone willing to trade goodness for power or fame or money or food, or maybe just Dostievsky's Underground Man , or Camus's Stranger or the guy at the San Ysidro MacDonald's, or the one who drove onto the sidewalk in Los Angeles. The latter four kinds are hard to curb, but some harm can be prevented by restriction -- e.g., the police do prevent a certain number of burglaries, robberies, etc. And taking some people out of society after they do harm sometimes prevents them from doing more harm (whether it reforms many is another matter). If this sounds like cynicism, make the most of it. I think of it as a plan for carefully maneuvering in a mine-field (i.e., life as I see it). Gordon Fisher
mwm@ea.UUCP (08/14/84)
#R:uvacs:-142400:ea:9800026:000:3470 ea!mwm Aug 13 20:17:00 1984 Stop. Boggle. A comment on libertarianism that isn't either in support or name-calling. Something must be wrong with my terminal. Pause for test and repair ... No, it's still there. Gee, let's take a look at it... [Gordon's comments trimmed.] /***** ea:net.philosophy / uvacs!gmf / 10:07 pm Aug 10, 1984 */ > I want a world where people are as free as possible to do what they want, > as opposed to what others want them to do. This doesn't contribute to > hate, alienation, etc, does it? > <mike Alas, it may do so. Cf. the doctrine of original sin. Plato had the idea that if we know the good we can't help doing it. That suggests a problem that concerned Plato -- if people are free to do what they want, they should *know* what is best to do, so they should be educated. Education seems to require some coercion. So we have restriction of freedom growing out of a desire to protect freedom. In any case, the project runs afoul of the fact that people are unequally educable. e.g., people under the influence of controlled substances or clever propaganda, or someone willing to trade goodness for power or fame or money or food [...] And taking some people out of society after they do harm sometimes prevents them from doing more harm (whether it reforms many is another matter). Gordon Fisher /* ---------- */ Thanks, Gordon, for contributing light instead of heat. I think the problem is even deeper than you make it appear. People who are apparently well-educated can't agree on what is and isn't "good," even when everybody is discussing the good of the group as a whole, instead of their own personal good. See net.religion, net.politics, net.news.group, etc. for lots of evidence of that. Making this problem go away would probably be bad. I don't really have any justification, but the lack of idea cross-fertilization that a uniform opinion leads to would seem to be just plain bad. Given that you are going to have people with different viewpoints about what is and isn't good, it would appear inevitable that people are going to have disagreements about when their rights are being infringed upon. Solving this in a civilized manner necessitates a higher authority to mediate the conflict. Given that people aren't perfect, and may not accept the decision of the higher authority, said authority has to have the force to back up it's decisions. That makes it a government, by definition. [Throwing anti-social people who won't accept the governments decision out of society is a good technic. It just isn't practical.] Since there are things in society that aren't amenable to personal control, in that their use effects everybody greatly, it's reasonable to place the bulk of these resources under government (or some similar organizations) control. These resources should be made available to everyone on an equal basis, and generally run for the good of the populace as a whole. What these resources are, and what "for the good of the populace as a whole" means is, of course, debatable. Some would maintain that there are no such resources. I tend to think that natural resources (air, water, forests, etc.) and large production facilities (Gee, that makes me a socialist, doesn't it?) fall into that category. ima!jim (I think it was him, anyway) called for people to state what they thought society ought to look like. I just layed out a (very incomplete) base of what I think. Comments, anyone? <mike
yba@mit-athena.ARPA (Mark H Levine) (08/18/84)
I'm sure there are many comments. Please make sure to deal with the ones that say "But the government is one of the resources". Do you believe in self-mediating higher authorities built out of the same stuff as what they have authority over? Or do you propose something new? -- yba%mit-heracles@mit-mc.ARPA UUCP: decvax!mit-athena!yba
mwm@ea.UUCP (08/25/84)
#R:mit-athe:-25400:ea:9800032:000:2075 ea!mwm Aug 24 16:33:00 1984 /***** ea:net.philosophy / mit-athe!yba / 1:59 pm Aug 20, 1984 */ I'm sure there are many comments. Please make sure to deal with the ones that say "But the government is one of the resources". Do you believe in self-mediating higher authorities built out of the same stuff as what they have authority over? Or do you propose something new? -- yba%mit-heracles@mit-mc.ARPA UUCP: decvax!mit-athena!yba /* ---------- */ I haven't seen any that say "But the government is one of the resources." Could you explain what you mean, or mail one to me? Your second question is one I've asked several times. I asked the socialists what "controlled by the populace" means in practice, and asked in general what kind of society people would like. Each of these implicitly asks where the government should come from. The answers I've received have been the same in both cases: silence. I will attempt to answer the question. First, though, I'd like to point out that the higher authority can be broken up into two parts. The first part mediates disputes between citizens, and holds a near-monopoly on force. The second part manages the public resources (which may or may not include the government). It would seem that choosing professional managers would be the correct way to handle the second part of the government. Said managers should have to answer to the higher authority, both as a group and as individuals, when citizens disagree with the policies the managers are implementing. Now, for the heart of the question: I don't know how to build an uncorruptible government from a corrupt populace. The best working example we have (to my knowledge) is a representative democracy. We've managed to turn that into an n-ring circus (n > 1 and equals the number of parties). I'd be interested in how a draftee government would work (I know, this sounds strange coming from someone who claims to be a libertarian), as it avoids the problem of only those who want power running for office (or the equivalent). Anybody else have any thoughts, or pointers to thoughts? <mike